Kevin Hernández Rosa
Untitiled Pinwheel
Utz cheese balls, epoxy, paper-mâché, steel mesh, steel, automatic air fresheners, found earring, found sticker, found dollar
2021

OLERST Suniverse

Soon, the inverse
of everything
in the details
glare of embedded
grit in slick coherence,
such glassed
disappearance
waits for us
in the sun, the act
of melting
you cleaved
off, flares of rejected
vision, visual itch looking
for the keys too closely
the heat
mounts in the mind
what shines in the bright
what intensity
concentrated
in shrinking parameters
a beam of focus trained
on unsurvivable
conditions
not a refined emergence
so much as it squeezes
everything around it
out of distinct
elseness– wanted light
on more light, smear on
magnified terrain
findings
burned off cloud cover to
expose what’s inside until it’s
the surface.

 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kevin Hernández Rosa
hovering hold
street sign, signposts, steel bracket, hardware, twenty-five Mercedes-Benz hood ornaments, black shoelaces, paua shell fragment
2021

Vowels

The room asking, it seems, you to breathe
and be careful about it. Vowels
on the walls, steam rising
off the ground, noxious language to match.
Like eyes have a half
stop, half-lidded the way I try to hold
my breath when I’m not underwater, things seep
in and scatter. I perceive
the porous edge as danger.

 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kevin Hernández Rosa
desublimated. effigy/monument
Sunn 410 SR speaker cabinet, packing tape
2021

Monument¹

But that’s Whalley you know
two or three kinds of haze and
you want to point to the trace
of its dusted horizons. One line
of rust around a car coated
with road stains, lifting time out.
Passed by these coagulants every
day, hardening: an inverted
table by the porch just exposed
to whatever. Iron rain along
the thin track of its frame.
Some days a dusting of snow
then a missing surface disappears
in long grass. It can hold something
up, even friably, so it splinters
under us. You can tape
down the sharp atmospheric, not
to sterilize the blade–rusted
like New Haven shining, I can’t even
separate it to inoculate the hurt.

 
 
¹ This poem references this video which kevin directed and I acted in, as well as the inverted frame in this piece

 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kevin Hernández Rosa
prayer
Virtual reality goggles, automatic air freshener, rusto, twist ties
2021

Recoil

But it’s a tint, little crinkle
over the eye, its virtual
blindness. Another layer of
the mask could reveal a grasp
then not, and alternate; somewhere
the air intervenes: what you meant
to see through for so long, but
couldn’t until you realized hands
wave at what’s calling
from a different plane. The dripping
sheet only severs seeing’s expectation
of clarity. We can
stand bereft when the mask
won’t promise to see us, a little ripped sky
could come between us: you
in the dark, me guessing what your
stagger suggest you might be seeing. Still
it’s a pretty veil! Medium we’d
communicate through so thick that we can’t.
Bridled air, streaming like shorelines
and the borders of our eyes.

upstaged glandular
exuberance (be wallow,

in tempt floer :

a is
barren)

the eye’s reticence, can
profligate. acceding event
(relegate : translucent) without

broach

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

recalcitrance / ostensive

welled, tips unbreaking an
exigent mercy to
cup;. alacritous, after

crests too
willingly⁃

 
(I’d)

baulked, as you kept
receiving flushes from a cracked
sounding, and my muscled uncinchings

draggedpertinent

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

chroma

why
when no cause
undisciplining flinch

thrust stillness, meek by alarm:
outskirts’ thrush,
siphoning from unfelt.

and a nod for return, One eye laps the other bird
in triplicate. I can’t hear
the sky cream toward zenith where

different from the glassy glaucous whip,
I’m stuck in flakes

prefixing the ‘this’ of my rapt, roughly,
though my embitterment
makes tolerable a hurt of
appearance

…

then I remembered ‘oh yes here’
‘hello’ that some part
was doing ‘this’ (looking / )

held, away and slightly,
each thought dismantles by
more obtusely following

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

landscape

the aggregate of so many fine lines⁃⁃a
strain of
imperceptible thinnesses, compounded

by the mauve hue’s osmotic
pull on dusk. rather, surcease: not subtracting
a hypotenuse, but relieving unseen distance.

