museum of thrown objects by andrew k. peterson book preview

7/31/2019 Museum of Thrown Objects by Andrew K. Peterson Book Preview

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Museum ofThrown Objects

Andrew K. Peterson

BlazeVOX [books

Buffalo, New York


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Museum of Thrown Objects by Andrew K. Peterson

Copyright 2010

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced withoutthe publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Geoffrey GatzaCover artwork,Ego as Architecture, Portrait #4 (zebra) by Dayna Thacker

First Edition

ISBN: 9781935402848Library of Congress Control Number 2009941028

BlazeVOX [books]303 Bedford Ave

Buffalo, NY 14216

[email protected]

nBlazeVOX [ books ]

blazevox.org

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Acknowledgments.

Thank you to the editors and publishers of the small presses and journals where some of

these poems first appeared:350 Poems, The American Drivel Review, Bimbo Gun, BombayGin, Fact-Simile, Hot Whiskey Magazine and Hot Whiskey Presents: The Meat Issue, House

Press (Drill, Spell, and string of small machines), Matter, Pinstripe Fedora, small town,Slumgullion Magazine, and Transmission.

Special thanks to Nathan Child for Photoshop assistance.

Forged Selves (The Bjorlings): methodological transliterations of poems by Swedish

poet Gunnar Bjorling.

The Edies:In Memoriam Edith Nelson, great aunt. Photographs from her personalcollection are source material and inspiration.


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Contents

Fifteen Petals................................................................................................................................ 11

Bird.radio...................................................................................................................................... 17

A Handbook of Joy....................................................................................................................... 31

A Second Handbook of Joy ......................................................................................................... 45

A Third Handbook of Joy ............................................................................................................ 63

(Anterior View) HEART............................................................................................................... 87

Forged Selves (The Bjorlings)...................................................................................................... 97

Museum of Thrown Objects ...................................................................................................... 105

Auk Book .................................................................................................................................... 141

The Edies.................................................................................................................................... 163


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For Jared Hayes


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Museum ofThrown Objects


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Fifteen Petals.


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The sea: cold with white petals. We walk beside the pier on dusks august air. From the farawaycitys orange silhouette, a Haitian fight song furrows each east-faced window. This lust

otherworldly. Your miniature schnauzer loosens her leash & clouds loosen themselves from thevague green sky. She bounds toward a gathering of gulls that surround a dead trout. Gives you

chase into a blur-blur among that dirty, feathered pool. With the lesson you have taught me I si

on a wet bench atop a pile of news.


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Roses beach themselves & newspapers turn into a disheveled man. The birds disperse & carry you

away in their aching beaks. One rough gull remains in turn swallows your dog whole. You writea message in the sky with a petal-trail of birds. The disheveled man has become Jack Spicer & your

dog is wrestling inside Spicers seagull


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Jack Spicer covered in white petals: You should know that gull is not mine. The rules of evidenceneed not apply. And the sea? The sea is not mine. The sea is yours. These petals? These

petals are mine. Ive been receiving unidentified calls all day.

A few circuit lights blink across the company switchboard. He takes petals from roughened skin &

pins to my hair, my arms & calves. A green wave destroys the pier. Only your message remains


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Finishing your thought among a swirling school of live mackerel places the white surface in ourpalms & disappears. We are left to our bottomless sea-palms fishing these over-flowered waters

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