Deport Dada!
I’ll DING 21 of 35 in 20 dance terms as a parting token.. that artificial hell issued Washinton D.C. culture and the ache surprise, f-fabric landscapes, erotic symbols, Ill eats start to scatter. breaking adverse Prosperity, creativity, and BARACK! BARACK! support The arts! fundamental to beauty, ethnicity, religion, or age performance… For Breton it was out of cabaret and the words are of those eaten OMMMMMMMMMS. Your tax NOTICE, Dear Ms. NOTHING, and eat canned beans, that Dada should employ Benefits! You can request message I delivered: Breton had fallen on our prom conTaining obscene drawings: A few months ago it took place out of cabaret in notice of the adverse beatification, Please state whether you request documents or information: when the reason you believe a nearby cafe to be Threatening and subversive, dada has conventions to create a new type of action and review your animation of our Air, making moments into a peanut seller, partly because The hat and or proxy, he us to her in I t or ork my Education laden Dada group, decanting the event into a rut through Improved academic standardized test scores, audience relations, improperly denied comments, … OUT pu-U-zation has an OUT of tourism … artist’s actions would be imagined better than in a theatre… OW! ILL you is at we OK the at of off, here to end each In a manner you can understand through This, We, A hand of tens
C. Mehrl Bennett 9/13/14, revised 1/13/2016
Nothing Wavering
In a house of silences that engage
Two pyromaniac gymnasts,
It might be hard to believe the
Secrets of this man’s work, or the life he lives
In the company of his wife.
Everything projects a
Banal shadow of absence–
Because of the presence of a way of being–
The spectrum of this man and
His wife in a litany of Both.
Wavering lines in the sun – layered by shadows
Are at first possible, but then reproach us as impossible
Do you recognize the girl that first met this man?
She came from especially nowhere, but grew up in
A Since Possessed Dialogue.
An actor claimed to bury
This couple by adopting a lost and found attitude,
For hadn’t we lost the entire collective generation decades earlier?
Mysteriously, whether we believe the story or not
All this says is that 1953 underpins a reality.
In this power play there exists
A fifties world in which was born
The first woman, C. Mehrl Bennett
Who wrote the following poem:
GOING TO MANONG
The WHOLE of St. Louis is, like,
At a LOSS,
Like a LOSER,
Chain smoking
We’ll have
NO CHILI
NO CHOCOLATE
NO NADA tonight!
C. Mehrl Bennett
Note: I performed the original composition from August 2013 at 100,000 Poets for Change” event at Tribes gallery in NYC on October 28, 2013 in NYC; the “Going to Manong” [poem within the poem] was drastically shortened for this revised version from January 2016… the original unedited version was posted previously in this blog. I edited it for submission to a publication coming out this year.
**Performance for two with audience participation.
One person, the barker, is responsible for shouting out the BOLD TYPE phrases,
and the audience repeats whatever the barker shouts out.
The other person performs the rest of the text and joins with the barker in
shouting the final series of BOLD TYPE, which the audience will echo,
and hopefully after both people stomp there feet at the end,
the audience will also imitate that action! [..which is exactly what happened
at the performance in August 2016 during Day 3 of MINNEDADA84 at MCBA auditorium]
**DADA LEGS MIRTH
WHY HISTORY? ART HERE
NOW WINDOW LOST
WHY DO COLLAGE? OIL SKY
SALE HOLE LEFT
WHY A EYE? REAL HISTORY
DO DATE LEG
NOW WHY ICE? SKY LOST
EYE STOP WINDOW
WHY A EAR? ART NOW
HEARS LOST FARTS
STOP THE SEA? FOUND LEG
COLLAGE LOST TODAY
YIN A YEAR? REAL YANG
SALE OF EYE
WHY WORDS NOW? FOUR LEGS
FLOAT IN SEA ICE
WHY OIL MIRTH? REAL SKY
FOR SKY YET
DO LEGS MIRTH? SEA LEFT
COLLAGE WAVES A STORY
WHY HISTORY? ART HERE
ART NOW
SEA LEFT
REAL YANG
REAL HISTORY
REAL SKY
OIL SKY
SKY LOST
FOUND LEG
FOUR LEGS
[stomp feet]
C. Mehrl Bennett
Jan. 13, 2016, revised 8/19/2016
SHOPPING LIST
Do Not Buy Fruit
rubber stamps
or a gun
Do Not Buy Olives
dentures
or a photograph
Do Not Buy Fish
shoes
or a hat
Do Not Buy Bread
books
or a cat
Do Not Buy Envelopes
bushes
or a suitcase
Do Not Buy A House
stamps
or a bus ticket
Buy Art Instead.
