mi•me•ot•ix

An Electronic Mimeozine
of Experimental Poetry

Issue One
Spring 2010
1
 mi•me•ot•ix
Table of Contents
Poems by Sheila E. Murphy
Sotto Voce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Pause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Fallen Stalks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Play Through . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Poems by Amy Dupcak
remains… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Aroma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Chronic State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
Quick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
For the Doctor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Poems by John M. Bennett
draeg & fhog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
boane & norr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
runk & thurds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
YAXCHE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
CORONA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Bios. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

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 Sotto Voce
When you told me to stop snoring, I replied that I already had.
An echo in my psyche prompts beneficent neglect. Once you interrupt
my heart, it takes inventory of itself, yourself, myself . . .
The unlisted status of intentions prompts my notice of an absent
flower’s seasonal indulgence. I pet my history, and flex my memory to
match.
The old town feel of innocence resurges so that relatives and friends
can find me in a scope.
The scope of hillside interrupts the center of retention.
“I saw you when I touched the play button on my corresponding point
of reach.” The land is handsome, or it fastens me to plaster of “Paree.”
Minding manners means an overload of arch conspiracy. How many
fireplaces does it take to need a built-in bookshelf?
Sky’s the limitation we can veer toward to grill, to grieve, to grind to
halting status.
On the opposite side, I memorize my small world view, “huge
closet.” Stifle yourself, said the incumbent patriarch.
Lose the weeds in your square garden. Gamble your lifeline, traipse
along the seashore, render under chefs requisite anger to wield
instruments that frost.
In another lifetime, one of us retained Cleveland in a mental state to
be dismissed, allowing for no place to go away once the dismissal had
begun.
”I think I need some time.” How do you interrupt the flow you have
invested in, without growing (accustomed to another yield”?
My soul requires a sense of grasp. My lore befalls bed rest. “Sweet
baby,” you replied. “I used to order hot roast beef, covered over with
dark gravy, and a side of mashed potatoes.”
I have honored how you lived throughout my days. I hear your story,
then I breathe however you pronounce it. I discern your fragrance that
infuses every moment of the distance between sadness and opacity.
Things grow clear when I relax my worry. Features start to equal
benefits. “Did you notice the vast acreage?”

3
Warmth connotes containment. When you ask yourself about my
inclination, I can offer a full view of speech and sentiment.
Maybe there are moments to reframe our sentence structure to ensure a
lifeline for the dots yet unconnected. Will a world become reflexive
line of sight, or will the overtones be minutes in a string of how one
works to feel the plot become absorbed away
[Shift of emphasis when I turn over to complete the dream of voice
belonging to twin lives still shared across]

4
 Pause
Quiet again.
Close to heartbeat
with eyes closed,
rhythm turning melody.
Wildflower season, February.
Thin limbs hold tiny flowers
peaceably at roadside,
the lilt of fresh breath
sweetened daylight
offers threads of light.
There is softness in perceiving
first things late,
the body less inclined
to shout itself into supremacy.
Stillness seen, washed to self.
Each daylight, gift,
one moment at a time.
The only matrimony enlists
the channel life is on
to match silence.
Now a delicate rejoinder
to the teeming rain.
Lifeline, a gut string
brushed to its harmonic.

5
 Fallen Stalks
Lottery loyalty frames me. Give us this (dram) light, our daily
happenstance. As we forgive loco-maturation off the cuff links of
contrario. All pepper shaken across whole containment. Beltway canteen
lacks nascent streams. Want to overtake the mood of the majority? For
sale: one used life, still gentle. Overcast delirium repeats ourselves.
“This is my cadre.” Sample size a case of smiles. People have begun to
hurt the confluence of rude plain spokes. What comma fallen comes to
be immediate blitz of correspondence (matter of course). Blasphemy
alerts us to a moon. Look up when we were dormant. Whine and whimper,
buried in the fine print was the single good idea. I have loved the
skeins of salt where feeble spindles traded folk. I want to dry my room
when rains approach. I want to notify the desert of an opportunity to
acquire lanes for de facto walking. Chapped licks, north upon the
storage shed. The various immersion strikes mean deeper than a blouse.
A wave, a waiver, ruffian incumbency. Whom do you determine trust can
be made altogether offspring in a merchant’s house. A macular
degeneration noticed upon firelight. Symptoms of raised rates,
reproduction, actuarial infiltration, once or more.
Lip sync mainstay in a bundle of détente when windows have been false
against the stains

