Juliana Spahr
I
this is a place without a terrain a government that always changes an
unstable language. Even buildings disappear from day to day.
[searching
[waiting
the condition of bearableness 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 its political content?
[the question or the statement
[generic pronoun] create[a reader culture
[possessive pronoun] prefer both
II
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 know [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 of in the language of
the avant-garde
we know a commercial promises to relieve plaque more effectively in this
same tone
but sometimes we exceed our own expectations to surprise even ourselves
something encloses the impossible in a fable
an unreal world called real because it is so heavily metamorphic
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 field, the spread is bountiful [the spread of [name of
nation] is represented through the arrangement of the food on the
checkered table cloth]
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] in front of it
a [generic child] draws a sword under the guidance of [generic possessive
pronoun] [honorific denoting reproductive 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, opera, 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 instruction manuals
of [name of major historical figure] hails a cab, his hands raised, 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 somethingit 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 pronouns] cast a colonizing eye
a scripture of space / a place where
a [generic human form] twists in space [follow the body] getting you to
recognize yourself in [generic possessive pronoun] work
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 imprisoned 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
IV
[generic human figure] claims I can get more information at home thangoing 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
returning again and again to images to torture
covert activities depicted [blown up
[to show power
details of photographs or Xerox
degradations of photos on
Duraclear hang loose are vul-
nerable and fragmentary and
images are seen through images
and/or viewers
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 a ring] is a photograph of
[gendered naked torso], gagged
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 responses:
a [sexual category withheld] cuts hair and cameras circle around while
[generic human pronoun] is dragged out of the room
another [generic human figure] sans impassionedly 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 nationa gives us is the image in [name of major weekly news source]
of the [generic human figure] standing before the tanks with a white
flag
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 escaped being raped
another [generic pronoun] made a font that was scrated into paper by a
knife
this font made each letter into a single scratch
[generic pronoun] scratched the other [generic pronoun]’s statement onrape 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
my zero-level writing
V
a voice stutters in the background of our waking mind
[generic pronoun] stutter is our stutteror 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 in
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
Juliana Spahr edits the book series Chain Links with Jena Osman and the collectively funded Subpress with nineteen other people and Commune Editions with Joshua Clover and Jasper Bernes. With David Buuck she wrote Army of Lovers. She has edited with Stephanie Young A Megaphone: Some Enactments, Some Numbers, and Some Essays about the Continued Usefulness of Crotchless-pants-and-a-machine-gun Feminism (Chain Links, 2011), with Joan Retallack Poetry & Pedagogy: the Challenge of the Contemporary (Palgrave, 2006), and with Claudia Rankine American Women Poets in the 21st Century (Wesleyan U P, 2002).