Really System | #RemixReallySystem
Magus Magnus
(audio recording of the piece; Artist's Statement)
for when is seducTion hum-
an to beautY
w/out comPromise
hopEd outcome
cum fibBing
particLes
Engaged
confEssional
deaD
Skim the jersey
overwroughT granddaughters
commEnts anent
raNk
Terror
cAr spoke
seCondary
payLoads
huskEr wright
Sky to
if Terror
skY forbidding
comPromise is
ovErwrought
fibbing Beauty
payLoads
jersEy enjoins
dEad eye
granDdaughters
skim huSker
seducTion
hopEd for wild analysis
trust to humaN aptitude in-
cludes commenTs to guage
rAnk
secondary Car occludes
particLes
engagEd
for this confesSional reverse
is seducTion hum
o beautY
w/out comP
outcome
cum fibBing
Engag
confEssional
Dead
Skim the
overwroughT grand
Terror
cAr spoke
payLoads
huskEr right
Sky
if Terror
skY forbid
comP is
ovErwrought
Beaut
payLoad
joins
dEad
huSk
educTion
for wild
o humaN
rAnk
Car
gagEd
for thiS
Artist's Statement
When my assigned word list came to me from Really System, I was still under the influence of a 3-hour "performance installation" I did with poets Christophe Casamassima and Chris Mason in Baltimore's Litmore poetry library March 28th (our "Polyphonic Readings and Harmonic Listening" of four Cage texts for States and Drives II: Responses to John Cage at Litmore). During the performance, I became especially fascinated by what Cage's specialty with the mesostic form on the page provoked off the page. So I thought I'd give the form a try here, both on the screen and vocally. It helps that a mesostic poem should be composed of found text, yet with liberty for authorial impulse.
The first two stanzas are basic, or classic, mesostic — "classic," yet also described as "impure" by those who keep strict tabs on the form's rules. The capital letters form the spine of the mesostic, and incidentally, the title — taken from three words on the assigned list. It took two iterations to incorporate each of the list's words into the spine; thus, two stanzas.
The third stanza, based on the first, is a 50% mesostic, according to purists: between any two capital letters, the second letter should not appear. A process of erasure compounded itself, gaps backing up upon the gaping.
The fourth stanza, based on the second, is a 100% mesostic: between any two capital letters, neither the first nor the second letter should appear.
I make no claim for the strictness or purity of any of this. M.