some appearances

140
Some Appearances Tom Mandel

Upload: tom-mandel

Post on 23-Jul-2016

235 views

Category:

Documents


2 download

DESCRIPTION

I wrote Some Appearances in 1977. It comprises 450+ one-line poems presented as a single text. The work didn’t appear between covers until 1987, when Jimmy’s House of Knowledge brought a small edition. It’s an odd work, but for some reason it’s remained one of my favorites. I like reading it this way. Hope you do too.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Some Appearances

Some Appearances

Tom Mandel

Page 2: Some Appearances

Animals you got great cages

here

Storm fits the thinker’s hollows

To whistle an ode his voice

smears

Page 3: Some Appearances

Winter go dark in the last strut

That often wrapped a

cable or a wall

where are here are bars of arm

To strum bliss on the hill of

magnets

Page 4: Some Appearances

Car don’t nod bob at night

Recalled

matters right to left on

The ecstatic

walk with your hand

Mr. passport is left too right on

Page 5: Some Appearances

In the deepened square

shoulders twilight

Cut up the ho-

hum markers of speech

Corrections take off on concrete

Page 6: Some Appearances

Held up (in good stead)

before the time-honored forum

you two have

got to make up your minds

for once silent

motionless verbs

Page 7: Some Appearances

Winter drain of bulb into the

dark

Happiness to scratch at any

lethal part

Forward-leaning edgy distracted

Shadow walls the resound

Page 8: Some Appearances

Won’t impose a ··

Cannot the while we being

friends

Large flat feeling worm asleep in an

essay

Page 9: Some Appearances

Don’t fool around brows

lips syllabic slab

A window rides riddle in my

thought

Eye opens that spot behind a

door

Page 10: Some Appearances

Soup spills on a careless reader

Still coffee with

lemon back

To have happy black

possessions

Who comes in for a little hate of a morning

Page 11: Some Appearances

To know who lives with her

and how

Green face relaxing

At last

thoughtful signs advance

Page 12: Some Appearances

Certain images are rent from the creator

Slows quarters of stylized lie

Contraction of impression into counter-action

Page 13: Some Appearances

Someone to prop the artist’s

living up

De Retz calls the corralled aristocrats

Ask of this is damned blue

youth

Page 14: Some Appearances

The little stick suspending

center

Some sign of fluency to his

wish

More accurately sounds of cars

crossing

Page 15: Some Appearances

Four-legged stride piano a

Disney exclusive

He wished he saw more of letter r period

Bloom in a

sequence of tents

Page 16: Some Appearances

How many little masters front to

back

Point that aggressive

imagine

Sadness mated to three-fld contents

Page 17: Some Appearances

To enter to hold with you to be

here

Leaves just enough room I

think

Fundamental dishes do get

done

Page 18: Some Appearances

Black satin vinyl covers closing

notebook

everyone seems to know each other Ok

all right

Can’t stop reading ‘em

Page 19: Some Appearances

Thinking better makes a law

Stepping here pleases them

shoes

Christmas is upholstery

Torque onto the

mountain highway

Page 20: Some Appearances

Nominative thought the hand king of

Nude hopes for

much

Fight stays in canned banker

Various

spelunker silhouettes

Page 21: Some Appearances

A restless kind of dismal spunky

snowshoe

Precise shifter of dawn so forth

The Duke

descends to stroke the knuckler

Page 22: Some Appearances

Musical pitch signifying

parental cello

Pleasant bites of staircase salt

Each visit

marked a prone delivery of dusk

Page 23: Some Appearances

Soot the job carried into a crevice of the

sill

Dense weightless

swallow of oily cofffee

That part is on

the porch

Page 24: Some Appearances

Perhaps best to think her

variation what of

No slicks greet solicitous chins

pats bars

Heartbeat at Lp end

Page 25: Some Appearances

A brown embroidered

bag of our uses

Chain stems stamped gears tubing paint and

PVC

Divided means one guesses to any good effect

Page 26: Some Appearances

Author of a mild loom of

scratches

Exclusion from his kindly

pumping bubble registers