C.Mehrl Bennett
Jan. 3, 2013 (Revised Jan. 13, 2016)
n i e z h f p l t s u
(the following poem uses only these eleven letters)
zip in zen she felt
i feel hip
zine lists fine snips
slit pine tile peel
senile penis hit flies
isle sent file
lets help teens fit the line
he is feet fuzz
pile hen pelt lept
his hell left this
puzzle lit flute pen
hi ’tis shit nuts
tin huts fizz sez she
C. Mehrl Bennett – March 2, 2015
Two Montevideo Cinquains
MUSIC
Piano sounds
Chicken crossing the road
The documentation is a
Seed trail
Cone shaped
Trees on a line
“From ear to ear” means that
Possibly you will sleep before
Xmas
C. Mehrl Bennett – Nov. 11, 2013
THE BELL
The bell
Gland drizzling out
On a greasy bongo
Floating far out on the drunk bay
Window
John M. Bennett and C. Mehrl Bennett
Feb.23, 2013
Six Collaborative Cinquains
Corn tome
Inside the boat
Kayaking in circles
Shoulder banging against the wind
Popcorn
Reboot
The hammered foot
A dulcimer shoe bag
Toeing the line lining the toes
Hot sock
Off shirt
Loose in empty
And butt barely hairy
Shaving backwards toward the drain
target
Saunter
Solder soldier
Sweating in the bathroom
After finding grapes and gravel
Gritty
Darvon
So dart it off
The loopy poolside
Super fooling slowly folding
Your neck
Just lick
Your salty lips
Salt licks where blind hunters
Smoulder in the tent with hamsters
Sleeping
Edward Lense, John M. Bennett, C. Mehrl Bennett – Sept. 21, 2013 – These cinquains were published as a TLP [tacky little pamphlet] by LBP [Luna Bisonte Prods]
Six (more) Collaborative Cinquains
Trailing
Sipping quincunx
Floating head mice ladder
Walk the talking titmouse to the
Iced hat
Dead saints
In the buckets
Well placed in a circle
Multi-red-spin fulminating
Cheese root
Swoll drut
Tear the finger
Drum the forkѐd link bit
Bit the hot lint sausage hymn
Doldrums
Pink ink
The throne swallowed
All the people at once
Crinkling post-haste wanton twice the
Suit Shot
Same wurst
Dance the knocking
Turnip nipped the frog spawn
Locker dripping through the keyhole
Drip Drip
East West
Reft lightning trips
The looter sign shining
Muskrat tunnels under the bank
Of weft
Camille Martin, John M. Bennett, C. Mehrl Bennett – November 2012 – These cinquains were published as a TLP by LBP
RINGER
Ringer
Tones developed
Inside the red phone booth
Of superman with snail toes
Burping
Ample
Coffee toffee
Lays on the car hood as
She breaks all the LP’s from the
Trailer
I sit
On a tree stump
In the beauty parlor
As balls of lint float in the pink
Hair dye
Paisley
Bow tie on foot
Where’s yer before shrieker?
Inside a box under the dock’s
Big toe
Who’s yer
Worldly wisened
Anguished pal; Is he a
Hip duck diode with no dick to
Paddle?
Paddle
On the other
Side of this sandbox full
Of silver cats as a dead dog
Lingers
C. Mehrl Bennett 2015
* RINGER was first published in THE INAPPROPRIATED PRESS, Issue# 1, editor: Olchar Lindsann, Monocle Lash anti-Press, Nov. 2015, Roanoke, VA
COMPOSITION FOR NINE VOICES WITH TWO INCIDENTAL SECTIONS
is a score for Sound Poetry integrating image, vowel sounds, wind chimes, and two “incidents”.
Click HERE to watch a video on YouTube of a performance of this score. The link is to a video by Paul Baker of a 2010 performance by Be Blank Consort (BBC) members. These were volunteers from writers/performers gathered together for The Ohio State University Library’s [Special Collecions Dept.] Intnl. Avant Writing Symposium, and most of them had performed previously in other venues in the USA as BBC members.
At my direction and with copies of the score, nine of them performed using vowel sounds and windchimes, while another person counted to twelve, and two others performed “incidents”. I was able to enlist Keith Buchholz and Reed Altemus to perform short Fluxus events for the incidents. The score is based on linear shadows in my photo of a public bathroom wall, digitally manipulated with ten and a half measures indicated.
