June 22, 2009

Rhyme Me To Hell

Adam handed back the apple,
minus three big bites.
It's got to have an edge, he said,
or it isn't post-avant.
He said it takes imagination.
The surprise comes after the turn.
There's no affect without manipulation.
He had eaten around the worm.

8 comments:

Paul Squires said...

Anything that has an edge
is always post-avant,
so we must all uphold our pledge
to worship Adam's rant.

Anything that rhymes and sings
is neo-post-avant
and flarff is just the residue
you'll find in Adam's pants.

Agnes said...

Paul, I hate to break it to you, but that's...ew. Pretty bad. You probably should wash your hands. Is post-avant supposed to be "bad"? ::sigh:: I'll never figure this stuff out...

I prefer my flarf restrained--a kernal of sense bobbing in a sea of where the hell am I? Three-headed ninja eunuchs must be contained! I like structured insanity. Heh. That's called something other than flarf, I guess. So many labels, so little time. I like reading Adam, yanno, but his paragraphs are humungous, and he talks funny. (Like Silliman. Shhhh.) It's hard to figure out exactly what they mean sometimes. I'm not sure they know. Anyway, I'll keep trying. Color me masochist. Hey! Adam did change his background to white, so I won't go blind. That's gotta be worth 3 points.

Brain fart. Maybe what's missing in their diatribes is humor. Hmmmm. People often take themselves way too seriously. When someone's feeling threatened, humor is often the first thing to run away. I'll have to look a little closer, I guess. Where'd I leave my mad scientist hat? Hand me the scalpel. Hold the mirror.

What do you mean I'm annoying?

Paul said...

Bad is the new edgy. Yes I think you are absolutely right in your final paragraph.

Paul said...

Not the annoying which is absolutely wrong, the total lack of humour without which the picture they paint is incomplete. It's like painting a landscape without any green.

Agnes said...

Don't kid yourself. Give it time. I'm totally annoying. Sort o' like a terminal blow job. Har.

I'm pretty sure humor is permitted in this poetry called post-avant, but I guess epiphany and language as language (whatever that means) was banned.

Does feeling exist outside epiphany? How does one know one is feeling? Perhaps this is my aversion. Hard to tell, being innately contrary as I am. Still flailing here. Feeling feeling feeling with never an understanding...sounds sort o' like Hell. Hmmm. Maybe I should go stick my arm in the bbq...

Paul said...

Or maybe you should stop trying to understand feeling. Sartre had a bash at it, "Sketch for a theory of the emotions." Kind of okay. Personally I think reason and rationality and that kind of understanding is vastly overrated. It's good for making machines but totally inappropriate for understanding art. And the results of applying logic and reason to art are completely irrelevant to its practice and appreciation. What they do seems like an autopsy to me. What you do seems like a living investigation of possibilities.
Besides I suggest that the poem above and my Post avant rant poem from the twitter are the ultimate post-avant poems, they are edgy, they challenge the orthodox thinking (which is post avant), they're dark.

Paul said...

And you have to ask yourself, as I have been for a long time. Why do they outlaw 'epihpanies'? It is a denial of art which must contain something beyond reason.

Paul said...

From Adam;s latest post - "Where a movement is concerned, there is only so much that one man can do."
How tempted was I to say, "Yeah, wipe and flush." Hahaha. Sorry.