Crypto stacked

returns a magneto sum of

maps

Page 27: Some Appearances

Certain silhouette of the journal moment

To have read his deskful of

desires

Involved behalf healthy little

bones of hand

Page 28: Some Appearances

Slaying trot down the hall

deserve

Pleasure to the active interest of

a time

How all three get in your eyes or calories in a

pot

Page 29: Some Appearances

O noble little greenish book

Concur few

things a skeptic consonant

Yet a person

who’s definitely dying

To have dilated the beer case

Page 30: Some Appearances

An aphorism staggers to its

feet

Along the leading seam may that story

Rising he shall

be thin and loud

Page 31: Some Appearances

Just says goodbye and

means it

Disturbed authority

gripping the door

Long walks on the gray rug

Page 32: Some Appearances

Final words of decisive finality

the fade

Protect out entry to speak what we will

A souvenir

that’s sure to please

someone

Page 33: Some Appearances

Cans of the lab strewn on the

lawn

Habit abates slants pathetic

illustration

Continual street hiss flags

Page 34: Some Appearances

Rim ellipse bordered

parabola circles the edge

Not so extreme

a crater as intelligence

walks

Page 35: Some Appearances

Resumed the black street

crowded among buildings

Resisted bays and systems hunger piping

Will you be

indoors with me

Page 36: Some Appearances

Odd birds in giant lineup

Squeezed

interrogation smarts

Soft blue haze

of light changing behind a shade

Page 37: Some Appearances

Black beyond burden horses free their riders

To take his

thankless chin in hand

Don’t become one to know

what one is like

Page 38: Some Appearances

All rested variables

stripped of motion

Whose right hand lifts to speak good

lines

To hear a form or in a form

Page 39: Some Appearances

A body turned out among the

trees

Stand up in word length

That is a book you’re backing

into

The pen hears the mime

Page 40: Some Appearances

Choice let out at seams the

single scene

Narrative art of fate arrival

A weak link in the food chain

Scrape the side the end of a jar

Page 41: Some Appearances

Leave us dig some little rows

Melody

metonymy

Night porch of springtime jive

Ghastly Spanish

omelet belly upon plate

Page 42: Some Appearances

On the little steps bank their

agents

Will you not need this

feather to fly

Assiez-vous à côté de M’sieur

Algren

Page 43: Some Appearances

Parking winds the street in meditation

Little street big

door

Don’t put that one on either

Snow-bound

monster seems amiable

Page 44: Some Appearances

Out of one blue the two

Deep and

sleazy bites of the field

He who came

here for a reason

Page 45: Some Appearances

Who does all this nothing to the furniture

Preferred to

eating chicken

Disjunction order precision

Months of

blanket dust

Page 46: Some Appearances

Likes the sentences way

over there

Just pulled a bit before juts

One blue one

checked maroon

Page 47: Some Appearances

They will collect his papers into

the known

Dreamed a Senate bowl

rolled on wheels

Claque here kind to all

hungry imposters

Page 48: Some Appearances

White on black & on on red

Now say

goodbye again to kisses

Frame sighs

again and shake

Page 49: Some Appearances

Fold-in grace our thinking

faculty misses

Rising to the take

Master of

lessons count in fours

Page 50: Some Appearances

Only pass and move and play

defense

under street light the

boutique glares

Upstairs the object is its audience

Page 51: Some Appearances

The opening entry is

masquerade

To evolve in closing tricky

chicanes

Ronnie Peterson

1944 – 1978

Page 52: Some Appearances

Offer to hand him the wheel in

flames

Isn’t this year much the same

Next to the road

the station drives

Page 53: Some Appearances

Gray shadowed wall dripping recent rains

One virtue in

relief among the five

Enormous

creatures view the civil setting

Page 54: Some Appearances

White shirt and of smile

Two boots at his

wrist

Jam of effect of calm of prey in hand squeezed

shut

Page 55: Some Appearances

Starred numbers on

certain streets

A convenient book

I want a bowl of soup that thinks

Is this fun?

