Copyright © 2019 by Ralph Robert Moore.

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Back in October, 2015 I posted a Lately titled, "EAP: RRM Remix", where I created a series of poems based entirely on words found in Edgar Allen Poe stories.

I've now decided to visit remixing again, this time using the works of Donald Barthelme.

The rules I've created for my remixes are as simple as raindrops bending back speckled green leaves.

Each poem must be based on a single short story by the author being remixed.

The poem can only use words found in the story's text.

The words selected for the poem must appear in the same sequence as they appear in the source story. For example, if 'forgiveness' appears in a story, and 'machine' a few words or sentences or paragraphs later, in my poem remix I can write 'forgiveness machine', but I can't write 'machine forgiveness', because that would place the selected words out of sequence.

I can add, delete, or change punctuation however the fuck I want.

Below are RRM remixes of seven Donald Barthelme stories. After the poems, I list the stories from which the poems were culled.

If you'd like to do a remix of an author, go for it. It's a lot of fun.

This was the situation, then--muted heavy grays and browns
for the most part, contrasting with the walnut and soft yellows.
There were reactions. For example, in certain streets,
the performance of unnatural acts. Daring children jumped.
There was pleasure to the city's flat, hard skin;
the underside was a pleasure to look up into,
while this man was thinking 'sullied'.
I admire the way you bruise the tulips.
"I'll be at that place where it dips down into
warm, soft, lazy passages." What was admired
was a bulge, blister; an army's movements on a map,
awaiting some other time of unhappiness.

I better play a few notes out of this window here.
You from outa town or something? That young
Japanese fellow is pretty, bent over like that
even before he was fully in. I was tired.
Maybe that's presumptuous? It's a hideous
thing to contemplate, like the cutting edge of
life, like polar bears crossing Arctic ice pans.
Somebody is getting a glass of water.

I corrected a pronunciation, hoping that
the ape was real. The two sisters were looking
at worms. I was surprised, like an egg.
It's just one of those things. I want to stay.
Both bathrooms are tied up, whistles and drums.
You have said worse things. The older faculty
are more comfortable with you. Can the life
of the time be caught in the meadows?
And where are all the new people?
I too could be excited by this cage.

I think he forgets a lot of things. An account
of an earthquake in Chile, with its thousands
of dead and homeless, may depress him for weeks.
He memorizes the terrible statistics. At lunch, people
tell you things. Well, how much time do you need? Neatly
dressed in a manner that does not call attention to itself.
Maybe it comes from something in his childhood.
The variations have to be taken into account.
The children are crying. His flat black hat, his black cape,
his sword are on the shore. He stands on the bank, gasping.

I have never visited him, but he has described the
figure of a grasshopper. "Our behavior is mocked
by the behavior of dogs." A little door at the rear
of the Opera. In the early years of our friendship
I proposed advances in surgery. One is never too old,
I said. Sixty-five is not after all the end of one's life!
He shows me in a book pictures of faces with terrible burns.
He has had no intercourse, myself excepted. Violent emotions
of revenge and jealousy. Into the neutral space
between us, a shining scalpel. Am I not slightly relieved?

The first thing I did was love you every day.
A big thumb continues to commit suicide.
My daughter demands the shrimp boats lower
a book called Humorists of the 18th Century.
The King of Jordan has lost his job. I stroke
her buttocks, getting angry, roaring and stomping
on the stairs. The unemployed Laredo toolmaker
took off its pajamas, drained. Strands of raven hair
floating on the surface of the Ganges. Why can't they
clean up the moonlight? Shouldn't something be done about it?
The good paper napkins are talking about capitalism.
A flower is not a bad thing: 'The bullet wrapped in sugar'.

We'll pay you to be on TV. I see you're a sculptor.
Is there nausea? That's a very good beginning.
Two little ones would move much faster than
a single huge big one. The kitten crying for milk
feels the arts should be encouraged, a sandwich
made hastily and without inspiration. The three girls
from California arrived. Do you love your mother?
Arthur fishing around inside his pajamas for a handkerchief.
"She wanted a son who could break boards with his feet."
In this kind of world, turn off your television sets.

Source stories:

The Balloon
King of Jazz
The Party
Robert Kennedy Saved From Drowning
The Phantom of the Opera's Friend
The Rise of Capitalism
Shower of Gold