Fleshe of My Fleshe

Despite the well known and often expressed fact that there are too many poems in the world, despite the contention that poetry reduces the value of whatever it touches (paper, computer screen, the human mind), I continue to make poetry. I have even continued to make poetry after having just finished writing 365 poems, one a day for a year.

Why don't I stop, you might ask? Simple. I am a poet. Poets write poetry. To continue to be a poet, I have to write poetry. The other reason is that there's something comforting about concentrating on the construction of a set of words for a small time. That practice focuses me, calms me, removes everything else in my life, evaporates the walls and illusions around me, and gives me the purity of focus, and nothing else. Working words is my meditation. I am lost within the circular boundary of creation, a boundary line that wraps tight around me.

Most of the poems I'm creating are nanopoems: pwoermds (which extend never more than a word in length) and poems of a very short length created as I read other poetry. I create out of the experiences of my life, and sometimes these experiences are merely words on a page. I'm reading Charles Bernstein's Girly Man, and quickly, and his quirky humor and the word choices that compells him to use serve to rouse the somnolent poet within me.

But a couple of days ago I began to write other poems, without writing a poem at all. Every evening I receive an email that includes one entry from the Oxford English Dictionary, generally chosen at random. These are the OED's words of the day, and I take these entries, copy them in full and then delete the words I don't want, add linebreaks, and declare that I have written a poem. I doubt this technique will work with every entry that comes my way, some of which are quite lacking in length, but generally the definitions (often multiple senses) and illustrative quotations provide me a rich word stream to work from.

As I create these poems, all I am allowed to do is delete or add a linebreak. I cannot respell a word or add a word (though I did repeat a phrase in the first poem). I cannot change the capitalization of a word. But I can delete text and merge two sentences written decades apart into one sentence-like sequence. I can play with the language. And what I enjoy about the results is how these bits of text—left in their original order but twice torn out of their context—take on new meaning and significance in their new context.

A poem comes with text so context (syntactic, historic, topical) is always important. The latest of these entries is called "Flesh," which you will soon see is based on the verb form, not the more common noun form, of the word.

Flesh

To reward with a
portion of the flesh
to excite his eagerness

in wider sense, to render
eager by the taste of blood

Flesshe, as we do,
whan we gyve him any
parte of a wylde beest

much better flesh
made more cruell and eagre
with the tast of bloud
that had so fleshed them

fleshed to the game
there flesh'd with prey appears
Before they had fleshed the hounds

To initiate in or inure to
his fleshed and accustomed

to kyll men lyke shepe,
for he was then thorowly fleshed
in the slaughter of

well fleshed in blood
had been well fleshed
in the work of blood by
maiming and wounding herself

to render inveterate
enured and fleshed in ciuill spoile
fleshed to the Presse
to the sale
of our decayed Natures

Were not this a mere method
in leudness and wickedness
at these nimble

To inflame the ardour,
rage, or cupidity
to incite

that could haue flesht me
to thys vyolent deathe
that now they think
can stand before them
upon my shoulders

flesh'd with Slaughter
and with Conquest crown'd

To plunge into the flesh

to flesh our taintlesse swords

The wild dogge
Shal flesh his tooth
on euery innocent

So well hath fleshd
his maiden sword
his virgin-sword
to the haft
fleshed in the pike
one vpon another

his maiden pen

To gratify lust
in the spoyle of her honour
for plunder and revenge

To clothe with flesh;
embody in flesh
with some pleasant passages

so as to dwell in common human forms
gradually fleshed

A dainty bit
fleshed out and rendered

To fatten.
fig.

Flesh mee with Gold,
fat mee with Silver.

To remove the adhering flesh

cutting away the jagged extremities and offal,

the ears
and nostrils

Unhairing, fleshing, scudding.

To paint flesh-colour.

blue the coat and
colour the tablecloth

ecr. l'inf.