indiscernment: iterative depletion; toward
/ abrogates

 
(or to gestate a near,

gestate by deferring return’s
incline:

near

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

route hole

if I move slot by⁃⁃
erratically so
stoked contractions ;

enshrouding bursts that take
particulate, that
make the stifled, retinal in-
take

lapse by overestimation

 
*
 

segments
recessed⁃⁃borne up⁃⁃

reticulation’s abeyance

accommodating my

stare

 
*
 

when regulated⁃⁃
culled purse⁃⁃
still,

incremental
rebounds: want

for desultory and
liability to⁃⁃
abridging, only

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

spring

erogenous

inability

to recover from (light), accelerating

doubt in
foreground.

survivability, gradating distances.

so face in tact, speaking, I desire.

before getting in the warm
car that made me sick
in a corrugation…

and before I did push-ups
on the rug with a blue cone pattern…

I took off my shoes beside the bed.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

need to

bough ⁃⁃ ; cinched of
flaccid prongs,until

diminution undifferentiates (don’t

proclaim)

i gird, upwardly borne
through ⁃⁃ or ⁃⁃ sideface of.

irri- imme-

in a way, rind
thinning, berate escarpment. film
berate, saddle hemming ⁃⁃

unprepared for flagrant
bestowals ⁃⁃ excelling my
practicality

 
 
.
 
 

 
 
.
 
 

sands over
northern minnesota
jane fonda

blue tarp over
10,000 lakes
fane jonda

carp foam
seized at the gate
sick honda

rows
fund the accumulant
chest protectors

multiflower rose
and catclaw, wait-a-minute
duck-cloth canvas fabric

craftin’ critters lists
a classical owl cup
acropolis

jury-rigs
line the driveway w
daylilies

 
 
.
 
 

 
 
.
 
 

 
 
.
 
 

Go on, chant.

dramatic monologue as Laurie Spiegel

sure it sounds like a dog in a prairie
but not the prairie dogs that say steve

but little prairie synths. they’re
synthing through the tall synth grass,

the color you see when you press on
your closed eyelids. it’s the sound of sewing

together synth rags into a quilted synth
and shaping whatever speaker you want. pretty

much the sound of cold synth boiled
over a synth bonfire. powerlessness doesn’t sound

like this. now who’s interposing is this country
being born, and if synth

versus analog tug of war will win.
modular systems are just like log cabins. random

access is taking the first bite
off a dish in the kitchen and getting away

or even better, cooking up your own
technician. eating the synth scraps,

what they call a chef’s treat. when
you don’t have a nested hierarchy,

truly synthetic, then the synth is person-personal,
the synth is built. the self wanders in and out.

 
 
 
**
 
 
 

dramatic monologue as Delia Derbyshire

in my best nightmare, I’m not a lizard
brain anymore. it’s not an antediluvian flood 

while I bob for basement windows.
no scaly godzilla tracking me through the maze.

the best is when I’m a red-handed
hatchet. I’m not scared of gunmen

or men. it doesn’t matter how slowly I walk
or what I wore to the office. I’m smashing

the exit sign. extinguisher boxes. breaking
for breaking’s sake.

I hesitate to sacrifice abrahamically and a fellow secret
agent gets it, closes the elevator door

on herself and two children, sending them to the ground
floor where there’s a fire I started.

my therapist asks why my expression
is so violent. she asks what happens to the children. I don’t know

and I don’t care. I don’t judge
in the dream. I have goals and I’m checking

boxes. she says I am 
the children. I am not. I’m me. she says 

I am the other woman,
I am the two children, this is the manifestation

of my psyche. it is all me. I am the burning 
building. like a good program, no one’s 

coming after me.

 
 
 
**
 
 
 

dramatic monologue as Mira Calix

you know when you’re one of them they used
to work the pilot light or the sax at the blade

runner clubs when you glitch in neoprene
and reject the capitol, capitalism

and neon tube all caps. really. what’s in a right
click? glowing ball-joints or peeping

potato eyes. the stubby sacks don’t know what externality’s going
to come up. are notoriously bad at concertina

and guessing. don’t remember the contropposto,
the negative space. the dappled beats.

Hovering

At the far end of your story,
just like that, an albatross
on trussed-up turf decanting
the ephemeral into
dust. Unfettered
handiwork. I waded in
to watch the strips of wall coming down.
Singed bits collapsing, flying.
Afterwards, it cost little to gaze
up at the black earth and imagine
it was once surrounded
by a velvet night.
Someone tacks sideways with painted rags.
We overturn the chairs one by one
tilted to the side of the wall, casting
no image. Only a triangle finds its way
into the steep light, growing larger.
Pluck one muscle, then the other,
the one at the center surrounding a lake.
It’s low and moves at a thousand paces per hour,
speech piling like straw on water.