Page 56: Some Appearances

Great dripping paddles

How often does she water them

Visible nostrils of the mock-up

Listen to your

friends this once

Page 57: Some Appearances

This road stripe leads to Chicago

A dejected

swarm of paint

Two tireless hours in the

American light

Page 58: Some Appearances

Of an experience that

founded an industry

And this end comes out of

you

Dioramic sympathies of the balloonist

Page 59: Some Appearances

Dark square restaurant veranda

He likes to know

the date

It’s nice to bank where what

We walked

between pillar and poster

Page 60: Some Appearances

To be led back to it as intention

A line acts out this sentence

Posing over its

same conclusions

Twice more

than twice then twice

Page 61: Some Appearances

Clear colors written dense in

the tracing

I speak of truly beautiful hum

ming

Then point to a similar dish

Page 62: Some Appearances

Relief of the prismatic

diaphragm

These stones the same as

once they were

Shrink and become more

memorable

Page 63: Some Appearances

What a question to ask me

considering

Never change because you are happy as

you are

A free mood of desires

Page 64: Some Appearances

Perhaps for the evening they

are Dante and Odysseus

If one may speak of

instruction from below

Odd frames

(freezing flame) of instruction

Page 65: Some Appearances

Family controls on traffic

Flowered border across the ridge

Weather is pleasant

science too

We part on our way to daily

work

Page 66: Some Appearances

Hear about sporty new

constellations

A thinking man’s home run

motor home

Sure am out here a lot lately

Controls in

chaos

Page 67: Some Appearances

One more programmatic

title to the good

A spider hanged among the cups

Light of day

lights of night

Page 68: Some Appearances

Or anything as such for that

matter

That calls to me to please move

on

Hot blouses white houses

Page 69: Some Appearances

Long weekends of the Chicago

fan

Put away hole punch scissors and notebook

Would that way be it done her

way

Page 70: Some Appearances

Finances of the fountain district

The gardens

bloom on greenback

row

On a list of numbers search

for his

Page 71: Some Appearances

Rotors stators diodes

Put a new hotdog for

headache in the news

Letterhead displaying

public squares

Page 72: Some Appearances

Dr. Too Much and the doubled

trumpets

You don’t have to do what you

cross off the list

Better not run

on and rain and

Page 73: Some Appearances

Answer a question just

before it dates

Satellite through matchstick

blinds

What is vaso-dilatory what is

not

Page 74: Some Appearances

Worn yellow striking surface

on a box

patterns hawked with

your behavior

All your activities on a

single scorecard

Page 75: Some Appearances

Teeth of the typewriter

Form subjects

of single articulation

Wall down dark slivers baited in

the west

Grip and spread

Page 76: Some Appearances

To be about three miles from

the sea

What makes one

Finger clears steamy glass

Memory for

numbers noted

Page 77: Some Appearances

Two are bound as one

Autumn slice of yellow lamplight

To be continued

contained

B’s falling under the wadded

pages

Page 78: Some Appearances

You want to hear something

State rock of

asbestos

Voice from living room

Symmetry

feature and gesture

Page 79: Some Appearances

Happy, this is what I think

Don’t mean a

pronoun

Ovoid and golden

To have a

happy radio that’s real good

Page 80: Some Appearances

If youdon’t want to hear it hang up before he

says it

I don’t know if I want that plant

to live or die

Did something in every room

Page 81: Some Appearances

What he tells her in the fade

the shade

Possibly more relaxed than in

the original

Maybe the cigar in his hand is

just a smoking pencil

Page 82: Some Appearances

No sequence of sounds I am

afraid

This resolve in eloquent dictation

Footnoted

mother and brilliant son in starred park

shower

Page 83: Some Appearances

That gesture bears life and

reading

Do you find it useful to plan

each day

A discipline contrary to

verbal apology

Page 84: Some Appearances

Gray powdery ground

On a lump of folded dollars

Knee deep in

the scout’s role I was

To sit in the

doorway working

Page 85: Some Appearances

Threshold rhythms dipped upon the pylons

Embrace by

shin-high border of the lawn

Departing roar

that person memory of

brickwork more memory of her

Page 86: Some Appearances

‘Sweag’ go scissors to a

recipe

Verse without reward

To know you whole alone

But it’s only a long light soft

Page 87: Some Appearances

Still to be happy because

In 1829-30, in the Winter of a

city year

Low tan building yields my office

To be be to be in this middle

Page 88: Some Appearances

Kierkegaard opinions

One drachma course on no

opinions

You’ve presently does

eat sacrifice

Page 89: Some Appearances

School for gifted couples blocks

my door

Think line of blemish

Green mustang

sleek brown pavement

Cough of driver slamming door

Page 90: Some Appearances

My hair is like your hair

I feel privileged to exploit your

obsession

Balzac cured my fear of

debt

Did you buy that ticket

Page 91: Some Appearances

A class within the ring of lights

Subculture miniatures

Work the fatherland

family

I meet this problem in my

old age

Page 92: Some Appearances

Of the many and getting

there from one

Plenty of good black ink in his

red pen

What but how’s his hut what’s..

Papers in the

crook of his arm

Page 93: Some Appearances

Now here’s one total explanation

The young rich retire to prime

soap

How do I know you’re an

attorney, right

Page 94: Some Appearances

Leering at the night elbow

butted to love

Eclectic wire chained elenchus

Language rash leads to flash in

trash

Page 95: Some Appearances

Shingled layer of books unread

Glazed

distraction of morning

saxophonist

Buried cigarette or suicide by pencil point

Page 96: Some Appearances

“Ist das Denken eine

Erfahrung?”

