Responding

This is a place without a terrain a government that always

changes an unstable language. Even buildings disappear

from day to day.

[gendered pronoun] wanders in this place

[searching

[waiting

the condition of unbearableness is the constant state of mind

for all occupants

we read all day in the village square during the rule of [name

of major historical figure] a book that is so subtle

[its political content goes unnoticed

what is political content?

[the question or the statement

[gender pronoun] creates

[a reader culture

[generic plural pronoun] prefer both

realism's authenticities are not the question

the question [role of art in the State

we know art is fundamental to the [New State] as is evidenced

in village scenes, majestic ancient views, masses and

masses of [generic human figures] marching in columns,

swords coded as plowshares, image as spectacle

we kn0w [name of city], [adjective], [name of major composer]

to recode [reduce] it: Linz, ambiguous, Wagner

we know [name of major historical figure] calls, authentically,

for a more total, more radical war than we can even

dream in the language of the avant-garde

we know a commercial promises to reduce plaque more

effectively in this same tone

but sometimes we exceed even our own expectations to

surprise even ourselves

something encloses the impossible in a fable

an unreal world called real because it is so heavily metaphoric

we can't keep our fingers of connection out of it

it is a ride in the country, the car crowded with children

[each child represents a different

ethnicity of [name of nation]

it is a moment of standing with light resonating around [major

historical figure

it is a guiding of the child towards the right path

it is a picnic in a field, the spread is bountiful

[the spread of [name of nation] is represented through the

arrangement of food on the checkered tablecloth

it is [name of major historical figure]'s Art Collection:

figure after figure

each carries spears, lunges, draws the arm back to pull

tight the bow

a ruined plaza has a [gendered human form] at its en

trance

a [generic child] draws a sword under the guidance of

[generic possessive pronoun] [honorific denoting repro-

ductive role]

a [generic human form] raises [generic pronoun] arms and

four horses turn away

another plays a lute

an eagle holds a symbol

fake [name of nation used as an adjective] heads

while the end of lunacy in art was explicit in [name of major

historical figure]'s rhetoric

while when nation turns to art, art loses its divergence

while the [generic human figures] come back from war, their

legs in fog

while a [generic human figure] sculpts, small against the

expanse of marble, giving into the monumental human

form that symbolizes eugenic possibilities

while another [generic human figure] pedantically draws

postcards of village centers, operas, mountain vistas

while overwhelmed by an opera [name of major historical

figure] plans genocide

III

we know we respond resistantly as faked children's books of

realist adventure tales have turned into military instruc-

tion manuals

or [name of major historical figure] hails a cab, [generic

possessive human pronoun] hand raised here, beckoning

as the red flag with [name of fast food chain] waves

behind [generic human pronoun] and the red star on top

of the [name of cultural landmark in major city] twinkles.

many people raise their hands for different purposes all day

long

we are always waiting for our cab to come

the question here is the same as that of a relationship

where does art define our vocabulary?

the margin declares

[it is impossible to speak about something

it is only possible to speak beside it

[a film with a voice-over of nonsense

to act in the unsecular forbidden margins [claims a certain

privilege]

[generic human pronoun] cast a colonizing eye

a scripture of space / a place where

a [generic human form] twists in space

[follow this body]

getting you to recognize yourself in [generic possessive

pronoun] work

[is kidnapping]

in the space of this question some emigrate or lapse into total

silence

some co-opt this language and paint a series of meticulous and

beautifully colored monumental images of people impris-

oned and alone at the edge of a tedious despair

some [refigure [refuse] respond] call out for an end

rewritten, the goal of the artist is to prevent reality in a true and

concrete manner

[generic human figure] claims I can get more information at

home than by going to the war scene

what [generic pronoun] sees is [gendered naked bodies] in

news photos—dead bodies, discarded bodies, junk

i saw this written on the bottom

[a way of testimony

the poverty of image among the people of [name of nation]

the continual increase in the amount of image a viewer can

tolerate

[who went to [name of nation?

returning again and again to images of torture

covert activities depicted [blown up

[to show power

details of photographs

or Xerox degradations

of photos on Duraclear

hang loose are

vulnerable and

fragmentary and

images are seen

through images and/or

viewers

[call this]

the fate of Madame Bovery, the fate of Anna Karenina

A dog with a [generic human face] has slogans coming out

of its mouth as angels hold its head back suckle at its

tits

taped to a [gendered hand, adorned with ring] is a photo-

graph of [gendered naked torso], gagged

[generic human figure] infects computerized images with

digitized viruses and then transfers them to canvas with

a robotic device

[possible responses to what is seen

in [name of nation] at another time another set of reponses:

a [sexual category withheld] cuts hair and cameras circle

around and [generic human pronoun] is dragged out of

the room

another [generic human figure] says passionately we express

ourselves in a language of regulations. Symbols and

numbers best convey our ideas

another [generic human figure] makes an enormous painting

of a massacre victim, mutilated and bloody, and hangs it

by night on a pedestrian bridge

what a nation gives us is the image in [name of major weekly

news source] of the [generic human figure] standing

before the tanks with white flag

[generic pronoun] painted on houses, streets, stones, trees

[generic pronoun] covered [name of island] with strange marks

in chalk, oil paint, and dye

[generic pronoun] wished to reduce writing to the zero level

where it is without meaning. When culture invades

private life on a large scale [generic pronoun] said the

individual cannot escape being raped

another [generic noun] made a font that was scratched into

paper by a knife

this font made each letter into a single scratch

[generic pronoun] scratched the other [generic pronoun]'s

statement on rape into a banner and hung it outside

[my zero-level writing

[generic pronoun] said

protest rape

[generic pronoun] said

my zero-level writing

[generic pronoun] said

dangerous cultural rape

[generic pronoun] said

my zero-level writing

a voice stutters in the background of our waking mind

[generic possessive pronoun] stutter is our stutter

or it is the way we define our difference?

stutter is nation

beneath an image of human figures the words [you have

nothing to lose but your chains

at times two voices talk to one another

[generic human] faces [tired]

we know we are all constructed

when it comes down to it we don't believe it

the social always holds us back

while the ways that we encounter relation are various

we remain

searching [searching

we question, respond

[deny we [move forward

Source: Response (Sun & Moon Press, 1996)

Poems of Anxiety and Uncertainty

Celebrating Women’s History Month