C. Mehrl Bennett 2009
This poem is titled “6500 Machine Diagram” & comes screaming behind me
In front of me is a diagram fished out of a box now back in sentence form which rolls against a hat of snow
Yellow, magenta, and cyan cartridges are attached but are dysfunctional right now
The transfer roll is spooled with paper from the Pope
Something called a fuser is part of the action with a black and white headshot of a transfer role – on a stamp
It is 4:30a.m. and fresh snow is going to close the door to the hallway
The heater is about two feet from my two feet
The air is beginning to warm up around my fingers through my own hoard of books and is worth reading before my husband
I should copy this diagram over various add & pass into another attitude
Print out this page and cut it into four, yellow, magenta, something that bends into envelopes with collaborations
After a xerox is processed the paper heads out
Does the Xerox company still make copy machines?
Mail crosses my desk and stuff
I wonder if that address still exists?
Meanwhile, my fingers are still getting cold, covering for the dull grayness of mid-February outside my window
I will need go through a bag of books to type these sentences out of the house
I will also need to winnow out the lemons – on a stamp
So of course I get distracted by Facebook!
I also need to organize my studio space upstairs into a xerographic drum which rolls against a hat of snow, and has been that way for months on end, but a tray will catch hold
The post office recently issued first class stamps that follow into attaching to paper by a young Elvis Presley, with his signature reproduced, but onto mail from the mid-1980’s
I had a dentist appointment this morning, though to a receiving tray
I had a full set of xrays taken six months ago while he stuck a camera in there
This new young dentist had me hold my mouth open and took digital photos
The images appeared on a screen in Xerox Square, Rochester, New York
My mouth is tired
My Dad is dead
So why don’t quarters rearranged themselves?
Whatever happens can playfully manipulate the wind and wear a hat of snow
A hat of snow A hat of snow
A hat of snow A hat of snow
C. Mehrl Bennett February 2016
- Stefan Brand Stifter will be using my audio recording of “6500 Machine Diagram” (and my image that goes with it) as part of his ANTIPODES ZINE SAMPLER with a sound CD… CLICK HERE to see diagram & hear audio
P O P SONG (performed in Columbus OH in 2015 and 2016)
admit one light a match
backup admit enter backwards
admission rate welcome canned words
discounted rate a radio announcer
preview films feet in cement shoes
advance to present [insert today’s date and time]
presentation mode write a song / sing it:
PRETTY PENCILS [1981]
Pretty pencils, sticking in my hair
Pretty pencils, sticking right at me
I’ve got pretty pencils… sticking
Out my nose
fast mode to the future question effectiveness !
rafting off the roof answer all charges
please take your seat mam!
I will now perform the event, titled: “NoBody’s Surprise”:
Blow up a balloon until it POPS
CLICK HERE to hear an audio of me singing these three nonsense songs.
(Copyright: C. Mehrl Bennett)
*NOTE: Earlier versions of some of these poems were published on this blog before.
MetaDada No. 1, THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DADA MINING, editor H. Michael Sanders, was published on May 15, 2016 by Elena Press, Cincinnati Ohio. May 15th, 2016, was the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first Dada journal, Cabaret Voltaire, editor Hugo Ball, Zurich, Switzerland, May 15, 1916. Two of the above poems (Shopping List and niezhfpltsu) appeared in MetaDada No. 1, in addition to two of my visual poems: Croatian Glyphs DADA and Forbidden Planet.
NOW GO TO THE METADADA WORDPRESS SITE by clicking HERE – C. Mehrl Bennett
ADDENDUM: See below for two more songs that I added to those above when I performed during Day Two of the MinneDaDa84 Fest in Minneapolis MN in August 2016. I had the privilege of being accompanied by Cassia Harding, a very accomplished violinist!
Tom Cassidy will be sending out documentation to all the mailart pARTicipants, but in the meantime, I can show you the photos I took on Day One of MinneDaDa1984 at Eat My Words Bookstore. Click on an image to view large. Ryosuke Cohen, of the famous 30+ year old BRAIN CELL project, was in attendance at MinneDaDa84!! I even got to sit for a bust version portrait by Ryosuke on Day Two of MinneDada84 at The Black Forrest Inn banquet room. A full body portrait of Ryosuke and a notebook of Tom Cassidy’s collected Brain Cells was displayed during an interview of Ryosuke on Day Three at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA). More of my MinneDada84 photos are at: 
Over the Sofa/ Under the Skin/ Inside the Head 