from a game of correspondence
she’d like to know his method, to inflict pain so readily. alone yet solicitation
via telephone, radio, television, DREAMS and various invented devices achieved through pictures every
28 days a series of apologies over divination and orgiastic procedures. when more than two bodies coincide
invisible ties can collide without
breaking. as oracles announce sensory overload. (do you like this. are we OK.) (it hurts my
eyes it hurts my throat but I don’t smell the smoke.)
you can stay if you like. a cab, once called, will just drive by.
~ ~ ~
then technology was the human body: a construction of circuits and levers, mechanisms placed
for continued animation. why attempts at stillness inevitably fail. (I tried to quit smoking and now I’m
addicted
to gum.) what happens to remnants of you
fused. contents of a brain scanned, as a ham sliced. in diagnosing a speculative disorder where reluctant to
admit implanted memories preferred. (I doubt the gum will kill her. do you want a piece. just stop chewing
before it
tingles.)
~ ~ ~
I spent the morning processing turns
of phrase, winks and nodes, flirtation by a flurry of hands peeling layer after layer. (I’m working on
submission.) while others appeared naked in part, an invitation. piles of uneaten fruit, an image of a pear. an
image of a bear. manipulation of animals stripped of complexity, arranged in positions to enhance sensation.
your body rocking back and forth without a sound (or have I managed to obliterate it).
as for ignoring a passage of time and emotional developments within a given dimension of reality. this room
is a low
frequency banshee for building a scenario to simulate real-time communication. flat and mechanical a matrix
of exhalations, excavations, exclamations, oh. can I go home now. there is nothing funny about blindness.
~ ~ ~
she took a recorder into basements and captured
hundreds of projections—the nearsighted Mr. Magoo might use humor to diffuse the inability to distinguish
between a rain coat, Aquaman, and a wild bear. a refusal to consider that sight might fail despite an
extensive use of eyes. the green reminiscent of a field where Candy, Slick, Dizzy, The Lip, Little Nel, Little
General, Little Napolean, Little Poison.
Big Cat, Big Train, Big Six, Big Dan, Biscuit Pants.
Pee Wee, Schoolboy, Satchel, The Splendid Splinter, Stonewall, Scooter, Cracker, Black & Decker, Turkey,
Puck, Ducky, Bucklefoot, Bullet, Pudge, The Flying Dutchman, Thumper, Slug, Muscles, and The Puddle
Jumper played. is there anyone else I should know. (Smokey Joe, Spoke, Cyclone, Jocko).
these names are not audible during recording but are heard on
~ ~ ~
playback. interference from other bodies carried into television, the new medium. when colors seem to move,
transmission a clearer shimmer. light reflected, refracted, fibrous as dust, for a few minutes blue or
complicity. what we see, when forced. a severance upon arrival of a third spontaneous body. what we accept,
when desperate. on the margins fingertips float candles taken for a torch or yellow
globes. when working on a probe he always speaks in cyber shorthand. (r u my.) she’s still waiting for a
translator. (did you know he reminds me of you, specifically before
warming. shivering and small in your clothes, you were shrinking from several angles, disappearing in
various contexts.) a little dizzy but still sharper than your disembodied voices. when spirits part a curiosity.
(I won’t tell anyone, I promise.) as for Aquaman, you never once thawed.