Aimless Reading: The B's, Part 21 (Gregg Biglieri)

Sleepy With Democracy
Originally uploaded by Michael_Kelleher

Biglieri, Gregg
Sleepy With Democracy

I believe I was given my copy of this book, but I may have purchased it. Kye Schlesinger published it on Cuneiform Press a few years ago, and as ever with Kyle it is a beautifully constructed book.

The clearest memory it brings to mind is of Gregg doing a reading from it at Big Orbit Gallery in Buffalo. He made a soundtrack that was basically a collage of all kinds of shoe-gazing and ambient music to accompany his reading of these dense, polyphonic, pun-happy poems.

I think that was around the time that Gregg and I were also driving an hour to Rochester each week to take in a retrospective of Japanese director Mikio Naruse's films. We went on five consecutive Thursdays and got to see: "Repast," "Floating Clouds," "When A Woman Ascends the Stairs," "Wife" and "Late Chrysanthemums." Only one of his films is currently available on DVD over here, which is a real shame. Last year we were at it again, going several Wednesdays in a row to see the films of Portuguese Director Pedro Costa, none of which are available on DVD. Also a shame.

THIS MAN IS A SPECIMEN

Sub species aeternitatis
U-turn and see me
Are we some subspecies
Of eternity in aspic

A skeptic bishop inspects his
Microscope what do you
Expect specie speaks Latin
Money talks English real good

Opacity sounds more
Transparent than the city
A suffix is opaque
What we comb through
Still combines

I spy
Spiral eyes
Foreign is
My sovereign
Other my all
Out of another
Author Thor
To Thoth a second
Thought a single
Repetition
Another's aurora
"Better than aviators"
Gaps the blue
And your trophy is
Chlorophyll

Is there a lighter
Fluid to fire
Green as garden
Rain in eyes