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Pivot

from "Le Sens du Combat" by Michel Houellebecq.

The swallows take their flight, skimming the waves slowly, then fly in a spiral into the warming atmosphere. They do not speak to humans, for the humans remain stuck on the earth.

The swallows are not free. They are conditioned by the geometry of their repeated orbits. They slightly modify the angle of attack of their wings to describe spirals that grow further and further apart in relation to the blueprint of the earth’s surface. In short, there is nothing to be learned from swallows.

Sometimes, we would come back together in the car. Over the immense plain the sunset was enormous and red. Suddenly there was a quick flight of swallows and its surface was sliced. You shuddered, at that moment. Your hands were tight on the snake-skin cover of the wheel. So many things could, at the time, make us part.

from "Platonic False Teeth" by Francis Picabia.

The regime of the photographic radium screen’s wind rests every day in the effluvia of the sublime family of great vices when the pyre laughs at the pirate world. Blushing gets pretty dangerous if paralyzed King lacks a Queen, and Jesus Christ, crazed with the sorrows of a society violated in public hereditary silence, operates early in the intrigues of the seraglio, vizier of heaven’s administration.

"Thing Language" by Jack Spicer

This ocean, humiliating in its disguises
Tougher than anything.
No one listens to poetry. The ocean
Does not mean to be listened to. A drop
Or crash of water. It means
nothing.
It
Is bread and butter
Pepper and salt. The death
That young men hope for. Aimlessly
It pounds the shore. White and aimless signals, No
One listens to poetry.

1,3,6,7

Mute

Train

Several dark stretches passed on the train before any edges could be seen in the rushing trees. Why did you write this he asked. I am surprised that you think this is an insight.

The Baby

He could not imagine the baby peeing in the mouth. That’s not something I should be thinking, he exclaimed but with a small sound. This exclamation did not adjust the tautness. There was no imagined play at rest here, this was for a real something. It is difficult to see the baby. As a metaphor, he remarked to her, but she was too angry to drop the lip into a new shape.

A Stretch

There she sat beside the cabinet, the tooth angling abruptly. An exclamation or yell built up inside her, but it was unreasonable. However, later there were comments such as: I will not miss this tooth. Her hand touched the humid edge of the furniture while she commented. I am a young woman still, so there is plenty of time for more.

The husband’s dog growled attempting to debone. The dog’s teeth were less yellow than a month ago, as new food had been bought. This had been his surprise plan, to change the food. It was unnerving to come home and find a food that was not the normal food; it was now a food that cleaned gums. The cabinet had also been his, some relative unloading old pieces on us, she had said, as a sort of aside. You’ll come to like it here, he assured her, knowing that was not the case. But what love is toothless or silent?

The Sunset

What was that she was dragging? The pit was too close for anything good. Her black cap was fringed with sweat; the light did not catch it. We followed on her footsteps. On the counter some errant cardboard rested ahead of its use.

Our hands felt groupings of one or the other, as the room was blackened to honor the defeat. We congratulated ourselves on our economy, so unsure up until this moment.

Breadth

This part has no one object to its own. This other has a cat, warm and full of imagined feeling. We say ‘imagined’ for the sake of our futures.

So how small could this part make itself, he thought. There was an unconscious person laying there who could tell some things about the way it was made, although they were also barely there. There was, in fact, a fake part to him, more than one even. This part was not broken, but was gilt. Well, in his head it was.

The other woman walked onto the scene and took stock. There were so many parts that she was unable to count them all, although some were sure to prove unreal. The varied pieces came together in an instant. There she heard some sound like pouncing. Oh! How that could be! Which part was it moving with its paw?