Kant was asked

We talk the fact of language in a

cure

Friends wish to revive the

present moment

Page 97: Some Appearances

Morose marginalia

Understanding it

all so often leaves one lazy

Clear plastic

triangle hanging on a pin

Page 98: Some Appearances

Underline what’s

underlined for what reason

when

Junk mail from friends

All those

standards will come to meet

you again

Page 99: Some Appearances

From the foot of

the bed a TV image pulls

Polite wooden

prose of a letter from New York

Medium

complete with evening’s blue

drive

Page 100: Some Appearances

I got tired before then once more

One more windy

one please

Places where art displaced

labor

Vouchers folded the city square

Page 101: Some Appearances

To claim a sound for good

or ill

Why so courteous scurrilous

Curious to note

the XIXth century

between his ears

Page 102: Some Appearances

One big sentence every

day

I press harder

He has good parking karma

Ball point pen

writes on ice in igloo

Page 103: Some Appearances

Stuck turns clog sucked to lead

The last I saw will be ball in

mirror

Sometimes whole weeks no

time to

Page 104: Some Appearances

Every sentence spoken by a

judge

Facial composure over

its wash

I read it it's shitty

Right into time and narrative

Page 105: Some Appearances

What are they pointing to

He plants

himself in all her nerves

I liked it for its

reasons

Return now to soccer fields of youth and yore

Page 106: Some Appearances

Fluid from the split

Asleep, I felt her arm move from

beneath my head

Marx's Milton

equals silkworm

Page 107: Some Appearances

Talk myself to me fascination

imaginary

Realize these cars of yours

are robots

She fled that life retaining no more than

its privileges

Page 108: Some Appearances

Cream cigar tube's got a red stamped screw

top

Clear blue auto and other

essays

Why are they yellow pages

Page 109: Some Appearances

Grain long against my side

Stride out from

hip and shoulder

Half-hearted

hitchhiker's soft shoulders

Little old drops

in a smelly room

Page 110: Some Appearances

See reverse for instructions

Fact or quote

Scratched light

in the tilted screen of a

golden ChronBox

Popular pocket-

style corners

Page 111: Some Appearances

Composition or observation or

thought or precept

Those oppose

Someone friend

to forever knows better

Mind that steals

the books

Page 112: Some Appearances

It doesn't happen as does

you hear

Final grazing all then fibers

sleep

Duplicate estrangement familiar object

name

Page 113: Some Appearances

What the sugar level is acid level so forth

Hubbub of dubbing

characters

Past overcome resistance in

context

Page 114: Some Appearances

I wonder who will feel what if

when

Going to a party party

Light wind

through shed slats

Page 115: Some Appearances

Threw upon the horse a look of knowing more

or less

Now what flat yellow box

of slides to drop

Resting in the shade of

your broken arm

Page 116: Some Appearances

Yes send me details of

this special offer

She leans over brings close her

breast

That's all before breakfast bread

Pop the juice who wouldn't

Page 117: Some Appearances

Which begins itself to proffer

Occasionally

forcing me to do

All five are hours or better

were once

