Sunday, July 26, 2026

Chro No Logy For Ray Johnson in 10 Poems

Intimate Chains


Rimbaud's gunfire tears
sent Verlaine 
unwanted valentines.

"I Iove you"
was written on the sidewalk
in blood.

Between love and death
lies the lesson.

"Here is where I teach

you to leave."



Two Pink Snakes for Anne

Could easily 
be mistaken for
Zorro's blade 
painting a swan
while considering its
mirrored reflection

or

the haunting view
of a hoofed animal
preparing for birth 
and now captured
in Pepto papier mache 
violin f-holes





Another Bang-Bang Day

Unwanted as he feels he is,
an appropriate 

BLACKNESSBLACKNESSBLACKNESS
BLACK    framing empty space      NESS
BLACKNESSBLACKNESSBLACKNESS






11.16.94

DEAR WILLIAM
S. WILSON,

      NO, NO, NO
NO, NO, NO,
NO.
    I KNOW
WHAT. I'M
TALKING. ABOUT

            RAY JOHNSON






American Museum of Natural History (fig 371)

There are several rooms 
in the American Museum 
of Natural History that display
no exhibits contain 
no laboratory equipment 
have no collections, 
but represent nonetheless
some of the most important space
in the museum's 23 acres.  

The referenced spaces 
are likely the hallways
atriums and vestibules: 
the transitional zones 
transverse en route, 
neither here 
nor  
For there - - the interstitial spaces 
of commute and communication 
inhabited by nothing. 
Indeed, the Johnsonian nothing
unfolds between acts: 
between the opening
                                    and the closing, 
between presence and absence, 
departure and arrival.

Nothing shall come of nothing.






You Rang?

Chop artist flops
cannibalizes pop 
with scissors 
axes, and fine grit 
sandapaper.

Here today
                  gore tomorrow.





 
Special Deliverance 

The fugitive elegance
of the
 everyday is 
a pas de deux
between sender
and receiver
whose return 
address is a 
bureaucratic red
herring
swiming its way
 to Bill Wilson
who invisibly cares
for a predetermined 

legacy.





Oversized Moticos

Have you seen one lately?
Perhaps you have.
They are everywhere.

A scrap. A clipping. Fresh paint.
A void rejects
your eternal truth.

A currency of exchange 
between art and
outer world
is a celebration of
chance operations
cut from context 
with a little imagination. 
starched shirt 
cardboard becomes 
a premonition of 

things to come.

Restless loco-moticos
Train car graffiti, a
message in motion
Did you catch the
horizontal gossip
column after column.

A tongue. A hand. A heartbeat.
Untitled
poem corresponding to
its surroundings.

Catch and let it go.






Archives of the New York Correspondence School

A confidential report
from Carolee
in 1961.

The most unusual event
was a eclipse under the table
above curled fries.

Ray Johnson mailed her
messages, images, poems, amd terrors
along with an oversized glove;

together in a boat
they road 
             and road 
                          and road.






Ad Libitum

Karl admits he does not know
what Ad Libitum means

but knows howling
wolf sings songs
for the small people
and the big 
people can eat 
tomatoes.

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