6
 Play Through
Sequester free time (with
Flotilla of fresh flowers meant to be
Tenacity (hushed tincture
With threnody or
“Husbandry” (along terrain
Concomitant entreaty
Timing as nuisance variable (all alone
In wooded patch
In capsule form (thought
Strapped to waylaid pilgrims
Versus (overflow
Amounting to an undertaking no one
Underage (and over-armed
Can cancel “do you ready me”
To rapt enclosure (Can I
Posture, pasture, preach
To your opinion (do you
Correspond with ease
Do your own (launder
Recency and
Strategies (exemplified by
Commendable with
Capsized frames (now empty

Sheila E. Murphy

7
 remains…
asymmetric eyes, world-wind theory,
FDA puppets on TV...

I suck and suck

'til I'm too tired for much, but
(re)recording. (what a cheat!);

martyrdom
in Spain, sound wave therapy;
UFOS in paintings, Jonah and his tree...

I bleed and bleed

internally…it’s never enough for the X-ray machine.

[Jupiter houses
one thousand orange earths,
three in his acidic storm.]

I whine
and whine
'til he watches me; dry mouthed. faking.

"oh! I cannot curse it away!"

cannot (re)learn to eat.
radio beams shadows;
(shadows of birds).

and "oh, stop being wallow-y";

gravity pulls the rainbowed-
stream, down my distanced leg.

I need
and need:
an exorcism? altruism? sitcoms. sex. east
Asian medicine; cure the symbolic rock in my right kidney?

fuck: another
ambulance, needle, unanswered sigh;

8
"push for emergency" ride, et cetera...

okay, it’s easy.

I'm too old (or too young)
for latex gloves.

[tennis balls, like balance beams, forget

diet Coke, forget New York City.]

"please, stop breathing, hummingbird" but

water sits idly. air drips nimbly
through cluttered tunnels
and goose-bumped bone.

I die and die

dramatically, flailing in allergic skin:
no poetry, no aspirin, no
peptic pink solution.

we are elevator conversing;

(infomercial sunrise) ex, oh
and "oh, we’re wasting..."

(a bullet breaking sound –)

“brain time;"
I’ve got tissues, anti-epileptics, beeswax chapstick and
pills pills pills ...

I lie
and I lie a little more, and
beg for ways to

[break me ?
meaning: distract me tenfold?]

ignore;
doors fall open when I sleep.

9
 Aroma.
sink
into a shrinking body :
stale water trapped in drain pipes
during an august drought;
California?

I find myself
tipped into
old trends,
unintended-ly;

I tap
the keys – my fingerprint
paddles; or little
piano-key hammers. I cheat
at everything;
fuck where I sleep
eat where I run, &
don’t get me started on narcissism :
I voyeur my collarbones’ shape.

come,
I’ve forgotten to focus my astigmatism;
these jeans smell ,
the stray rain.

I’m
rather easy to please

10
use words, &
objects that cram oxygen;
Plath wrote of balloons
because they hover,
or die silently wheezing? I
write of balloons
in envy – prisms,
(spectral!)
white glean light.

∙ ∙ ∙

Chronic State
As the barometric pressure
drops
(into my lap), a runaway balloon
traps
itself
in the confines of my cranium.

Oddly, the
atmosphere
is quite hospitable
[somewhere]
between vascular network
and bone.

And, when you first

catch sight

11
(of me)
blind
yet again, you might see
inside
the confines
of this conic indecision.

Oddly enough,
colors and
caffeine
didn’t used to erupt
[somewhere]
behind nerve cell
and spine.

And, as the prophet may

speak
(to the sinners), my terrified pulse
leaps:
vertigo’d convulsion
in the confines
of an artery.

Oddly,
I can predict
the weather now,
static
[somewhere]
between sky and tree

12
cordially zip-zaps
vertical synapses

And, as you
catch your
last
little cold, (or breath)
I’ll be the first girl to
carve
feeble names
into stone, or step,
in the confines
of the unforeseen.

13
 Quick
do I get bonus points
for a bigger mess,
a blatant cry
or a blaring fuck you?
how’s about some old fashioned
masochism
for good measure?

