#164 The Literal Meaning II

lounge departure
room emergency
gods false
trap death
bell door
rail guard
balance trial
idea bright
time prime
avant post
spectrum broad
drama high
black token
floor forest

#163 The Literal meaning VI

It is the
body of
a woman,
drawn &
quartered

#162 The Golden Legend

Lapis philos-
ophorum—the
philosopher’s
stone. &. Loaves
& fishes. Miracles?
Legend? Every-
one is entitled
to their own
beliefs about
the stuff of life.

#162 L’Homme au journal

“I’ll fill in those
other panels
after I’ve been
to the Club &


seen if there’s
anything in
today’s paper
that inspires me.”

#161 The Castle in the Pyrenees

Each summer would
move to the house
up in the mountains. Sit

outside at night, de-
code the stars. Plan
journeys by them,

direction, distance. De-
scribe the places; fact,
fantasy. By day

would trace the travel,
to see what of what
we dreamt was real.

#160 The Flowers of the Abyss II


A curious eclipse—
traffic regulations now
require night to have
a bell that absorbs
light without refraction
fitted to it. Times past,
an event happened, we
rushed out & ran to it
in rampant schaden-
freude. But this is no
accident, is mechanistic;
so we stay within the
ice-blue interior of a bare
carcass of concrete &
play chase the dog or
describe Nigeria or clean
graffiti off the wreaths &
potpourri. Shorn of its
exits the sun is quiet.
Time stands still, bells
hang heavy in the air.

#159 The Flowers of the Abyss I

Hélas! tout est abîme
wrote Baudelaire—all is
abyss, a completely
automated world of self-
assembling machine-flowers
made possible by an
emergent form of video
expression. Each change
brings out new curves in
the shoreline; in the same
ambient space there is a
region where the perception
of the image is still affected
by the dead blue screen. A
message appears to say
there is a problem with
the file. All windows
bare the infinite to me.

#158 The Annunciation

Squeeze the symbolism
for all it’s worth. Olive
trees in an otherwise
barren & rocky land-
scape, the simulated
organ, the confessional
latticework. No real
people, not even foot-
prints. Wooden bilboquets
have turned into pawns
& vainly wait for someone
to move them. It’s a
sterile oasis in a forty-
day desert, which
someone once found, an-
nounced its discovery &
was famous ever after.

#157 Le Portrait

Dans les plus sombres yeux
se ferment les plus clairs

were the lines by Eluard
that caught Magritte’s eye.

#156 La Plaine de l’air




Even though the air
is an unstable
medium at best, the
tree, a plain text
ASCII file made of
everyday materials &
the common language
of commercial signage,
stands unmoved. Else-
where, the German
Army is entering Paris.

#155 The Ladder of Fire

He had noted the
nesting order—how
the paper fit in-
side the bell of the
tuba & it, in turn,
rested on the chair—
so that, once this fire
was over, they could
be neatly stored until
the next time he
had need of them.