Chris Tysh

LUSTMORD

What’s
left on a table resembles spoils
of war—bleached bones, silver rings
as if marking off thighs, ribs, fingers
in a morgue— a woeful alphabet
we have trouble deciphering
as if ethnic cleansing were written
in cyrillic, its blurred edges intent
on fogging glasses, foiling a riot
of ghosts

Jenny Holzer.  Lustmord Table, 1994. Human bones, engraved silver bands, wooden table

TUTTI-FRUTTI

Wild
strips of color collide almost
drizzly make me wonder whether
to pop the plummy aura and follow
its buried river tinkling underground
the whole field a matter of kinetics:
in my Biba mini dress— loud bands
of red and orange— ready to board
the Chunnel train … a girl named Daisy
… drive me crazy Wop-bop-a-loo-bop …

Helen Frankenthaler.  Tutti-Frutti, 1966 ; acrylic on canvas. 117 x 69 1/16 x 1 3/16 in (297.18 x 175.42 x 3.02 cm). Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum

ZITA

Prosthetic
these hand-tied knots
slither and coil like a mess
of snakes on a stone
verandah gleaming heap
hardened around plaster
a dusting of sparkles thrown
in consolation— sheltering arms—
for the patron saint of maids

Lynda Benglis.  Zita (from Sparkle Knot Series), 1972.  Cotton bunting, plaster, glitter over aluminum screen.  44 x15 x 11 in

BORDER #8

Having
stripped every possible
sign of life—not a twig
or cloud in sight— she’s left
stranded on a desolate pale
ribbon of land: from the river
to the sea has a home in a dream—
war’s grey jackals roam the shadows
vatic video still to come

Michal Rovner,  Border #8.  1997-78. 128.9 x 169.5 cm (50 3/4 x 66 3/4 in.)  © Michal Rovner

UNTITLED, 1974

Acute
eye tears apart an old husk
caught in the web of a color tale
she now hails with salmon pink
and muted blue— haptic—
stripped down little bands
an infinitely small vocabulary
grid on a square like a serial poem
knocking the pasha off his high chair

Agnes Martin.  Untitled, 1974.  Acrylic, pencil and Shiva gesso on canvas.  72 x 72 in.  Cranbrook Art Museum

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Based in Detroit, Chris Tysh is a poet and playwright, author of ten books. Her latest publications are 26 Tears, co-authored with George Tysh, (BlazeVOX, 2022), Derrida’s In/Voice (BlazeVOX 2020) and Hotel des Archives: A Trilogy (Station Hill Press, 2018). She holds fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and The Kresge Foundation, as well as a Murray Jackson Creative Scholar in the Arts Award from Wayne State University where she teaches writing. She is the poetry editor of Three Fold, an independent arts quarterly, https://threefoldpress.org/current