(fold the napkins

into swans and
call it creation)

my oh my
mistakes exist
in capsules or tablet
form, lost under my bed,
I’ll absorb
your free-radicals
as payback

hey, double-check
the facts, first –
antibiotics
might nauseate,
triptans might convolute
an already cluttered brain
(or backseat)

14
certainly,
codeine will sleep deprive
after lucid dreaming,
vivactil
will muck it up
(you basket case!)

me? I’m used

to feeling –
attempts to
fascinate
and enlighten: I’ll
dis-collect every penny spent
on the quick fix

(sit still and hold

your breath until
the choking kicks in)

hey,
they were only trying
to help that
same old pain (in the head), and
antigens might re-close
dismembered parts

instead, bodies, baby,

drum-roll and
deep-sea-dive

15
(into oncoming trains) / either way,
your tactile gut
will soften up

(real nice)

my deepest dis-
regards,
regrets and dis-
illusions for time and money mis-
spent and ailments mis-diagnosed
(all wrong!)

when side effects take hold,

you might find yourself sunken
and dry:
marred
manic, irreconcilable
damages

(this and that

knick and knack,
kiss your tongue and call it love)

forget your friends and family,

forget your habit and
malfunction:
drink poisons
with pretty labels

16
 and draw spirals
to mimic the golden rule:
the cure-all.

∙ ∙ ∙

For the doctor:

i take blood tests even though i'm anemic, i go for xrays at 10 in the
morning, i ask questions, i listen closely, i take the train, i open wide,
i give them the "good arm," i let them bruise and pinch and poke, i wear
paper gowns, i step on cold scales, i let them touch my spine, elbows,
neck, kidney, ovary, hold still!, i accept blankets, i ignore screaming
babies, i fake smiles, i grit my grimy teeth, i listen through
headphones, i read yellowed books and magazines, i wait and wait and
wait and wait and wait, i drive to chappaqua and say hi to the
gardener, i watch them take notes, i let them make fun, i write poetry,
i stare at the ceiling, i bring an extra sweater, i freeze and sweat and
bleed, i pee in a cup, i dissolve tablets under my tongue, i tell them
any little thing they want to know, i wear fun socks, i wear good
underwear, i write on myself, i offer up my every breath, i hold back
tears, i full-body spasm, i sit on the floor, i touch my toes, i roll my
tennis ball, i take off all my clothes, i call my family, i call my
friends, i spit, i swallow, i wash, i wipe, i let it sit, i pay and pay
and pay some more, i become friends with the nurse, i accept sexual
harassment, i sit knees up, i point to wherever it hurts, i shower and
shave, i brush my hair, i give them that "i hate you" glare, i am quiet, i
am difficult, i am unobtrusive, i am complex, i am young, i am old, i do
not understand.

Amy Dupcak

17
 draeg

fonofoto
zloom
oOoOoOo
utter an clutter
“hings”

fhog

missetd th e a
ir
a colgar
j j j j j j
lodt caga

18
 boane

munder mooud
loang cow
OoOoOooo
creEep ym
daeh

lackwords

norr

doc addter
cccame an
beets ///

)falll(

19
 runk

lodst uh T
tTtTt
scape em floorr
_._._

thurds

snagke them
negck
~..~..~

pleese the floorrr . . .

20
 YAXCHE

Ore I gathered ::::: spelt ¬. shoe fo

sp

Am ::so :d:u:s:t:y: so wet an rUgged a

||L||a||d||d||e||r|| follllowedd )me( soMe fome p

uzzled .l.i.n.t. cllusterredd at my bA

ck || your s. П.uit clOuddy your aRm a th

n
r-e-a-d--— stu g beneath the soUp ah

·· S···—
=~plaSh~==

at caVe

s SkY ˚˚

below a Pencil i spitting at my walllll

or lap

.the lightning’s SOap the TrUdgiNg up a hill

or bONEs of sayball T ree my cLocking MO

Ụth said you were gagging on a Ball

·O·O·O·O·O· an siNKing in the clOwns an d

inking in the leAVes down “
r THERE” ~ ˚~

21
 CORONA

i
dr ll uh
ºne||ckº

• O•
o

flOOd mEat cRawing dOWn the //s/l/o/p/e// c

lutch ¬my¬ foott runnnnninngg at you pas

i .H.ested puZZle
t t off h gh ˚˚air˚˚˚ my c

tHought you Offff o O my reeking ggre

aSe my L eeak cofffee in my arm ——=pit’s

NOStrill that’S yoUr misist ·:·:·out·:·:· si
de ·:·:·:· the ·~· rottin g croWn Myour M
Ụ
··ttered··

ii iiiiii
iiii hair

B
right
lliiccee

·········
···
John M. Bennet

22