Tuesday poem #370 : Anne Lesley Selcer : Ludic Loop

Everyone showed up as a representation of themselves,

the hour under lit against a stark white screen.

Inside the photograph, night was falling.

I texted myself, the discursive moment’s eating itself,

got back, “the discursive moment’s eating itself.”

Got a text from an ex, “I love the shadow world more than thee.”

The shantytown up the street roared toward the end of history.

Make your senses not be mimetic,

“Make your senses not be mimetic,” ok!

Heav’nly Venus, illustrious, laughter-loving queen,

sea-born, night-loving, of an awesome mien,
pray prevent confusions,

ridiculously besot with their full meanings,

with cemeteries that exceed themselves.

On a movie screen in Paris,

women filmed one by one

appear dancing together simultaneously.

Got back, “Words are markers

with shifting occupants in their corresponding graves”—

no reference,

lost reference.

"Cemetaries that exceed themselves" was said by Robert Y Sniderman at &Now, 2019

Anne Lesley Selcer [image credit: video still, Katie Ebbitt] is a poet in the expanded field and an art writer. She is the author of Blank Sign Book, a collection of essays, and of Sun Cycle, a poetry book about the image. Her gallery publications and chapbooks include from a Book of Poems on Beauty, Banlieusard, and Untitled (a treatise on form). Writing can be found in Hyperallergic, Jacket2, Fillip, Fence, Action Yes, Art Practical, Open Space, Gauss PDF and The Chicago Review, as well as in gallery and museum exhibition catalogs. Work has been included in several anthologies. Occasionally she creates off the page.

 The Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan