Conjunctions 65: Sleights of Hand

by Sleights of Hand- The Deception Issue (retail) (epub)

  From The Immanent Field

  Michael Martin Shea

  *

  When the soldiers entered the town they left the artists alone, thereby invalidating their art projects · Directionality as artistic trope of the supreme world-maker · Would-be artists can measure their value by the number of actual cops at their readings · Whatever made this world could not have accounted for human error, unless it did · A mansion filled exclusively with cop breath · Humanity entered into a long period of debauched and circuitous dancing · What houses our revolutionary power if not the unfolding of bastard sentences? · The dancing bear is a minor object · Without our notions of power, masturbation loses all appeal · It’s no longer possible to bear up actual arms against the massive machinery of the state · To masturbate in public is an unforgivable perversion · The state subsumes happiness for numerical existence · Forgiving ourselves was the hardest part of leaving Mississippi · A willingness to convert the world into numbers presumes that our graphs are indexed to real lives · And we, who are somehow not afraid! · Nullification of the real order is an appendage of the body · Incurable deceptions for the purpose of “big god” · What the appendage wants is a proper sense of statehood · “The bigger they are, etc.” applies primarily to descriptions of memory · Artists struggle to resist the state because of the comforts and snacks it affords them · The described totality of being is a ruthless chimera · I cannot afford the various social contracts constitutive of personhood · When I described my erection I was asked to leave the party

  *

  An extreme childishness descended over the city · It’s like ten thousand spoons when you can’t stop thinking about killing yourself · A brothel outfitted with child-safety gates · It’s like a blizzard composed of other people’s sad Facebook statuses · An unpleasant outfitting for floral wear · My involvement in the blizzard myth left us all abated and little to chance · Floridity as cultural nonpresence · A shower of angular momentum chanced the room into a physic · Vaginal nonpresence as operator of the cultural sublime · The deepwater angler held purchase of a mythical pretext · A sublimation of our physical selves · The pretense of good behavior is the bedrock of the economy · Ever-ready, ever-nurtured, ever-tortured, ever-bending down into our spleens · Economic theory holds that a tie goes to the runner · I never understood the value of torture until I read blue-collar poetry · The economy of desire is lifting my pants for future applicants · Poetic fetish of the working class is a supreme dildo · I never understood the fundamental theory of calculus until it was applied to my dreams · Working side by side like prepubescent trains · A calculation invokes a sense of residency · Being alone is good training for having an undiagnosed anxiety disorder · I was asked to leave the party for calculating the length of everyone’s perineum · A terminal diagnosis creates a temporal absence · This particular fetish was untenable for much longer

  *

  The production of privilege eclipsed the economy of desire · I was distinguished for betting my life on a pair of regular-season baseball games · The eclipse woke me up with its horrible screeching · Astonished at the regularity of my desires: each morning a clean erection · The screech of sharpened metal, moon as celestial dimepiece · The newness of the world is astonishing · My gurney, a masterpiece of industrial aesthetics · Being-in-the-world is the first cause of privilege · My gurney won first prize in the local cock-and-balls show · What causes our stomachs to reckon with patterned speech? · The first order of the new king was to abolish our provincialist notions of an avant-garde · Infused with the requisite pooping patterns · A new world order only birthed through extreme violence · One time I shit myself out of existential fear · Think of it not as violence but a hip new kind of architecture · Integrated systems management sanitizes the digestive shit process · A temporal architect is not an artifact · The integral of persons is systemic · Time doesn’t kill anyone, it just shuffles their parts around · Systemic inequality is a white man’s best friend · Just holding yourself with blankets can be a salve against despair · The whiteness of virtue as most dangerous cultural signifier also taught to children · Just despair is not enough to make you important · My body as most prominent betrayal system · The importance of deception in the analysis of others · My first betrayal occurred when I was seven and Eric broke my ruler and I told him it was my dead grandfather’s · The important prizes are the ones doled out by the state as markers of respectability in letters

  *

  Prize culture is a primer in the privileging of certain authorities, all of whom have pill money · At a restaurant in Madison with Jesse, making Seth say “ooey gooey pasta” over and over · Domestic language, restricted language, redacted language, language made out of beehives · Jesse, stoned and ripping the bathroom sink out of the wall at Fermentation Lounge · The death of the bees is tragic but no parallel for human consciousness · With Jesse in Boston, drunk and standing in the kitchen window at the start of a blizzard, listening to Beach House · The sheen of useless cynicism masked under a gothic love of death · There are only four records I can listen to while writing · Just because production is a capitalist impulse doesn’t mean we can’t love our neighbors · The writing of the poem is either a praxis of discovery or it’s useless · A producer of love is not a static observer of the field · The problem with poets isn’t the reach of state power, it’s that they only resist it insofar as they want to control it · Observation of beauty confers inflated self-importance on the viewer · In that the law has no real body, control of it does not make you a real boy · The scent of dead coniferous trees in December · I don’t remember being the boy in the picture with goggles and water wings · Like the tree I chopped down with Marty the second time we broke up · I remember either a wild horse or a seagull eating my sandwich · Drunk on cheap beer and firing a BB gun at our neighbor’s house with our upside-down flag pins · I remember a broken screened porch and mosquito bites in Virginia · A rented house projects a temporary space wherein the furniture arranges itself · I got stoned on the communal porch of my decrepit apartment and then watched through the blinds as my neighbor threw her boyfriend’s clothes into the yard

  *

  To remember the specifics of furniture is to leave the present moment · I burrowed into the rafters of my one-bedroom hovel · Again I am wanting to leave the presence of friends for the Internet · I burrowed into the attic of our three-bedroom hovel · What I want is for my friends to never be afraid · I shared a bed with a woman with fabulous taste and loved and feared her judgment and wanted to hide my depravity, not knowing her own strangeness · Hiding yourself out of fear is a form of self-pity · For instance: the house she burnt down, the dogs she babied, the songs she forgot she was singing · I’ve been hiding my production of self from my family for years now · Our governing madness was a belief that science could cure us from wanting to die sometimes · Projecting the end of production into the future allows for true praxis · The Internet scientists are always reportedly working · A practical man does not give in easily to mindless distraction · A terrible dearth of reporters for abject artifacts · I’m distracted because I know my big dick will amount to nothing · The death of our great cities at the hands of baby cops · I’m distracted by liquor and subordinate clauses · The pixelated moment with its great sheathen member · A causal alignment is a form of sacrifice · I remember getting drunk in the baseball fields with stolen liquor · I sacrificed my only sense of home for the hope of the rancid new

  *

  Faith in
writing as some sort of entrance exam for death · Each year, masturbating in front of the family Christmas tree · All this talk about dying like there’s nothing else fun to do · Each year, an affect of torrential strangeness and new beer · It’s like touching each other in the abandoned church in Taos · Affective piety has no place on social media · It’s like a party where no one’s little brother has to go to jail for car theft · The affectation of piety haunts even the best inventions · My parting gift was an e-mail about infidelity · A haunting scene full of Internet weirdos · What I promised not to report was not faithlessness but fear · I’ve seen a Navajo man lose a bet in a bar called the Matador · Repeating myself is a way of stabilizing certain identity platforms (I was that guy, I was that guy) · I’ve seen a white lady scan the room and then lower her voice to talk about “those people” · There’s a stability offered by trying to prove that you’re sufficiently enlightened about gender and race, even though such a state can never exist · The closest thing to real suffering I’ve ever experienced in my privileged life was abject loneliness · An enlightenment-style concept of banking applied to dating profiles · The experience of faithlessness had me locked out in October, watching the sunrise · The concept of haunting doesn’t need a god to function · I was locked up for admitting that I’d never seen The Shawshank Redemption · Nonfunctional alcoholics are not permitted to partake in the communion · I was personally redeemed by Sardis and liquor in empty fields

  *

  Was it rottenness or wantonness we bathed our children in? · Sugar banana, pumpkin pie, little cakes, stinky butt · Was it an actual revolutionary feeling or had we merely bought something? · A poem where the rape victim isn’t the butt of the joke anymore · The purchasing power of social change limited by character · The fetish of the lyric self leads away from a poetics of actual selfhood · Characterizing yourself as one thing, reflected in many bistros · Revolutionary poetics consists in holding a tenure-track job but pretending not to · There have been many times where I’ve forgotten my mother’s actual birth date · A revolution wearing a Morrissey T-shirt, a revolution like a keg party inexplicably filled with zoo animals · My mother, nineteen and almost kidnapped in a van in Berlin · A part of my animism devoted exclusively to new dog breath · In the seventies, my mother, back from ten months in Europe and looking for my father, her summer boyfriend · I was long devoted to not confronting the privilege that still makes me an asshole · I’m twenty-six and still registered to vote at my parents’ house because they live in a swing state · Dog assholes are a shockingly large part of my life for someone who does not fuck dogs · I’m always swinging through various states of existence when I post on the Internet · Fuck people who drink bottled water indoors in America · The Internet was responsible for my thinking that all women want anal sex · American leftism not immune from exporting ideology · One time, I fucked my ex-girlfriend in the ass in a basement but she stopped me when I also called her a whore · What’s left of my dreams is a world not forgone by bunnies · We should pity the law clerks for their nigh-enviable whoring · I left Tampa in a state of supreme agitation and fine linen and whiskey · Legal action against the statemerely engages it on its own terms · Wishing myself faster in the pursuit of some awkward nobility to lord over my friends · I was acting against my own interests when I said that the nobles should rot in their yards

  *

  In pursuant to the tantamount pleasure · Me in my motherfucking Escalade, and you in your motherfucking Escalade · Pursuing myself with whips and rifles and headphones and madness and chartered boats and checkerboard parks and the presence of a notary public · I forgot myself in the scent of your sex organs · I abide no ministry of the public eyes · Sexuality as a steamboat tethered to a rotted-out deck in New Orleans · I administered the rag to my own feral bleeding · “The new” means anything that used to scare white culture · My tactics are as follows: pleasantries, burn, pleasantries, burn · And those of you among us who are still somehow not afraid? · A pleasant romp in the left hand to greet the morning · A pleasing joy among the desiccated husks of the real · Let us bring a raucous politic to greet the fuckers · Reality shot through with arms and coefficients · Fuck the poets embossing their spines with a seed of market value · Reality whistles and fucks the nearest soft object · Bring on our protestations, seed the politic of no more dead children · Objectification of the dream until it’s a closet you can walk into · What makes a child if even the snipers have parents? · To walk down Wall Street and not think about the wheezing planet · What new snipers will enjoy our delicious bodies today? · A wall of constituency and fervor · And what if we’re wrong about our bodies forever? · Awash in the listening of fevered spirits · And what if we’re wrong about ghosts? · The totemic library washed over in pipeline spill · And what if civilian parents can’t love enough for us? · The brutality of “pipe down” when you’re seeking a vocal reality · The field of love punctured by gravitational chalk bodies · One voice which is a living spirit · Our bodies and the smells that are funny · Within my living potential, another set of dead mice · Our bodies and the sounds that wake you up at night · Men set upon by their creations may still ask forgiveness · Wherefore of the faith save our nightly offerings? · I created myself through a set of rigorous and mostly failed social experiments · Where, for fuck’s sake, are the pills for safe dying? · I created a television sensation that was canceled but never ended, like a dream

  *

  Some part of me wonders if I’d be happier in a life outside of “the humanities” · My first wager involved three minor-league baseball games and a botched execution · Progressive politics that choose misery over wonder are self-indulgent · Bogeymen are uniquely inculcated in the continuation of state-sponsored murder · What is the self if not a sack full of mnemonic devices? · The myth of the unique voice as a way to play pretend with three hundred million people · I divided the world into three camps: money, children, and fire · Naming a set of people as “voiceless” and then presuming to speak for them is a classic “dick move” · We went camping in Nevada and I found myself climbing onto boulders, astonished at how bright the stars were · One time I was so dehydrated that the tip of my cock was chapped · In southern Nevada you can never experience true darkness on account of the light pollution and aliens · Once I accepted the elimination of certain paths as a result of my choices, I found myself free of the needless sweat stains · The truth of a line has little to do with what I think of as “my existence” · Again I’m talking to myself as I slice the potatoes · The truth of my life so far is incredibly not on the Internet · Again I’m wondering if goodness is compatible with the writing of poems · Credibility depends on not being asked to leave the restaurant · What good is it to fear if you’re never brought to any action? · The restaurant was where I first learned about Satan · Dog park as arbiter of our ability to engage in collective action · I was never found to be a true satanist, just a dabbler in the prophetic and leering arts

  *

  Underneath the blankets we put our little selves in alignment, like planets · I’m trying to galvanize all of my terrific interests · It’s like a birthday cake made out of the reclaimed stuff of suffering · You can’t go gallivanting across Europe without first understanding postcolonialism · A reclaimed sense of wonder from our spirited Internet debates · I underestimated my ability to stimulate reality’s colon · What you’re witnessing is the creation of a spiritual den of personas · I was colonized by an unidentified vision complex
· The witness refused to take the stand unless the degenerate jury cleared their mouths out · Identification with the other is a simulation · Ahead in the clearing, where the pocket machines waited · Simulacrum is when we fuck each other and then roll over and grab our cell phones · The mechanics of my production written out in longhand and submitted for verification · Simulacrum is when we watch each other masturbate and feel afraid · You can’t verify your personhood just by sticking a pin through your finger · An unidentified feeling washed over the crowd of rubberneckers · What kind of person needs to exhale their loneliness for approval? · I stood by my previous statements as obscene but ultimately necessary · Exhausting all options, I studied the works of Klimt

  Walking Wounded

  Joyce Carol Oates

  1.

  Late morning but there’s a heaviness to it like dusk. Bruised sky like an eye swollen shut. Smell of sulfur in the warm wind from the lake shallow at this end, rotted with cattails, tall reeds and rushes and something floating just beneath the surface.

  He has returned to our small town on Lake Cattaraugus. He has returned eviscerated.

  He is forty-one years old. His youth has been lost to him.

  Torn away like clothes cut off a stricken man by EMTs wielding shears in an emergency.

  He has learned respect for the astonishing swiftness of (young, vigorous) emergency workers. As soon as you lose control of your body in a faint, in a public place, your body is theirs.

  Why think of this?—he isn’t.

  Hell no. Not.

  At the southernmost edge of the lake he sees her.

  A luminous figure in the mist that lifts from the lake on this mild, overcast June morning.