 
 
 
**
 
 
 

Tumbleweed

Bisected the foothold
in small movements

scooping the earth
while automated shadows disperse across the concrete

a sideshow feast, the last tenants over which the night sky hung

of the things done there is no more
lapping left

having drained the aggregate half-lives
of their luster, the temperature of dusk denuded,
wrought-iron stations plied from the master’s desk

walk the deadwalk of loneliness or hunger

there is no witness for I/we as we recede in the frame, thrown against the corners,
comb through the dwindling reeds and their dried-over leaves matted at first blush

roughly asleep
light humming in the distance

– Is that a helicopter or a human?
 

next to the deafening performance of power
my occupation is to inhabit the clearing, unwind the wind,
its throbbing teeth detuned around

the abbreviated history of a future, shadowplay for the ages

as radiated tips of live wire burn
a hole in the ground: zone of transition, the sole remarkable source
scattering the unresigned, the undersigned

but the form dissolves before it can be grasped,
images on strike before an explosion

the memory of a piano’s broken music floats through a summer night
and oh, we crept before we walked

n. a dart, shaft, or arrow. Obs.

my mother’s ring in its box,
on a shelf, in a room
what a box, velvet-lined, what
a ring, a racket to cut
its glimmer comes for me on my
singlet shade
and you dress me in crystal
my ears pierced with sound

n. the plumage or feathers of a bird,
esp. the downy plumage; the downy part of a feather.

not the steering vane. the softer
plume for warmth. apparition favors breaking.
eggs. ochre sap. wax seal on a plum. stem. polly’s pocket.
champagne flute. crown. tension hitting a bank.
fray to fiber. promise? pattern. necks. news.
down. downing. downy chick.
covenant. chicka dee dee dee

n. the raised surface or nap on a fabric

quiet clutter quiet clutter
gently purple moss
velvet has loops has plied thread

achieving lush a line
and then another linelush
brought above the surface and cut
spreading fiber to fruit

have fruit do you have lush
how deep can you press
into the skin
running my hand
in one direction marking

a scape requires
more than one
color of thread put a strand of
tinsel in your nest, a strand
tensile in your proof

drive my bundles
to the junkyard, bring
kerosene for a
lusher flame

n. a heap, stack, or mass.
 

fustian therefore smoke wherefore fustian loop fustian
fustian here for heretofore loop softness fustian fustian
shimmer a lusher fustian texture fustian tumor a looser
forthwith thread fustian have I my fustian location fustian
mass quadrant have I fustian found my fussy loop to cut

v. trans. to fasten with nails. obs.
to fix or drive (a stake, etc.) in the ground. rare.

my mother planted things
sank them into
earth. round forms.
bulbs. a supplementary
warp makes the ground
softer. velvet. she wasn’t planted
preferred to be burned and cut
open. scattering over root,
dirt caught in a dead drift.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Claude Glass [a convex tinted mirror]

catalog. art. 1

box of cherry, inlaid with a thin band of lemon
horn frame, pleasing and useful for viewing
eclipses, clouds, landscapes, &c.

catalog. art. 2

“Objects are not presented with that depth, that gradation, that rotundity of distance, if I may so speak, which nature exhibits; but are evidently affected by the two surfaces of the mirror, which give them a flatness, something like the scenes of a play-house, retiring behind each other. The convex-mirror also dim-inishes distances beyond nature, for which the painter should always make proper allowance. Or, to speak perhaps more properly, it inlarges foregrounds beyond their proportion. Thus, if you look at your face in a speculum of this kind, you will see your nose magnified. The retiring parts of your face will appear of course diminished.”

—William Gilpin, Remarks on Forest
Scenery and Other Woodland Views, 1791

catalog. art. 3

ankles in gray water fingers in gray
water the self water a non-portrait
a lake in the palm
features retiring, of course tiring
compact
the clamshell holding its own
split in my pocket pearl-less

catalog. art. 4

varieties of -mancy [“divination by”]

catoptromancy [“mirrors”]
tainomancy [“the foil backing of mirrors”]
palmomancy [“thick ink in the hollow of the hand”]
perspiromancy [“salt trails”]
cartomancy [“cards”]
hydromancy [“water”]
nephomancy [“clouds”]
cucharomancy [“curve of the spoon, speculum of this kind”]
botanomancy [“leaves, herbs, and tree branches”]
retinomancy [“the reflective film of the eyes”]
respiromancy [“intake of breath”]
sophiomancy [“loving, left”]
photomancy [“death masks”]

