Alexis Kravilovsky

Indigestion

Short video, color, 48 seconds

Carla Harryman

For Laura

“A prisoner in the book striding backwards and forwards”  

paradoxically free to move within limits

bumps into this bold proposal “Let us try for once

not to be right.” Phrases imported from William

Kentridge’s Message from the Library No. 3

are not here meant as a metaphor for turning

a back on the future while moving in its

direction. Or they are

a little exilic. Exile in senses broached

by Etel Adnan, its having “become synonymous

with the human condition, but with (slight) difference

that some of us are eaten by illness in ways evident

and definitive while all the others are not yet

conscious of what they are already suffering from.”

I trace a bridge between these zones, abstractly—

to be sure. But sometimes with my feet,  using

art for the sake of the body. A practice moving away from

apprehended objective. While fireflies skirt fields

drones snap a buckle.

striding to wander bumps try imported are meant turning moving are broaches are eaten are conscious are suffering to be using apprehended skirt snap

I motion to William Kentridge’s collective practice

in the Centre for Less Good Ideas. Arms akimbo,

sketching in air the distance from  here to “two evils

fighting each other,” my friend R.S. writes—

awake all night because of these. More on the anon

moving backwards. Is not seen out in the open then. Nod

off to sleep in a narrative. Sit up for a moment daydreaming.

Poets’ public email exchanges result in my attaining a photo copy

Message from the Library No. 3. From such generous relay

this writing arrives between worlds of less good ideas

on the topic of tyranny. Upon which, circled around

with fast and slow feet Senator Padilla of California is forced

to his knees and handcuffed for attempting to question

Director of Homeland Security about authenticity

of immigrant mugshots displayed behind her.

It took conveyances of fellow poets

a mainstream media outlet and Common Cause

to compose a sentence. “At a distance the yard became part

of housing projects on the other side.”

motion sketching fighting writes moving is seen nod to sleep sit daydreaming result attaining arrives forced attempting to question displayed took to compose became

“Let us try for once not to be right” is

a phrase imported from Message from

the Library No. 3, which also contains that trope

a prisoner in the book striding backwards and forwards.

The figure would not be the same to each reader.

Anyone is trapped inside the pages of these books.

So many pages. She faces the narratives coming at her

as she travels backward through them. A redundancy streaks

passed her. She thought it was a missile. Out in the field

we know it had flown passed  the last time

the pages were open as well.  The book recalls what its

character never retains.

We are an audience of actors trying

not to be right. So she is granted her experience. She has

no memory. Though sometimes she doubts her perceptions.

On page 220 light moves in on the shade she backed into

on page 15. And her doubt tells me

the book makes itself

while I assign it tasks.

let try to be is contains walking trapped faces coming travels streaks thought was flown were recalls are is granted has doubts moves doubt makes assign

Down the screen pages, brought to me by Google mail

text messages and Instagram,

are stories of friends’ mothers who happen to be elsewhere or

won’t be bullied into evacuating Tehran.

A city of ten-million or nine depending on sourced

reportage on the country

whose nuclear infrastructure, attacked without reference to

nine million. Or ten. The difference is not in an Opinion article

by the Pulitzer winning Tim Friedman of the New York Times.

There are no people present in his opining. Can tyranny

be evacuation of those millions via discourse? Let’s cover

“Language Disappears” with the subheading

“poets pursue it,” among these

 Parniya Abassi

of these words

I come to an end  
I burn  
I become a silent star  
That turns to smoke in your sky

brought are happen to be won’t be bullied evacuating depending attacked is are be let pursue come burn become turns

Kentridge states all great ideas result in some form

of destruction: nuclear energy, or vaccinations

causing ecological waste as do

most of the walls in the wide world

and the books.

When it falls on the question of tyranny

I’m not so sure I agree about the destructiveness of good ideas

vs less good. It is a bad idea to

dismantle the programs based in ideas of the common good,

however grand or minor,  needed

to support life. A collage of diminutive, slavish

boldly selfish capitulations in Congress aided

such transactions’ lubrications of global capitalism.

Making a practice that enlists processes over objectives,

I fold today’s mudslides into yesterday’s record.

Next follows interrupting intuition with purpose

and interrupting purpose with intuitive  cuts—

begin walking backwards and forwards  euphemistically,

and literally, having leapt out of the book. And closed a book.

result causing do falls am agree verses is dismantle based needed to support aided lubrications making enlists told follows interrupting interrupting begin walking having closed

The press reported on June 13 Parniya Abbassi

was killed along with her parents

and her younger brother by Israeli bombs

on a day her friend Maryam did visit and we

were headed to the memorial for Cole Heinowitz

in Brooklyn, who had celebrated

the Artaudian “demand that words be wrested

from their signifying function and returned

to their vitality” in one dimension of her thinking.

