Cambridge Wall Poem

This poem, by Mark Mendel, titled "Ojos Numerosos (for George Oppen)" was painted on various walls in Cambridge, MA in the summer of 1975. It was wonderful to come upon these poem fragments as you drove through the city. There were 23 verses: these are the ones I have pictures of.

Seventeen stanzas from the poem were printed in the Boston Real Paper in December 18, 1980, in an article titled "Blueprints for the Poetry of the Future." I found an  abstract of an article about the poem, originally published in The Journal of Typographical Research, volume 9 no 3, 1975.

Line Transmitter Installation - A Poem in the Environment
Author(s): Mendel, Mark
Abstract: Ojos Numerosos is a poem of twenty-three three-line stanzas. It was written to be painted on the sides of buildings, on viaducts, and on other urban surfaces where graffiti is typically found. The verses are in random series and are interchangeable within the poem. They form a chain in the experience of the person moving about town. People confront this poem as they do graffiti or corporate-graffiti/advertising every day. Poetry predates writing and printing. The recent tradition of poetics as a possession of the educated elite grew from its confinement to the printed page; I want this poem to fit the viaduct as the sonnet was once felt to fit the page. This is the sprayed word--the continuous simultaneous transmission of a poem into the environment.

 Mark Mendel's art page

Here are the verses from the Real Paper

Pull this change
ungloved hand
-- no boundary

Wire this star
where reel'd dawn grows
jumpstart the rose

Grab this chain
you can. you live 
behind this wall

Cast this change
running without oil
over trembling chrome

Feel this chain
chevrolet girl
in tow

Pull this change
you've found
it's green

Pull this change
bricklayer
union scale

Follow this chain
the next link
is now

Touch this chain
I'm no stranger
than the January sunset

Hook this chain
catch the man
who throws your shadow

Pull this change
the poem is your sister
on parole

Updated 12/02/97, 04/19/05, 12/26/08