The Memory Theater Burned

Front Matter

The Memory Theater Burned was published by Turtle Point Press, New York (2004). It is out of print, although a limited number of original copies are available from the 20-20-20 website. I am sharing the text here in the spirit of digital piracy. The book is divided into two sequences, each of which is posted separately.

Cover image by Ana Mendieta, Untitled (from the Silueta series), 1976. Courtesy of the Estate of Ana Mendieta and Galerie Lelong, New York. Design by Naomi Yang.

Some of these poems were first published in Arsenal, The Boston Phoenix, Web Conjunctions, Faucheuse, Grand Street, and The Impercipient Lecture Series. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of those publications: Olivier Brossard, Jon Garelick, Bradford Morrow, Jeff Clark, Jean Stein and Deborah Treisman, Steve Evans and Jennifer Moxley.

From the back cover:

“A man digs a trench. Another begins to sing. Harmless enough for a start. So we trustingly follow the clear logical steps — and suddenly find ourselves on the other side of the mirror, in a new dimension of thought. From here, our daily predicaments seem both funny and sad, but always marvelous. In the end, a person may enter the groove of a record and become pure vibration. ‘Before me, and after me, came the most beautiful trumpet solo.’”
— Rosmarie Waldrop

“Damon regards language as prayer thought. His lines move w/ a strange speed of wonder yet w/ an ear towards new found sound. This is good music.”
— Thurston Moore

Table of Contents

I. The Memory Theater Burned

The War
Kaddish
Economy
Song without Words
Mute
The Memory Theater Burned
I Will Always Remember Primrose Hill
First Sabbath
The Copyist
A Bowl of Lentils, A Dish of Game
Raree Show
The Analysand
At the Café Detroit
A Still, Small Voice
The Longest Day
A Testimonial
Sonho de Valsa
Venus and Neptune
All the Fountains of the Great Deep Burst Apart
Into the Medina
My Life as the History of a Town
Last Supper on the Shanghai Bund
Dream
The Virtuoso

II. Vexations

Vexations
Bells
A Misunderstanding
The Envelope
Reading
In Private
After the Tempest
Sleep
Read Me
To Levitate
Mildred Pierce
The Extra
The Secret Museum
Hearts and Pearls
Caresse Crosby Dreams a Dream
Ghosts
Mise en abyme
Only One Thing is Missing
The Blue God
Meditation
A Parable
The Argument
The Image
Poetry