There were more dimensions. Are.

While fences between book

and deed between romanticism and materialism

lower when gaged with slowed attention approaching distance.

Walking backwards requires the sensation

of sound striking touch or touch seeking sight’s periphery.

To reach her later, I had to turn back to the gates

and open them. Then trespass the bridges

ask the birds who they work for

with a forward nod to the guards.

reported was killed did visit were headed celebrated wrested returned were are lower gaged slowed approaching requires striking seeking to reach had to turn ask work

Sleaze-and-Charm Branches of the fascist

government tickle and seduce its minions.

Their jewelry enjoys the feeling of forgetting

fear of losing something. The book can make anyone

a romantic figure imprisoned in it. That is, set

aside from actuality. Distance from the removal

of library books from actual prisons draws a thought-image.

Distance animates the prisoner in the book, who is my idea of

what I read between its pages. As I write, the figure

is unbound. Though it persists as an actor in a prompt.

And when I open a book the prisoner is open to

possibility. A subject breathing. In a corner. Inhalations

take in contaminated particles. Exhalations exchange these

for nothing to be known. The corner disappears. Walls

and prison time disappear.  I am stationed within a dare

a peculiar non-space in which there are no words for

corner, wall, or dare. Those words dissolve in breath

that nourishment for weeds progressing

in the scene of nuclear meltdown.

tickle seduce enjoys forgetting losing can make set aside requires is read write is is take exchange to be disappears disappear am stationed is dissolve progressing

To change the scene of my mind’s orientation

without having to open my legs to Zeus

or beg Artemis for punishment, I’d enlist something that isn’t so

strenuous. Walking backwards literally causes one to move

without the common sense of purpose, although it requires

attention necessary for balance and a clear space without

unsurmountable surprises interfering.

Such an unstressed mode of attention breaks

established rhythm and purpose, which I imagine is how

it worked for William Kentridge  

when he composed his

Message from the Library, walking backwards and forwards

in his capacious studio. His measured diction suggests he avoids

the habit of pacing despite its resemblance to his movement.

Pacing arising from anxiety instigates anxiety

arising from overthinking while pacing.

Anxious pacing is the medium through which overthinking thrives

to the point that one is thinking only about the feeling of anxiety obstructing

some kind of idea one is trying to manage.

to change having to open beg enlist is causes requires interfering breaks imagine worked composed striding suggests avoids arising instigates arising pacing  is thrives is thinking obstructing is trying to manage

Action itself can be a tyranny

stepping into moving forward in the water

on impulse arising from

a place anyone can know is there, a dance

with the living world among death’s

auspices.

Walking backwards may appear

as a stultifying rejection

of inevitable momentum. Or simultaneously

our legs will wish to move in two directions.

To piss on Zeus. Strategically previous, a ghost

of these sentences stalls.  These sentences

layered over other sentences obscure

their sources, a slough

of cooperative intentions, constructed pacings

mischievous toilings, strongholds of affection

and mourning. What word overwrites

dichotomous agency and passivity?

Safety. What is it?

can be stepping moving arising can know  is appear rejection will wish to move to  piss stalls obliterate try to revitalize overwrites is

Three of us dine on fish, vegetables, sausages prepared on a backyard

grill while discussing the question of tyranny.

We have not yet arrived at a language for what

we are in, are figured into.  Is tyranny a ghost word for what

we can’t figure? What can’t be figured?

The future indicative imperial golf courses are trinkets,

signs of its devouring. Despite our efforts

at grasping what is, there might be

a fatal distance

between present genocides and other moments  

of social cataclysm. Can metaphors of the body obtain? Like

the language for what is devouring is slipping out of our grasp.

Slipping, reversing. Into and against reality,  I traipse

after pan handles, junked body parts, breast plates

with the glitziest places on earth assigned to new locations.

The political imagination is purported to begin with a grasping

for what is not visible or known, or maybe this is just an idea

substituting the unseen for what is not seen. Grabbed at.

“I move. From early on we are searching. We crave. Cry out.

Do not have what we want.” A little narration cradles missing link.

dine prepared discussing have arrived are are figured can’t be figured are devouring grasping is might be can is devouring is slipping slipping reversing traipse are is purported to begin grasping is is substituting is not seen grabbed move searching crave cry do not have cradles