pete, sorryA Mini-Chapbook by Sandra Simonds

for Joseph Massey

the cultural societyminneapolis mn

mmvii

pete, sorry© 2007 by sandra simonds

all rights reserved

this pdf edition© 2007 by the cultural society

Design by Zach Barocas for the Cultural Society

song to the tune of (She Looks to the Left, out the Wooden Box and Notices

that the Season has Shifted Weight to the Other Leg)

With a certain knowledge of winter, Floridaice on blood oranges, the dis-

enchantment of spring and poems.The boundaries of words — as if

in some locution — a modicum —we would finally glimpse may-

hem’s vortices that smell of dried redclay and ether.

Ah we were Orion-ripe, shapedlike the ripped edges of continents

that drift — a cork in a porcelain bowlor a needle that points north,

ripples the surfaceof the face, water emits a bit of light there —

color of the molten core, flut-tering, the heart was the reverberation

of air under wing, and my breath, stolenby this disenchantment

entropy’s threshold, aborrrowed throat of white soot:

Who ripped Africa from SouthAmerica? Who glued salt water to the arctic air?

Who lit the fire and flew with the eagle? Hewho. He who.The owl turns his neck 36o degrees.

here i am(or I am Here or Am I Here)

From dilettante to phi beta kappa law school student, Old English is a must. You’ll learn the words for “beer hall” and “gem.” But re-ally, when studying pop music, what isn’t important? If you consid-er “a blue deer on a black hill” to be ‘experience,’ well then, dear friend, that oblong object will be thrown into the whoosh! solar system far below. These are the component parts of unrealized rev-erie, lacking even the form of a bare-bones flow chart. Maybe, after all, you’re wrong and the body is a machine. The tongue chalk screeching to new tonal extremes. It’s sort of like traveling — you know, the “buy as you go” ethic or imperative. In any case, these are my dreams freeing them... selves from the purple fist that makes them more sea urchin than wave. Let me explain. Nostalgic feelings are positioned for the unrequited views of the sycamores you never bothered to uproot and let die. Or, for a closer examination of the bear claw, let the mind satisfy itself knowing its rotten canines will dust. Such discursive surfaces survive only if the forest is not logged to plastic or the moon is not hollowed out for a better understand-ing of quintessential form. Take it from me; airports are only worth the static flowing into the mouths of those easy philosophers reaching their final destinations. But if you tend to miss flights — for instance, a layover in Newark, New Jersey, why not imagine New York City? I feel sincere when I think about global capitalism — somewhat soap opera, somewhat United Airlines. I always try to chat up the Air Steward, the one based in Wichita so that he’ll give me a free margarita! I always wanted to be a steward because they seem so important being shuttled off through their transience into their synthetic otherwise in a greeting that is replayed and replayed adjacent to the flight deck.

collage assembled in santiago, chile(December, 1952)

The wild geese and fish, the messengersof spiritual refinement

begin to recite old poemsoutside the courtyard the wind

curls into a cage of moonlight, a few

branches brush

against the white wall and I lift my silk dress as if

it was the river stone. And homesicknessis a traveler walking

east all day, and the boats of travelersare full of affectionate

water. There isn’t a momentof rest outside, where the blossoms

clip the sky, pink, swirling gloom enlarges — I cannot go back.

pete, sorry(A Folksong for Waiting in Airports)

I have no radar contact with you.Pete, sorry.

Hey, what’s happening here?Pete, sorry.

We’re going to do it right here.Pete, sorry.

So he gave us the wrong indications. We thought we were tothe left.Pete, sorry.

Okay, we just had a seven thirty-seven land and blowup.Actually these condidtions don’t look very good at all,do they?Pete, sorry.

i met a zombie

I met a zombie who was awfully depressed. He confided in me, that faceless guy. He said Sandra, I think the world is going to shit and thus goes my zombie-ness. Cheer-up zombie, I said and gave him a chocolate. The night is young, there are suburbs to prowl; there are movie directors to inspire. Nothing worked. The zombie was hell-bent on being a zombie but I told him there were other things he could be like a pharmacist or even an acrobat. Do a backflip the zombie said and I said no, I will do no such thing. The zombie said here are your drugs but I didn’t take them. Who knows what kind of drugs a zombie hands out? That’s not the point, zombie man —you have the powers of language on your side. You can incant and that is something we can’t do. You can say whoo whooo whooo and scare us to our deaths. The zombie would not seize his right-ful power and asked my advice on a psychologist. I said I don’t see one very much but I we can walk hand in hand to the hospital. The zombie said he wouldn’t go and I was late, late for my class. His hand was a chocolate mess. Poor zombie. If we didn’t mess up the world the way we do, you would be a happy little thing.

No need for that, we are okay, no problem, no problem.Pete, sorry.

What’s happened? Push it way up. All hydraulics failed.Pete, sorry.

What? There’s what? Some hills, isn’t there?Pete, sorry.

We cannot communicate with the flight attendants.Pete, sorry.

Can’t keep this SOB thing straight up and down.Pete, sorry.

What the hell was that? I don’t know.Pete, sorry.

a poem for andrew mister

Laugh lines written on an old hammer. The beginning was the up-side down beak of the smallest bird. Falling from a nest of cones, you can see where these bad poems hit the grass intact as writing out the lyrics to your favorite songs inside a physics experiment egg. Montana as an ice field we were cutting the Clark Fork with a rusty iris from here to Idaho. And then rode into Florida. Downed planes through the Everglades sang. No one died frightened enough for the laundry in a cargo hold. A day lily explodes as if it was the most mundane thing in the world. At night, the Top Hat killer walks up the stairs to the Public Library and checks out books on which bulbs grow best in the Northwest. In November, in Oak-land, I pulled frostbitten Orchids from a meat freezer a few days after Halloween raised from the dead ghosts (a hammer) and a little known fact in horticulture. Days say everything from the seed-bed to the acid in soil must be accounted for.

A bit low, bit low, bit low.Pete, sorry.

There it goes, there it goes! Oh no!Pete, sorry.

Watch your speed. Going around. It’s OK, It’s OK,don’t hurry, don’t hurry.Pete, sorry.

Down, push it down.Pete, sorry.

OK, mellow it out, mellow it outPete, sorry.

mellow it out, mellow it out Pete, sorry.mellow Pete, sorry. Pete, sorry.

it out, mellow it out Pete, sorry.it out, mellow it out

mellow it out, mellow it Pete, sorry.