Downstairs, my teenagers ranged from child to adult. They still endowed me with the superpower to peel any orange. Superfamilies of language—mangled comment, concept album, single fire stick, standing reserve. I was on hold. “Your call will be … in the order it was … or for real estate taxes, your plat and lot number.” It helped to imagine warrened City Hall, charismatic land line, lost era of ash trays. In the end, I had to cross the city to City Hall to pay by hand, my fine motor skills habituated as a sleeping pill, my unhoused neighbor sleeping in the dog scratch against the arrested development mulberry tree. I’ve always felt most real when I’m farthest from home.
"The poet is of no party." BaudelaireOur manifesto is an act of substantiation.
We reject all forms of futilitarianism, in whatever disguise.
We believe that comedy is the song of the village and tragedy the song of the goat.
We believe what is written in the books, but now we want to see for ourselves.
The single idea, beating on the same doors in vain.
The analogue and the invention.
The death cell.
The first permission.
Though we watch the stage for things to happen, though our minds wander.
By ourselves in the green field, playing our diversion.
Though the story begins with the loss of a home.
Out of the machine, we shift restlessly in our seats.