Chop Chop

Cut ups.
An exercise during the last Tree Seed Workshop had us chopping apart magazines as poetry fodder. Don’t read, don’t think. Don’t plan. Cut.
Yet order arises. Makes me wonder: Is there no randomness for the unconsciousness? It’s a superstitious brainstem we have, imposing meaning willy-nilly. It’s a wonder that we can even perceive nonsense or surreal or mystical realism and don’t just subsume theme into the flatness of what is.
Sometimes they come together really tightly and sometimes less so, like any other compositional method. Each thing we create is partway to and from somewhere.
Mine looked like this:

(My “getting” fell off the last line en route home.) Given a couple more minutes to shuffle, I’d shift the components like this:

betting on an ad for HIV that was positive?
I adopt the role which requires a lot.
stuttering wasn’t a strategic tiling.
we are caretakers of what happens.
this run from the tricked out verbatim
is patched real straight.
when you weigh efforts to mitigate
some scientists, hands go to their guns.
yesterday was just a last minute idea.
getting the visas will be difficult through dovetails.

Jim said, “If you’re prouder of today’s version and a bit embarrassed by yesterday’s, you’re walking forward.” I like the optimism of that. I’m not sure whether I fall to agreement or against.
The next workshop is this coming Tuesday, also under L.M Rochefort.
And soon we’ll able to announce the fall/winter season facilitators.