ALEKSEY DAYEN: Poems for NO!art site | New York on Jun 28:
A LULLABY
for Boris Lurie
"a mother sings a lullaby"
-Jack Micheline>
a mother sings a lullaby
the song about nights
in the Warsaw Ghetto
and about WW II
non-stop in concentration camps,
about sinking ships
that sailed to New York
and kissed the ugly toe
of a green-painted French lady,
about a small space in Brooklyn (Williamsburg)
and hours and years in the laundromat
and pennies for the pension fund,
about a junky daughter
and the death of a husband
in a bordello on Times Square
... and other little things>
a mother sings a lullaby
to her only son
killed by some black guy
in an anti-Semitic riot ...
LOBSTER
I had a lobster today
it smelled like death
but vodka at Lurie's house
prior to that smelled like
Chernobyl-Buchenwald-Heaven
New York ghetto
my past haunting me
fishing me out
from NY desert
like the bullet that flew
through my arm in
Chechnya in 1993
it's red dinosaur shit body
looks helpless angry
while my wife crashes it
into pieces that sells for
$12.95 plus tax
dead lobsters waiting
NO!look
Here or there
no difference all
I see
and feel
is a haunting past in every move stocked by solitude
and ghetto produced by Chernobyl and WWII, and
Moscow's flat, and Hebrew speaking great
grandma killing every essence of me in a carpet
surrounded small room with the essence of my
passport-no picture and a few lines as a mark of my existence.
Me-marked by a hotel of imaginary self-explanatory distortion.
And there she was-respect for beauty-sore eyes
surrounded by short black hair. No hair aligning itself
with eyebrows of sorrow. Eyelashes shooting desires
straight into the skies. New machine age.
Piece of shit vomited body-not so human-
more alive than Mr. or Mrs.-trigger resolving wishes.
There she stood-ribs shooting out there-killing
dead Eva-pinkies aligned with shoulders.
Devils in my head abnormally taking my muse for a ride
fucking her in the ass with a bottle of absinth.
Name it.
Call it despair.
She stood there naked hugging her vagina and thinking
no imagining what I imagined without intercourse.
It takes a man to say NO.
It takes an animal to shut up.
I've been told that she's good looking,
knowing that she's the best one-
presenting her pussy as an accordion to play with-
just note and push.
That's what life is about-push alive.
My life-is hunting-to kill-kill my past,
my father inside of me.
Killing (the past makes present and future alive).
Any day
I've made a killing
waiting to see it happen.
related ► Aleksey Dayen Poems
AMIKAM GOLDMAN: Benefit show | New York | June 11:
BENEFIT NIGHT FOR YUKO SUETA @ ROTHKO, ON THE 12th, SUNDAY !!!
"I recently found out that I have breast cancer. They call it as cancer stage 4. The cancer has already spread to lymph nodes, bones and lungs. I’m going to take chemo therapy and radiation therapy soon. But I feel like it’s not enough to beat my cancer. I’m ready to take a bunch of alternative treatments. Your donation for this benefit show will go to these treatments. Also I would like to share the joy of living through the music with you on this night. Yuko Sueta June 3rd/05 "
Yuko is a dear dear friend of mine. We spent many many hours together while i was living in New York,(well we were roommates first for half a year). Yuko has a real soul, she's a saint who cares for people, you can tell from her sweet smile. She is a great writer and a true experimental filmmaker & photographer (if you've seen some of her beautiful photos that were hang in 'Natori' the Japanese restaurant on st. marks place, you would know what i mean) she helped me a great deal with my documentary film "NO!art Man", she shot few scenes in the movie, while I was interviewing Boris & Gertrude.
this cursed cancer is so unfair...

please show your support and love, she needs it all !

Thank you, Ami G.
MARTIN LEVITT: Working with Boris | Essex Junction on Jun 4 | Working with anyone who survived the death camps is a tricky business. They are always looking for some danger and making maneuvers to screw you up. I have been a friend and even did work for Boris. It was for cash on the barrel head. I am willing to entertain Boris, feed Boris, help Boris; but business deals are only done with me in charge. After the war I found that the survivors of concentration camps had very abrasive and difficult personalities. There is no one who could go through that type of regime and life and come away unscathed. It didn't matter if you were French or Russian or Scandinavian; you were never normal again. You were a survivor! Kicked and beaten when you were a innocent puppy. Essentially Boris is a generous and affectionate human who lives with a huge number of hideous, emotional scars.
When you do any business with him you must set up all the boundaries and rules in advance. As a result I have a great relationship with him. He has been a good and loyal friend and knows exactly what he has to do to deal with me. Boris probably thinks that I am a combination of irascible and feebleminded. He fancies he knows how to deal with me. GOOD!
But never forget he is intelligent and creative and that is a precious quality in a friend.
You just have to laugh at his occasional pernicious forays.
love, Martin>
Two months have passed since your operation. I hope that you have survived everything reasonably well and wish you a speedy recovery for the future. Please stay with us for NO!art even longer.
Your letter of January 10 was very sad. So you are still with René Frank until the 66 Street is renovated. Matthias had just been with you for a week and told me briefly about his experiences on the phone. His impression was not exactly joy-inspiring.
The NO!art is going ahead. I work every day on the publication in the Internet. You have already received some pages from Kim for viewing. Actually I had prepared a printout of your part on the Internet in book form. Only something changes constantly, so that the copy for you is not finished yet. Meanwhile the NO!art contains about 3800 files on about 800 pages. And about seventeen thousand people visit NO!art on average per month. I am still missing for the archive numerous data to Sam Goodman and Stanley Fisher as well as supplementing to your part.
To do this, it is necessary to complete the information on the spot with your help. Therefore, I would like to come to New York with my computer and scanner for four weeks in either April or May. The airfare is currently 467 Euros round trip from Berlin, which would have to be paid from the "art studio work" account. Please let me know if this is possible and if the apartment on 77th Street is free then.
In the meantime Inga Schwede had been with me, who was the curator of the NO!art symposium at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Leipzig. She is now writing an exam thesis about you and has to finish it by the end of February. I have collected some material for her information. However, some documents are still missing, which have only been mentioned in bibliographies so far. This includes the following:
O’Doherty, Brian: Three Studies in Free Association, in: New York Times, Nov. 1961
Manville, Bill: Boris Lurie, March Gallery, in: Village Voice, 16. Juni 1960
Kelly, Edward, T.: A Review of Neo-Dada, in: Art Voices, April 1964
De Kooning, Elaine: Doom belongs to Dada, in: Village Scene, Vol. 1.1962 (20. 03.)
Kelly, Edward T.: Neo-Dada, A Critique of Pop Art, in: Art Journal XXIII, 3/1964, S. 194
Boris Lurie: Violence without Caprice in NO!art. In: Leonardo, 7, London 1974
Rothschild, Lincoln: Violence and Caprice in Recent Art. In: Leonardo, 5, 1972
Perhaps some of these articles can be found when I am with you.
In your letter of January 10 you enclosed a copy of an article John Strausbaugh wrote in the New York Press in 1994 under the title "Lost Art". I want to publish this article on the NO!art page on the Internet. Unfortunately the copy is not complete. Some text is missing. Did you get the copy from Clayton?
On December 2, I cancelled my phone company to sign up with another one. As of yet, I do not have a re-registration confirmation. I hope this will come in the next few weeks so you can fax me again.
I just found out that Eckhart and Sybille want to visit you from February 5 to 12. You see, they are all thinking of you.
I wish you a speedy recovery
With greetings from Dietmar