WatchMirrorGun

A multiplicity of figures

stretched into cardboard

across, between legs through poured coffee

A drain

to lick in nut, snip the ad stick it to the man

-made poly board and attach a series of tubes

from mouth and nose, double breathalyzer

preventing the ether.

A menageries of faucets (sweat, blood, urine,

semen, mucus, snot; gas, chlorine, diesel,

salt, lipids, nutmeg), bags fastened to

their nozzles. Holster them. Dive. Through

thickets of legs.

A thrum

against tangle to beat in bits it follows,

crunches, glitters, disintegrates.

Perhaps he’ll turn when the dead walk. Perhaps his car will

convulse on four axles and reverse. Perhaps he’ll forget his

briefcase. Perhaps he will get mugged by Ableton by the

candy store the night prior, with hands shaking- so many.

Perhaps an echo will whip lovingly backwards into a bullet hole

in his chest. Perhaps he will make a small gasp. Perhaps

he’ll have been shopping, and will drop several lush plums,

which will make an internal sound like they would against teeth.

Perhaps his phone will receive a text then, and it’s chirp will bleed

out into the fog. Perhaps it will chirp a second time. Perhaps it

will be from his ex-wife.

A drink: 1 part wide eyes, 2 parts gut tug lonely, 1 part simple syrup, 2 parts bourbon, bitters.

                                                  Serve with lemon twist.

An appendix of forgotten words and looks.

Ad infinitum.

A pause on the edge of a doorway, illuminated.

A juicier rendition of “the twist”.

A radiator filling with blood;       it’s knocks;       it’s breathless gasps.

An attempt to imitate understanding.

int * x = malloc(sizeof(int));

sleep(x);

free(x);

          He would sit alone in his

          room and chatter to her-

          nothing but the sound of his

          teeth. Just shudder and chatter

          with his knees balled up and

You can

see the bad in

everything; and

I the good—

so that makes you

an artist and

me happy.

I am told not to pinch my mounds that they bleed and

scar and leave pockmarks. Instead I should

dab toothpaste. That should dry them. Should

leave them unblemished.

Mud only starts to peel when you stop lying still.

When the twitches begin, there is a landslide released: frenetic

fragments of cheeks shucked, swirling- I am told they extract

impurities; then I believe they make the face a husk.

I love you like

3am— like stroopwafels

and cows milk—

I am submerged—

I only wish you'd wipe your chin—

so I could replace caramel

Make me a shape. Produce it effortlessly.

Do not constrain yourself in the creation of this shape.

Now, think about this shape. I will

attempt to fix it in your mind.

Can you draw it on a piece of paper?

Does it have a few points? A large number of points?

Infinite points?

Perhaps there are lines. Are there only straight lines?

Curved lines?

Does the shape feel empty to you?

Is this a shape you have seen before? Is it a

morphed version of a shape you’ve seen before?

Now, I asked you to make a shape for me. What about

this shape makes it for me? Is this inherent in the shape,

or are you projecting meaning onto it? Does this

shape only connect to me in context? Is the shape

a mirror of me?

You’ve imagined this shape. Are you its creator?

The teacher says that to get away from

the profoundly subjective models of art,

we tried our best to remove the artist from

the work. Warhol asks other to screenprint

dead celebrities, desperate in eclipsing his

image (inadmissible). Perhaps success is

instead found in the plurality of creation.

Think of the nameless mass that defines

your starbucks mocha. Think of facebook

in the feeling of the catching net, a thread

of others unwoven underneath. Ask any

study, all the big ones and the genome

sequence- playing, repeating. More authors

are more productive. More authors is more

productive. More authors am

more productive.

I sip on Odwalla. When my lips touch

the rim I think of Sayulita, the sugar cane

driver whose arm bounced from the back

of his pickup truck offering its sweet juices

I recall us suckling on the chunks-

our chins sticky with excretion. I hold

a cold plastic bottle against my clean chin.

100% Juice/Puree Blend. The urge to

crush it almost overwhelms, but the

classroom is attentive. I loosen

my fingers. I open my tupperware;

a drop of sriracha falls onto my cotton

shirt. I bend to suck it out.

The viewer is the container for all the

culture and context- they are only there

to act as a vessel. The author is only

there so you can read into their works.

Perhaps this is the fear of the machine

as artist- we cannot infer to the

machine because the machine is clear

about its intentions and motivations.

Once the machine is the artist, the artist

is only valuable to provide context.

Some people look behind the artwork,

to find out who the author is. This is

sometimes valid. But in the metacritical

theory of postmodernism, there is

something beyond the artist to unlock

the collective and the collective

understanding of artwork. to rethink

how meaning is made, we must remove

these factors, to discover a radical, anti-

fascist model of creating meaning.

Artists continually want to mechanize

and escape from those looking behind

the works. We’ll flush this out soon.

I take the hill in stride my knees are not buckling

I tuck my watch against my wrist Tonight

I did not ask for your forgiveness

They did not ask for your prayers

They do not care for your well wishes

and your inaction

your lack of morality has drawn us to this particular

point in possibility

and let’s be very clear here: morality requires action

to be moral is to make change in your direction

here, neutrality is poison

the slow poison that stiffens arteries until there is no

other way for blood to flow

indecision is poison

hesitation is poison

most days I am poison, wallowing in inaction, telling myself

that it is exfoliating, that I am made cleaner by my time to decide

that I am making myself more right

inaction is conservation of energy

inaction is inherently selfish

inaction is poison

most days I am poison, and you are poison and so we get along

splashing in it, dousing ourselves in it, forgetting air

but on the other days I blink and I see us drowning

I see us drowning in poison

drowning in prayers

drowning in prayers and well wishes

drowning in sympathy

They do not ask for our sympathy

They ask for our action

And we are here blind, sinking in this sensation of numb panic, not knowing where to reach, how to make change- or not willing to reach. Not willing to send a letter, an email, a text. Not willing to have a rally, a conversation. Not willing to make a phone call. To donate.

The jury is not out.

The jury is pleading at your feet.

Every creation is about the self

because it contains

and every creation is about the other

because it addresses.

When we write about the self

that practice must first make

the self an other– so that even

direct experience is indirected.