Distinction form not structure

Page 118: Some Appearances

Starts part time in three weeks

What has length

to do

Combing pages for a tour

Do send me your thanks

thanks

Page 119: Some Appearances

Distinction length or period

Games with daytime data

For anything this solutions

Webby outline of the mannish creator there

Page 120: Some Appearances

White men in daytime caps of

green

A thought of the size engages it

I tell you what I'm going to do

to do just

Page 121: Some Appearances

Across the street called

Waller

In a second you will look at this

with me

Ok I'm coming up now

Tooth-rimmed

lagoon

Page 122: Some Appearances

Chinese man with impatient

elbows crossing look

Stayed late and left unconvinced

A camel

smokes in the ashtray

Page 123: Some Appearances

Death's flirtatious glance

a dare

Snowman lights and utensil

noises

Bookstore of all attritions

Page 124: Some Appearances

Power of the sun to irritate

left eye

Oklahoma phone book

Butt rounded

black leather of cards

Page 125: Some Appearances

We miss your bright eyes and

your smile

One from Column B

Immortal motors smoke if they're

cold

Page 126: Some Appearances

Particular gray of yellow or is

red

No white scrap today

Step in there carrying your

history

Complaint in an even tone

Page 127: Some Appearances

One must talk apple in mouth

Precondition of

the social process and also its result

How to become depressed and

resentful

Page 128: Some Appearances

Their own appear forced aspects apart

An ancient transition sincerely

Zoom beige

room

There strong format again

Page 129: Some Appearances

One might as well say is as of

the book

Faster than a calculator more

accurate too

Band of pain round back and

ribs

Page 130: Some Appearances

Why he have home to come to see me can

Stab of night bowls rouses

me to the widow

Reckless light and shadow

bad news nervous

Page 131: Some Appearances

First words upside down

read from father's paper

Tremendous

concentration of her sleep

To sunder

falsehood from the true

Page 132: Some Appearances

Realism a real turning breath

Jars keys

paperclip side with method all

Ok thumbs

opposed pose as paws

Page 133: Some Appearances

Turn top back on replace in

pocket

Demand charge office

Envelope

outline lined in a name

Page 134: Some Appearances

Curving walls of desk thrown

open on another mess

Simmel remarks

the eye's preponderance

in city life

Page 135: Some Appearances

Bus and church identity

Listen for the line that goes

right here

Parts so that language goes

unperceived

I am taking a little nap now

Page 136: Some Appearances

Ah money in the money in the

mail

Agitated veil of thoughts clouds the downtown

street

Last little stubborn round

trailing

Page 137: Some Appearances

Are about ten between the two

All of us agent

the secret discontent of

friends

Can't discuss the music of

Page 138: Some Appearances

Patient science expanded painting

Here is my handle my

thought and spout

Page 139: Some Appearances

Thankless anklet sssh

The stairs had been carpeted

one by one

We perceive the object riddled with its error

Page 140: Some Appearances

Senseless parallels up and down which we

pad

Now tell me again your

theory one more time