Selected Writings
by Harold Abramowitz
I found standards. The roughshod ambulance men at my door. There was a kind of hush. Holding over me then. You are foolish enough to answer my question. The evidence was in the bag. And then you hand it over to me and I take exception to the way it looks. The evidence in the bag. The whole way of looking at things. There is a finality to the way the ambulance stops. It puts its feet on the lounge. And you are a real character, you know. The sleeping speech. The hints of character. And then the whole world at your disposal. A kind of hush. Stalking the spirit wherever and whenever it may go. But betting on science. That kind of cadaver-like speech. The whole quality ripped from the headlines. Blood. Galoshes. A semblance of boots worn. Of tissues taken. We split our exceptions in half and take them to the store and rub them together and dream of better days. The mercy ebbs and flows. Fills volumes. You are getting high on rubberized steak, on grams and grams of fat returned to heaven in parts. And then you want to tell me to go and get fucked? Well, that’s not even me you’re talking to. Not even then. And not even in heaven. I have a voice, you know. And all the cantilevers, all the volumes, in heaven will never fill up a suitcase until the voice says exactly what it’s supposed to say. There is a kind of hush. And you explode. You ask for mercy. There is no cooking. At least not until tomorrow. Because that’s when the truck rolls in and there are decisions to be made.
But there is a letter waiting by the door.
There are new ways of saying old things.
Final and violating the pin—
The pin, and only the pin.
But it does not ring true.
A kind of hush. Hold your head up high. There is a last minute reserved for speech. For the real recitation of the moment you stuck your head out the window and waved. Reality is a vision of forgetting that you were born at the bottom of the book and there is no mercy for your character, that is, no mercy for one or anyone of your character. Your philosophy deserves to be dragged down. And it is dragged down and it is kicking and screaming and asking for mercy. Hazing. A new disaster. And you call that the annals of science. Mercy. Release. And you call that, or those, the annals of the world. But I am not angry. Not at all. A kind of hush. All over the world. And then release. So listen very carefully. The only sound you will hear. Each time reliving its mercy and honesty. And then you stay at the back of the bus, or car, or truck, or train. You believe in relief. The whole list of things that were done, then, at that time. This was then. And this was in the back of the bus, or truck, or train, or car. The tile was blue or green. There was a garden just outside the window. I could hear the alarm sound early in the morning. There was a chicken making sounds. A hen, I think. You are tinkering with dismay. The whole conversation collapses around a story. And you are taken hostage and instantly turned into nothing again.
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