Angle of Yaw. Ben Lerner. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Ben Lerner
Издательство: Ingram
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Зарубежные стихи
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9781619320086
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      and achieves a perfect synthesis

      of Bible and phonebook,

      a chance synthesis

      recalling the work of X

      in its use of cherry and adverb.

      A branch of adverb negatively rendered

      is characteristic of a period

      in which phonebooks possess all the qualities of epics

      plus or minus three.

      X is of that generation that gloried in synthesis

      privately performed,

      in charity syntheses held for cherry trees.

      I have chopped down the truth conditions for cherry trees

      with a chance synthesis,

      with a phonebook in one hand

      and a Bible in the other

      and the other.

      Configured to return to the thrower when hurled

      and configured to return the thrower to the herd,

      intended backfires configure warmth

      for the polis and polis fans.

      Context attributed to the skin at birth

      picks teams:

      shirts and skins,

      redshirts and redskins

      and tomahawking redskin fans.

      “In 1825, the natives of Port Jackson hurled their halos and lay down.”

      Support your polis: chop the air.

      The roof fell in

      medias res.

      We fled

      into the trees.

      But that part of

      roof that was ceiling

      that was glass,

      we carry with us

      here, he said,

      touching his head

      to his heart.

      The roof fell in

      in place and we

      fled here

      and here,

      carrying our heads

      in our hands,

      holding our hands

      to the light,

      to that part of light

      that was glass

      and fell in

      absentia.

      II

      ANGLE OF YAW

      II

      THE PREDICTABILITY OF THESE ROOMS is, in a word, exquisite. These rooms in a word. The moon is predictably exquisite, as is the view of the moon through the word. Nevertheless, we were hoping for less. Less space, less light. We were hoping to pay more, to be made to pay in public. We desire a flat, affected tone. A beware of dog on keep off grass. The glass ceiling is exquisite. Is it made of glass? No, glass.

      THE BIRD’S-EYE VIEW abstracted from the bird. Cover me, says the soldier on the screen, I’m going in. We have the sense of being convinced, but of what? And by whom? The public is a hypothetical hole, a realm of pure disappearance, from which celestial matter explodes. I believe I can speak for everyone, begins the president, when I say famous last words.

      ALL ACROSS AMERICA, from under- and aboveground, from burning buildings and deep wells, hijacked planes and collapsed mines, people are using their cell phones to call out, not for help or air or light, but for information.

      IN THE EARLIEST FILMS, ACTORS PRETEND to accomplish prodigious acrobatic feats by rolling around on a black carpet while being filmed from above. The prophet who seems to ascend to heaven is being dragged across the floor. The first generation of moviegoers was unable to decipher the action on the screen, despite the explicador. The second generation mistook them for real grapes. In order to reproduce the colors of nature in our films, we have painted nature black and white. Startle the cuttlefish. Harvest the sepia. The literal color of fear.

      ALL WE REMEMBER OF OUR CHILDHOOD is sliding down inclined chutes mounted by means of ladders, down slick chutes terminating in pools of water, across wet tarps laid atop the lawn, across hardwood floors in our socks, on short boards equipped with wheels, on roller skates, on ice skates, on ice, on gravel.

      THE FIRST GAMING SYSTEM was the domesticated flame. Contemporary video games allow you to select the angle from which you view the action, inspiring a rash of high school massacres. Newer games, with their use of small strokes to simulate reflected light, are all but unintelligible to older players. We have abstracted airplanes from our simulators in the hope of manipulating flight as such. Game cheats, special codes that make your character invincible or rich, alter weather conditions or allow you to bypass a narrative stage, stand in relation to video games as prayer to reality. Children, if pushed, will attempt to inflict game cheats on the phenomenal world. Enter up, down, up, down, left, right, left, right, a, b, a, to tear open the sky. Left, left, b, b, to keep warm.

      SHE WILL NEVER WANT FOR MONEY. Her uncle invented the room. On our first date, I told the one about the dead astronaut. How was I supposed to know? To prepare the air for her image, I put on soft music. I use gum to get the gum out of my hair. Like every exfoliated smear, we must either be stained or invisible. Maybe we should see other people? Impossible. The new trains don’t touch their tracks. The new razors don’t touch the cheek. If I want to want you, isn’t that enough? No. Way too much.

      HE HAD ENOUGH RESPECT FOR PAINTING to quit. Enough respect for quitting to paint. Enough respect for the figure to abstract. For abstraction to hint at the breast. For the breast to ask the model to leave. But I live here, says the model. And I respect that, says the painter. But I have enough respect for respect to insist. For insistence to turn the other cheek. For the other cheek to turn the other cheek. Hence I appear to be shaking my head No.

      MINUTE PARTICLES OF DEBRIS IN SLOW DESCENT force evacuation of the concept. At what altitude does the view grow comprehensive? The daredevil places his head in the camera, eliciting oohs and aahs. We have willingly suspended our disbelief on strings in order to manipulate it from above.

      IT IS WITH SOME DIFFIDENCE the author offers his public to the work. The tree remains where it was felled: inside the head, standing. For if my race provides an extensive field for theory, our rhymes are no less trash. The author retains no ill will toward the Gypsy people, nor a will in general. Without enthusiasm, we have chosen enthusiasm over truth. After dinner, straight to winter. Sidi Habismilk, I have searched the Internet. Nothing indicates your God is sorry. That’s because our God is sorrow. In one palm, a lake of fire. In the other, a posthumous issue.

      THE MASSIVE SWASTIKA, twenty meters in size, can only be seen from the air in autumn, when the larch trees turn a yellowish brown and stand out against the evergreen forest. Had the pattern been sown in the distant past, it would have been visible only to a higher being. At halftime, the marching band assumes a formation fully legible only to the blimp. But the blimp communicates the image of the field to a giant screen, allowing the crowd to perceive the flag formed by the musicians. The displacement of the horizontal plane by the vertical plane: the displacement of the God-term by the masses.

      DEAR CYRUS, HE PUTS DOWN, DEAR CYRUS, yesterday while taking the, he puts down, air in the company of M. de Charlus, your cousin, the Baron, that is, while taking a spin, he puts down, in the motorcar,