by Ben Lerner
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For my parents
For my brother
In memory of Rose
Printing, having found in the book a refuge in which to lead an autonomous existence, is pitilessly dragged out onto the street… If centuries ago it began gradually to lie down, passing from the upright inscription to the manuscript resting on sloping desks before finally taking to bed in the printed book, it now begins just as slowly to rise again from the ground. The newspaper is read more in the vertical than in the horizontal plane, while film and advertisement force the printed word entirely into the dictatorial perpendicular.
Walter Benjamin, “One-way Street”
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.
Hart Crane, “At Melville’s Tomb”
Contents
Title Page
Note to Reader
I Begetting Stadia
II Angle of Yaw
III Didactic Elegy
IV Angle of Yaw
V Twenty-One Gun Salute for Ronald Reagan
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Copyright, Credits and Feedback Link
Donor page
I
BEGETTING STADIA
I
for Marjorie Welish
Demands indefinitely specified,
demands incompatible with collective living
beget stadia
with indefinite seating
delicately tiered.
Resembling its shape
and therefore suggesting its function:
a wave.
Or repeating its shape
and therefore undoing its function:
a wave,
which I will here attempt to situate
in the broader cognitive process
of turning the page.
Just because these tears were on your face
doesn’t mean they’re yours.
The tree in your mind
is mine.
The redistribution of tears
reflects our collective commitment
to storm and stress,
to attitudes befitting participants in sports
and sports writing.
The conventions governing weeping in novels
do not apply to weeping done on-camera
or in teams.
Eldest sons dispossessed of ancestral tears
mock the tears of the nouveaux riches.
You call that weeping?
We call it sports entertainment
because the loser gets paid more,
because losing is hazardous,
because hazards are for losers
in the collective economy
of variable stars.
Rational actors wearing wrestling masks
would choose to lose collectively,
to collectivize losing
in the service industry.
I perform a valuable service
(I lose)
and I work from home.
Am I not then entitled to drink six beers
and watch some losing gracefully performed?
The sorcerer’s apprentice is an animated mouse
losing control over water-toting brooms.
Now, what does that say about cleaning?
Sorcery cuts grease and glass like lightning!
Now, who will clean up this water?
What will we use to remove this water
from our jerseys? I suggest sorcery.
My Little League team is made up of animated mice
losing control of their jerseys
and delaying the game with lightning
in the manner of Fabius and Disney.
General Disney gets clothes clean (with sorcery).
General Disney’s Chicken (with sorcery sauce).
The novel hurled to the ground breaks into verse
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 disap
pearance, 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, which respects no mystery, to Thun, he puts down, to the town of T, and the children trailing the, he puts down, which respects no, and the children playing with smoke on a string, frozen smoke on a stick, your cousin the Baron, drew my attention, my attention, you understand, was drawn, there was a silver, and the children screaming, flying machine, in terror, he puts down, with pleasure, and in the eyes of the cousin, your Baron, who respects no, who is no, displayed like, longer, objects, tears, of price, remain your, humble servant, I
THE PORTION OF THE STORY THAT REMAINS after the other components have been dissolved by churning. The woman attends the night game to watch the snow fall near the lights. Only the body of the protagonist is undergoing change. A whistle sweeps the town of meaning.
THE AVERAGE READER only perceives the initial and final letters of a word. He only reads the longest and most peculiar words in a sentence, intuiting the remaining language. The average reader often turns two pages at once, without perceiving a breach in narrative. He picks up a book, quickly flips through its pages, and believes it read. Conversely, he often reads unawares, will process and even vocalize a text he believes himself to be composing, while in fact reading skywriting, between the lines, on the wall. In your most intimate moments, my average reader, do you not rely on large cards held beyond the audience’s sight? Have you ever applauded without being prompted by an illuminated sign?
THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA has launched a man into space. He claims the only man-made structure visible from the shuttle is the Great Wall. What about the Kansai International Airport (which is sinking)? The light from the Luxor Casino? What about smog? For visible from space read in the eyes of God.
THE PHENOMENA OF EXPERIENCE have been translated into understanding. Plug the exposed voids in the veneer cores to eliminate nesting. We live in the best of all possible worlds. Stain the compound to match the plywood finish.
THE AUTHOR EXPOSES HIMSELF IN PUBLIC like film. Every surface secretly desires to be ruled. A faint hazy cone in the plane of the ecliptic precedes the tabulation of a body by a train. Read only to resist the temptation to write. Skew lines and slickensides in an era of polarized light. The zip disk of snuff films your son defends as research has divided the community into infinite subdistances. Born losers born ready to be born again, we await the mayor’s address in metal chairs. Then it hits me: I’m the mayor.
THE DOG IN THE CARTOON shoots a gun, overtakes the bullet in a car, and awaits it with an open mouth. Slight, continuous changes in the shapes of the scenery give the illusion of motion. In lieu of erections, sprouting cephalic contusions. Otherwise reduced to a pile of ash, the eyes of the mischievous cat remain, blinking. Contiguity substituted for substitution: flatten the duck with a frying pan and he becomes a frying pan. The bear indifferently fingers the holes in his chest. The giant ham around which the episode is organized weighs nothing, appears slippery, and is ultimately swallowed by a mouse. The popular breakfast sandwich is made of cartoon flesh. The child actor who worked opposite the dragon is scarred for life. Open your eyes. You’re still holding the dynamite.
NO MATTER HOW BIG YOU MAKE A TOY, a child will find a way to put it in his mouth. There is scarcely a piece of playground equipment that has not been inside a child’s mouth. However, the object responsible for the greatest number of choking deaths, for adults as well as children, is the red balloon. Last year alone, every American choked to death on a red balloon.
NERVOUS EXHAUSTION FROM PROLONGED FLIGHT cannot excuse her coloring. Nor that she was blinded at birth with a hot wire to increase the beauty of her singing. A culture that lacks a concept of lack remains foreign, no matter the quantity of aid, the quantity of coverage. What do the homeless say in lieu o
f Get out? One day we will all be landed. Remaining sensate into a late stage of decomposition, aka abstraction. Delivering supplies from the air is no problem. But to the air?
A WALL IS TORN DOWN to expand the room and we grow distant. At the reception, cookies left over from the intervention. In the era before the flood, you could speak in the second person. Now the skylighted forecourt is filled with plainclothesmen. I would like to draw your attention. Like a pistol? In the sense of a sketch? Both, she said, emphasizing nothing, if not emphasis. Squint, and the room dissolves into manageable triangles. Close your eyes completely and it reappears.
BEFORE THE INVENTION OF MOVIES, nobody moved. Rain like a curtain of beads. Snow like the absence of snow. Quit putting your mouth in my words, I said to the officer, before falling into his arms. Love of the uniform in lieu of uniform love. Lower your voice in a church, decrease your font in a poem. Not a sword suspended by a hair, but a mine triggered by a wire. At midnight, the question turns rhetorical. Does invention have a father? In an age of mechanical reproduction, is any sin original?