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Bruce Andrews



A Lifetime of Enthusiasms


[  SPOILER  ]

intellectual treasure hunt

night spins 

invites slow looking  

gizmo head-snapping in a bubble 

can’t think of a pink elephant

nonsensical big nothing theory 

mugged by reality

I LOVE CAPTIONS  

on the vaporetti of cinematic time loops

never understand it — that’s why you remember it

dreamer’s big mistake goes viral

lopsided spin-OFF 

from this presumpumptive vanish point

in soft-landing scenario —

optimists to the end

special recap 

our middle name in verseverse

this is f-ing Crazy

smell desperation 

of everything for everybody

surreptitiously illegal kooky quantum leap

staccato’d the X

name-drop World Gone Mad 

Exhibit A-Hole

Metatheory is hiring 

emphasis on ‘if’

writing into the future —

whiplashy

plot device ? 

WE STAND FOR ANYTHING

[ CONSEQUENCES ]

follow orders — hahahahahaha.

may seem farfetched

enough / maybe / enough

as if it’s a phantom limb

teeny error, straight misdirection 

joins the wish list 

we are one another's problem

abandon ship —

money is all pretend  — 360 degree photography

Wanted Dead or Alive going to extremicize

go go gadget 

LEMMINGS — the video game

thigh-spacer or butt-spacer  

declare a war on gravity

Pleasure = Pleasure

‘oops’ — fox chews off its own trapped foot

if this happens / if that happens 

a whirlpool stress test

hello, goodbye & everything in between 

your own discombobulated non-self

& transformed into an intimate gathering space

It Don’t Worry Me 

you are my boarding pass

just swinging when it counts 

ay-yi-yi 

maybe I forgot to push GO

their woulda shoulda —

creature tempo / bent in bed

just like that, bingo —

peek, peek, touch, rub  

doesn’t jiggle jiggle

parachuted in heart failure brand 

use pillowcases to catch the air

& broadjumps to get a vasectomy 

to decapitate or insolventilate

kicky-kicky-slap-slap 

nobody gets buttered

wobbly whipsaw moves on one leg

movement makes lubrication 

prefer finger flip 

iffy knee-jerk 

Turn Back Time

attach jumper cables to your nipples

just the word blowhole is a poem by itself

All hell is going to break loose

crash the party — as self-assassination

instead of drooping down into old age

the miniatures zip it  

it’s finger lickin’ gone

(noise) (noise) (inaudible) (noise) (noise) (noise)

cherry bomb ! 

real, real bad — looks so busted

romper room — ooze it or lose it

like the cats bringing in the dead mouse

it’s always somebody else’s fault

id control that went for the throat

#  # / strap in

hopes that help

your big catchphrase — uninaminimity

break the noose 

& you are my collateral

could’ve doesn’t count

casting some Pollyanna Pinheads

SantaClausification 

why can’t it be like it is on television ?

who are the pawns / who are the knights & rooks / who are the bishops & queens

Dumb Quixote 

sure thang 

you always need backup 

so much fun !

S Y L F — statues you'd like to fuck.

you cannot throw yourself a surprise party

Houdini of 

cash, now — stand back, stand by

don’t have to worry about you, but like to worry about you

the closer they get to bodily harm, the more intriguing the music (soundtrack) gets

‘surrender posture’ 

smash-and-grab

even the GPS Tracker on your butt is enjoying itself

smackdown — shake your money maker for tinker bell

whackadoodle lit da fuse 

or punch me with a judybat

takes us back . . .  way back 

last whiz bang hurrah

let it happen / let it happen

dancing with a cut-out

the ‘so far’ scorecard on the installment plan

lemme show you — the future has no index

scene queen

& AGAINST (rhymes with) EVERYBODY

No Control —

best

night

ever

party —

“You Made This World We Didn’t”




Note: This text is from a recent ‘neo-Benshi’ performance with long-time partner/collaborator Sally Silvers ‘moving’ & ‘theatricalizing’ with props to a short clip from the 1963 film It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World’s climax, the night before an all-day conference on John Ashbery’s Tennis Court Oath.


Poet, performance writer, theorist, and sound designer Bruce Andrews has published more than 30 books, including Designated Heartbeat (Salt Publishing 2006), Swoon Noir (Chax Press, 2007), You Can’t Have Everything… Where Would You Put It! (Veer, 2011), and The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Letters: Selected 1970s Correspondence of Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, and Ron Silliman (University of New Mexico Press, 2019). His essays on poetics are collected in Paradise & Method: Poetics & Praxis (Northwestern University Press, 1996). Based in New York, he is Musical Director for Sally Silvers & Dancers.


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Founded in 2020, Three Fold is an independent quarterly based in Detroit that presents exploratory points of view on arts, culture, and society in addition to original works in various media, including visual art, literature, film and the performing arts. We solicit and commission contributions from artists, writers, and activists around the world. Three Fold is a publication of Trinosophes Projects, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in the historic Eastern Market neighborhood in downtown Detroit. Click here to check out Three Fold’s events page and view a schedule of the publication’s on-site activities.

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