Xcp:  Streetnotes: Winter 2002
streetnotes  Winter 2002 xcp

 
 
Tyler Doherty

selections from...
Walkin’ Blues:
sketches riffs rants & ditties

 
“The idleness of the flâneur is a demonstration against the division of labour.”

            —Walter Benjamin The Arcades Project
 

Or again: haiku reproduces the designating gesture of the child pointing at whatever it is (the haiku shows no partiality for the subject), merely saying: that! with a movement so immediate (so stripped of any mediation: that of knowledge, of nomination, or even possession) that what is designated is the very inanity of any classification of the object: nothing special, says the haiku, in accordance with the spirit of Zen: this event is not nameable according to any species, its specialty short circuits: like decorative loop, the haiku coils back on itself, the wake of the sign which seems to be traced is erased: nothing has been acquired, the word’s stone has been cast for nothing: neither waves nor the flow of meaning.

       —Roland Barthes Empire of the Sign
 
 
 

…it is quite probable that the last quarter of the current century will go down in history as the Great War of Independence from Space. What happened in the course of that war was a consistent and relentless wrenching of the decision-making centres, together with the calculations which ground the decisions such centres make, free from territorial constraints—the constraints of locality.

      —Zygmunt Bauman Globalization: The Human Consequences
 
 

“…the sketch from nature, juxtaposition, and objective representation.”

        —Seishi Yamaguchi “The Words of Bash?”
30:III:01

Grimy pink bathtowel in a clump
on white tile of the entryway used to halt heat’s seep. Brass
hinges sound of 209 bus pulling

off to the north mud splattered
on dark brown door stains of

yesterday’s rain. Leaves skitter
(schoolgirls titter) windchime banter
voices over the drone

of laundry room fan. Cop car parked
in the apartment complex

driveway (These Premises Monitored
by Electronic Surveillance). Back-
wards from 26 numbers

countdown (Roger Roger 
Clearance Clarence) flashing red hand

eventually holds still
as the light turns from
green to yellow old boat

speeds up (deep guzzle) chugs through
the intersection in front of a white

car waiting to make a left. Four
foot nothin’. Right Lane
Must Exit. “Anybody

else want noodles?” Running
to catch the bus I realize it’s the wrong one

wave the driver on w/ an
apologetic look. Septum ring of the audio-
visual loan desk check-out guy. No

Exit. Bunch of sparrows
in tan coloured weeds. White

dog back & forth between
two people playing catch
with a Frisbee on the elementary

school’s newly sodded baseball
diamond (220 ft to straight away

centre). Flicker
drills against eavestrough—morning’s
mist still heavy over the mountains fog

over the back windshield immediately
begins to thin

at the touch of the defrost button
(small rectangular light
turns red to

signal that it’s
on.) Plastic debris caught 

in regulated waterfall—lids bags
pop bottles candy bar wrappers
stuck to the sticks
                     wedged against the flow.
 
 
30:IV:01

5 gallon bucket white plastic
w/ thin metal handle
loop rests ‘gainst its side (bus
passes me going the other way)
half shuffle of this woman’s

morning stroll (Mets cap Avalanche
sweatshirt w/ hood (down bunched behind
her neck) big aviator shades) an eyelash on
this page hard to tell where
those sirens are coming from.

Robin zips (how I imagine
Roadrunner in real life) across
the sidewalk pauses at lawn’s
edge  flies
into nearby cherry tree

in full bloom (petals
this morning on the ratty
doormat wake me up) knees creak
white snow of higher peaks a light breeze
shakes these tiny weeds.
 
6:V:01

Spilled coffee
fills the sidewalk cracks.
Bright sun on front fender

lone car at the end
of the street. You notice

what you’re looking for
consciously or not: Galapagos
natives literally couldn’t

see Darwin’s ship
because they couldn’t conceive

of a boat that big. Mildewed
spare tire cover below
the single curtained

window at the back
of the RV. Jet trail
high overhead. For

Sale By Owner. Sandbags
in the back of the black pick-up

over the wheels for traction.
Those who say “Good Morning”

to the bus driver vs those
who don’t vs those who call her
by name (“Daisy”). Some storm.

Sure is. Milk tag in the grit
by the chainlink fence. Squirrel

unearths a chestnut & nibbles
away w/ it between his paws I stick
my tongue out to write this—

pencil can’t keep up w/ the thoughts.
An itch deep inside the ear

even my pinkie can’t reach 
flash of a DC-10 as it wings westward
over the Rockies sun off its silver belly.

Pair of Port-o-lets in the shade.
Plunge pool after three days’ rain.

Dew
on
my shoe.
 
 
 


  (c)Tyler Doherty 2002

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