“
Now reading
Responding
I
This is a place without a terrain a government that always
changes an unstable language. Even buildings disappear
from day to day.
[gendered pronoun] wanders in this place
[searching
[waiting
the condition of unbearableness is the constant state of mind
for all occupants
we read all day in the village square during the rule of [name
of major historical figure] a book that is so subtle
[its political content goes unnoticed
what is political content?
[the question or the statement
[gender pronoun] creates
[a reader culture
[generic plural pronoun] prefer both
II
realism's authenticities are not the question
the question [role of art in the State
we know art is fundamental to the [New State] as is evidenced
in village scenes, majestic ancient views, masses and
masses of [generic human figures] marching in columns,
swords coded as plowshares, image as spectacle
we kn0w [name of city], [adjective], [name of major composer]
to recode [reduce] it: Linz, ambiguous, Wagner
we know [name of major historical figure] calls, authentically,
for a more total, more radical war than we can even
dream in the language of the avant-garde
we know a commercial promises to reduce plaque more
effectively in this same tone
but sometimes we exceed even our own expectations to
surprise even ourselves
something encloses the impossible in a fable
an unreal world called real because it is so heavily metaphoric
we can't keep our fingers of connection out of it
it is a ride in the country, the car crowded with children
[each child represents a different
ethnicity of [name of nation]
it is a moment of standing with light resonating around [major
historical figure
it is a guiding of the child towards the right path
it is a picnic in a field, the spread is bountiful
[the spread of [name of nation] is represented through the
arrangement of food on the checkered tablecloth
it is [name of major historical figure]'s Art Collection:
figure after figure
each carries spears, lunges, draws the arm back to pull
tight the bow
a ruined plaza has a [gendered human form] at its en
trance
a [generic child] draws a sword under the guidance of
[generic possessive pronoun] [honorific denoting repro-
ductive role]
a [generic human form] raises [generic pronoun] arms and
four horses turn away
another plays a lute
an eagle holds a symbol
fake [name of nation used as an adjective] heads
while the end of lunacy in art was explicit in [name of major
historical figure]'s rhetoric
while when nation turns to art, art loses its divergence
while the [generic human figures] come back from war, their
legs in fog
while a [generic human figure] sculpts, small against the
expanse of marble, giving into the monumental human
form that symbolizes eugenic possibilities
while another [generic human figure] pedantically draws
postcards of village centers, operas, mountain vistas
while overwhelmed by an opera [name of major historical
figure] plans genocide
III
we know we respond resistantly as faked children's books of
realist adventure tales have turned into military instruc-
tion manuals
or [name of major historical figure] hails a cab, [generic
possessive human pronoun] hand raised here, beckoning
as the red flag with [name of fast food chain] waves
behind [generic human pronoun] and the red star on top
of the [name of cultural landmark in major city] twinkles.
many people raise their hands for different purposes all day
long
we are always waiting for our cab to come
the question here is the same as that of a relationship
where does art define our vocabulary?
the margin declares
[it is impossible to speak about something
it is only possible to speak beside it
[a film with a voice-over of nonsense
to act in the unsecular forbidden margins [claims a certain
privilege]
[generic human pronoun] cast a colonizing eye
a scripture of space / a place where
a [generic human form] twists in space
[follow this body]
getting you to recognize yourself in [generic possessive
pronoun] work
[is kidnapping]
in the space of this question some emigrate or lapse into total
silence
some co-opt this language and paint a series of meticulous and
beautifully colored monumental images of people impris-
oned and alone at the edge of a tedious despair
some [refigure [refuse] respond] call out for an end
rewritten, the goal of the artist is to prevent reality in a true and
concrete manner
IV
[generic human figure] claims I can get more information at
home than by going to the war scene
what [generic pronoun] sees is [gendered naked bodies] in
news photos—dead bodies, discarded bodies, junk
i saw this written on the bottom
[a way of testimony
the poverty of image among the people of [name of nation]
the continual increase in the amount of image a viewer can
tolerate
[who went to [name of nation?
returning again and again to images of torture
covert activities depicted [blown up
[to show power
details of photographs
or Xerox degradations
of photos on Duraclear
hang loose are
vulnerable and
fragmentary and
images are seen
through images and/or
viewers
[call this]
the fate of Madame Bovery, the fate of Anna Karenina
A dog with a [generic human face] has slogans coming out
of its mouth as angels hold its head back suckle at its
tits
taped to a [gendered hand, adorned with ring] is a photo-
graph of [gendered naked torso], gagged
[generic human figure] infects computerized images with
digitized viruses and then transfers them to canvas with
a robotic device
[possible responses to what is seen
in [name of nation] at another time another set of reponses:
a [sexual category withheld] cuts hair and cameras circle
around and [generic human pronoun] is dragged out of
the room
another [generic human figure] says passionately we express
ourselves in a language of regulations. Symbols and
numbers best convey our ideas
another [generic human figure] makes an enormous painting
of a massacre victim, mutilated and bloody, and hangs it
by night on a pedestrian bridge
what a nation gives us is the image in [name of major weekly
news source] of the [generic human figure] standing
before the tanks with white flag
[generic pronoun] painted on houses, streets, stones, trees
[generic pronoun] covered [name of island] with strange marks
in chalk, oil paint, and dye
[generic pronoun] wished to reduce writing to the zero level
where it is without meaning. When culture invades
private life on a large scale [generic pronoun] said the
individual cannot escape being raped
another [generic noun] made a font that was scratched into
paper by a knife
this font made each letter into a single scratch
[generic pronoun] scratched the other [generic pronoun]'s
statement on rape into a banner and hung it outside
[my zero-level writing
[generic pronoun] said
protest rape
[generic pronoun] said
my zero-level writing
[generic pronoun] said
dangerous cultural rape
[generic pronoun] said
my zero-level writing
my zero-level writing
V
a voice stutters in the background of our waking mind
[generic possessive pronoun] stutter is our stutter
or it is the way we define our difference?
stutter is nation
beneath an image of human figures the words [you have
nothing to lose but your chains
at times two voices talk to one another
[generic human] faces [tired]
we know we are all constructed
when it comes down to it we don't believe it
the social always holds us back
while the ways that we encounter relation are various
we remain
searching [searching
we question, respond
[deny we [move forward