Carol Mirakove

proem

our hero is a we

we take our old & young along

chorus

he said star I said dark matter. a frontrunner like monotheism in a space as broad as space? must we always be monument?

 

 

singular ambition often fails & forgets to let its supporting cast go. blow it up & start again — a fine model for amusement not endurance

 

 

a steady stream of accolades embarrasses existence. we offer no epiphany, surface danger in a dormancy, the solo & collected, the covert & the vocal

loss

              the most important people die &
superlatives lose meaning              under
the hegemony of narrative         I consign
myself passively storied                       no
one wins a hierarchy of pain           epical
antithesis                                    lacking a
guardian language                     becomes
understudy                   amnesia comforts
diminishing faces                          psyche
in relief against event  utterance, gesture
juxtaposed & partial      flared up & pitted
grief absent grace repeats

locus

carved in the wall of interesting facts it’s still
kings  versus   witches   &   would-be   serfs.
whether  we  ourselves  go  out  the window
there  is  never  #nofilter  :  privilege  equals
private  law  .  in   carrying   conflict   mental
images  persist  &  devolve  .  break  up  the
monopoly of consolidated memory! moat the
erogenous! choose it, knife club or pie moon
: render the recall  sepia,  vaudeville,  armed
with   radii   anchored   in   euphoria  :  seism
disequilibrium, collateral descendants . in the
beginning : there are remains .

From for an exhibit called democracy / there are a lot of guns

Carol Mirakove

Carol Mirakove is the author of two books of poems, Mediated (Factory School) and Occupied (Kelsey St. Press), as well as the chapbooks Muriel’s House (Least Weasel), temporary tattoos (BabySelf Press), WALL (ixnay), and, with Jen Benka, 1,138 (Belladonna). She appears on the album Women in the Avant Garde and with Dutch musician bates45 she released the electro-house track “temporary tattoos.” Carol’s poetry and recordings are catalogued at the electronic poetry collection Archive of the Now and at PennSound. She is a former workshop leader at The Poetry Project where she has been a lifelong member.