catalog. art. 5

sharkskin, not marble but obsidian
rounded, shaped as the arc
of a billowing circle, not a sheet
not the film that drapes flat
by table-casting the secret
of applying quicksilver and tin a tain
of another color a particular stone

catalog. art. 6

a ghost
of the place over my
shoulder. my my what color
are the bands of amaranth pendulous. the showy
hollyhocks brighten their own
faces. a pesky picture always jutting
flits just out of frame the foliage
still growing the trees frighten
as they move giving
the threat of a branch
splayed over a body a shadow
across a face, eyes closed
brindlevision
a body of water
in hand

ZORNS LEMMA

In the beginning
imageless
 
It was unseasonably warm
I felt alarmingly well

The light ripped
two marshmallow snowballs

Fell like lightning Satan 
an angel at the beginning
 
Imageless
beginning in the unseasonably warm

Well alarmingly I felt
ripped light 

Calorie dance
this year is getting zipped

Zodiac’s majestic office
of sanitation

ZORNS LEMMA

Keep keying the backward ocean.
Famous edge
Planet
Harbor
Burn it.

Keep keying the forward ocean.
Vanilla
Wash
Yolk
Burn it.

Keep keying the open ocean.
King
Lark
Mannequin
Burn it.

Keep keying the sparkling ocean.
Canvas
Defiance
Egg
Deliver us to night
Velour and sin.

ZORNS LEMMA

We hear only the sound
of what moves us through it,
tempest and sea. A field 
on carnival repeat. Instant
onyx heat. Find something
to weld. Simple soul. Pink
fringe, ocean catalog. Else
where, heavenly helix. The red
lipstick on afterimage wall. Matte
emergency. Patch of blue drug.
Lucifer, a specific color field 
from here, far-near, pink ocean
goes fast and spills and spills 
and becomes a wheel.

ZORNS LEMMA

The raw meat revolving
is also light. No mediator
 
and more camera. A chamber 
for finding divine decay. Shutter, 

flicker, frame. Shutter, flicker, frame. 
The meat spins. We are reaching together 

the end like at the festival when I passed
over a madness, dirt-drugged light as

meat spun sun.

NOISEFILM
PINKFILM
JUNKFILM
PHLEGMFILM 
GLORIAFILM
APORIAFILM

Zorns Lemma (Hollis Frampton, 1970)

ZORNS LEMMA

I can’t believe this is happening.
A face split in half. One side speaking

the other side speaking differently. This
is autobiography. Hands peel oranges, cut cookies,

get run over by water. Single tree in bright white snow.
Stripe of ocean light. Come quick! I can’t believe

this is happening. Released suddenly from 
burden of counting. Matter cannot be emptied

of form. But light. But light. But light. Day spreads.
I’m still in bed. Light writes this text.

ROBERT GROSSETESTE’S MEDIEVAL THEORY OF LIGHT

13th cen. experimentum
some matter is opaquer than
other matter mysterium
tremendum i miss your
light passes through
accordingly coupling
with matter i miss you
tremendously while some
matter is opaquer than other
you are the opaquest yet
at the beginning was a light
form without matter maybe
some matter is opaquer than
other matter mysterium tremendum
i miss you 13th century 21st century
tremendously

The light is leaking.

You show me the eye
at the center of which
light twitches as your
hand moves out of frame
sliver of ornament
hardwood insect burnt leaf
excrement eternity of glass
fleck and scratched screen.

The light is leaking.

Sudden lover in clear vision
of absence. Dirt, again, deranged
highway falling fast out of frame.
See what I mean? Planer still
are I MISS YOU those words. Near-
far becomes neither-nor. Streaming
device I cannot see. Dog drenched
a sun liquider. Animal star. But still

The light is leaking.

Celestial hierarchy reads us ancient
account of invisible creatures. In the dark
room and in the recorder. In the mylar
strip and in the antechamber. In the pupil
and in the ovum. In the frame and suddenly
again gone. Hand to wrist to mylar strip. Burnt
plastic. I am trying to reach you. Eternity is an
eye out of frame. It means everything put
to music, synthesized to tea. There is a place
farther from here. First person mirror shot. Simplest
soul yet. Intoxicant and shit. This frame and maybe
though probably not the next frame the next frame where

The light is leaking.