witte

Valerie Witte

from a game of correspondence

she’d like to know his method, to inflict pain so readily. alone yet solicitation via telephone, radio, television, DREAMS and various invented devices achieved through pictures every 28 days a series of apologies over divination and orgiastic procedures. when more than two bodies coincide invisible ties can collide without breaking. as oracles announce sensory overload. (do you like this. are we OK.) (it hurts my eyes it hurts my throat but I don’t smell the smoke.) you can stay if you like. a cab, once called, will just drive by. ~    ~  ~ then technology was the human body: a construction of circuits and levers, mechanisms placed for continued animation. why attempts at stillness inevitably fail. (I tried to quit smoking and now I’m addicted to gum.) what happens to remnants of you fused. contents of a brain scanned, as a ham sliced. in diagnosing a speculative disorder where reluctant to admit implanted memories preferred. (I doubt the gum will kill her. do you want a piece. just stop chewing before it tingles.) ~    ~  ~ I spent the morning processing turns of phrase, winks and nodes, flirtation by a flurry of hands peeling layer after layer. (I’m working on submission.) while others appeared naked in part, an invitation. piles of uneaten fruit, an image of a pear. an image of a bear. manipulation of animals stripped of complexity, arranged in positions to enhance sensation. your body rocking back and forth without a sound (or have I managed to obliterate it). as for ignoring a passage of time and emotional developments within a given dimension of reality. this room is a low frequency banshee for building a scenario to simulate real-time communication. flat and mechanical a matrix of exhalations, excavations, exclamations, oh. can I go home now. there is nothing funny about blindness. ~    ~  ~ she took a recorder into basements and captured hundreds of projections—the nearsighted Mr. Magoo might use humor to diffuse the inability to distinguish between a rain coat, Aquaman, and a wild bear. a refusal to consider that sight might fail despite an extensive use of eyes. the green reminiscent of a field where Candy, Slick, Dizzy, The Lip, Little Nel, Little General, Little Napolean, Little Poison. Big Cat, Big Train, Big Six, Big Dan, Biscuit Pants. Pee Wee, Schoolboy, Satchel, The Splendid Splinter, Stonewall, Scooter, Cracker, Black & Decker, Turkey, Puck, Ducky, Bucklefoot, Bullet, Pudge, The Flying Dutchman, Thumper, Slug, Muscles, and The Puddle Jumper played. is there anyone else I should know. (Smokey Joe, Spoke, Cyclone, Jocko). these names are not audible during recording but are heard on ~    ~  ~ playback. interference from other bodies carried into television, the new medium. when colors seem to move, transmission a clearer shimmer. light reflected, refracted, fibrous as dust, for a few minutes blue or complicity. what we see, when forced. a severance upon arrival of a third spontaneous body. what we accept, when desperate. on the margins fingertips float candles taken for a torch or yellow globes. when working on a probe he always speaks in cyber shorthand. (r u my.) she’s still waiting for a translator. (did you know he reminds me of you, specifically before warming. shivering and small in your clothes, you were shrinking from several angles, disappearing in various contexts.) a little dizzy but still sharper than your disembodied voices. when spirits part a curiosity. (I won’t tell anyone, I promise.) as for Aquaman, you never once thawed.

     
return to SHAMPOO 38