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A magic glass that forms the distant worlds. Or. A device for making
faraway seem near. A photon bucket for collecting streams of discrete
particles having zero mass, no electric charge, and infinitely long lifetimes.
As. Above the height of mountains interposed, by what strange Parallax,
or optic skill of vision, multiplied through air. Not exactly. Or. Never.
But. If the instrument can render seeable the unseeable and obvious the
imperceptible, you put the balloon to your right eye and number the moons
of Jupiter. You. Discover the rings of Saturn. Name the monstrous mountains
of the lunar craters and witness black spots on the sun. While I, eclipsed
by real proximity to your squinting left, wonder whether it be light or
it be years that stand between.
Naturally, an objective lens set in a tube to focus the light from the
astral plane. And. An eyepiece that grows the plane and brings the stars
into view. Smaller hand scopes consist of two or more tubes made to slide
within one another for convenience of packing in a narrow compass. Or.
For tuning the zoom. But. There are reflectors and there are refractors.
And. If the Kid’s Kaleidoscope can offer the childish perspective,
I wish I could shut up like the telescope. Fold my body in the palm of
your lined hand. I demand my memory should use the telescope. For. I am
trying hard to re-member myself. Or. I am trying hard to recall what it
is to tell. As. The witness of space is one. The witness of me, on other
hand.
To combine. To compress. To condense. To conflate and shorten by constriction
. To force or drive into another, other, a something else, said of railway
carriages that collide. As. The express train ran into the locomotive
thereby telescoping the baggage wagons. And. They telescoped like cars
in railroad smashes. For. As you watch convexly the whirling oceans of
your heavenly bodies, the proximate corpus collides. I see through this
glass so darkly. For. It is I who am perpetually condemned to marry the
mountains. Or. To marry the men who repeatedly die.
An instrument for carrying noise to a distance. Or. A mechanical device
based on sound transportation. Or. An apparatus for conveying signals
by means of electric speak. Or. A system of signaling by musical notes.
As. A wind instrument like a fog-horn used on ships and trains for communicating
loud harmonic notes. Like, The Marine Alarum and The Signal Trumpet. And.
Pipes in which free tongues are acted upon by shallow breezes. Where.
Air is admitted by means of a valve acted upon. By the needle of an electromagnet.
Or. Air is released from a narrow orifice and divided. Upon a sharp edge.
And. For. And. But. If the telephonic instrument can carry your voice
over the diametrical distance of 7000 miles, I toss a pebble into this
still pool. Then. I hear this tiny far-traveling tsunami die soundlessly
in my mind. As there. So here. For. I hear your words. And. Your words
have hammer. Or. Your voice has the madness of the metronome.
A tube for conveying the noise of ulterior voices. Among these are speaking
tubes. For. We are, it seems, able to speak to the faraway places without
any connection at all. As. Across the inner quadrangles of the cordiform
building, for example. By means of a gutta-percha reflector.
A wonder of wonders. A lovers’ tale. A stringed instrument. A child’s
toy, consisting of two stretched membranes connected by a tense cord that
transmits sound waves. Or. Connected by tension. Of. The past and its
future. For. When I put my mouth to this membrane, you put your ear where?
The game whose purpose is to efface the message as opposed to preserve
it. As. My favorite flower is the rose. Then. Our Father has no nose.
A bell, a call, a dial. Drum, drum, drum. An extension, a booth, a box.
But. If the telephonic instrument can carry your voice over the diametrical
distance between us, my cord is off at the root. And. My voice can’t
worm. In other words, if the systemic soundness can be carried, I was
born without discrimination or judgment. And. When the ring rings, there
is someone on the telephoneforgiveme. Or. A man-made machine answers with
a man-made voice. As. Please speak clearly. Please speak now. But. You’re
not on the telephone now.
A tube bent so that one leg is longer than the other. Used for drawing
off liquids by means of. Atmospheric pressure. As. Which forces fluid
up the shorter leg then over the bend. Or. A channel through which the
passage of water becomes possible. Impossible. As. A fire bucket. Or.
A vessel made of tanned hides which carries the water to quench the fire
raging amongst the Dwelling Houses. And. If the flow of fluid results
from atmospheric pressure, you, again, put the tube in my mouth. You.
Force the tube through the esophagus of my alimentary canal. And. Into
my silver stomach. Then. You watch the heavy yellow liquor come up out
from my insides. While I. Ask with unfinished fever. How can you do this
to me?
You say. Fill a tube with fluid. Then. Pinch the two ends with your fingers.
Put one end in the water bucket up above. Or. The exalted body on the
bed. Then. Put the other end down below by the bed-skirt. In the infernal
trenches. Unpinch your fingers and watch as your viscous insides flow
through the tube and out your rounded mouth. With such soft sucking sounds.
For. All the fervor of which you are capable I siphon off into my army.
And. I depend on the integration of the illicit functions that prostitution
siphons off.
To drain, to bankrupt, and to bleed. Or. To empty and fatigue. For. If
the flow of fluid results from atmospheric pressure, the thing may be
also called an attracting engine. As. You ask. What do you expect from
me? And. I reply. My guess is you are Birdsong. You sing these lullabies.
I fall to sleep. For. The ebb and flow of springs sound like they are
sung by the your wondrous siphon.
Emptiness of space. And. A place unoccupied by substance. And. An area
empty of air. Especially one from which air has been artificially withdrawn.
And. A void. Unoccupied or unfilled by natural contents. But. As men have
tried their best to achieve that bit of space without matter. Our Mother.
Or. The trunks of all substantive trees. It is as the old saying goes.
Mother Nature does abhor. And. When men set out to create this impossibility,
Mother Nature sets out to fill it up. For. If the suction pump fails in
the artificial effort, you endeavor to put your mouth to mine. Inhale
the air from the space inside me. And. Make my lungs into rounded unfilled
sacks. While I. Remembering the vacuum of your pupils, endeavor to fill
myself up with our unrecorded past. For. Emptiness is not in the world.
And. Larks from more adjacent parts do crowd.
Hear the pop of the broken bulb. Pull the cork from the bottle of burgundy.
Push a pin in the blown balloon. For. The nightly noise of thunder. Lightning
as it flashes. And. The air that collapses in and upon itself. Does clap.
Who is my audience? For. This time I dispute against Democritus who believed
the World was made by the casual concourse of atoms in a giant vacuum.
No matter. It is the house that aches. For. You have forgotten the nests
of birds. The limbs of erupting trees. You must see that I am. And. If
the suction pump of your affection fails in the artificial effort, you
must see that I matter.
With aspiration, a method of terminating pregnancy. With extractor, a
cup-shaped appliance to assist a baby in its birth. With cleaner, a device
for the removal of. Ashes to ashes. Mouth to mouth. Our past haunts. Empty
rooms of. This is my body brick. And. If the suction pump of your affection
fails in the artificial effort, you aspire to exhaust me. But. The void
of me you so desire. Is impossible to produce. For. This time it is you
who fills the vessel of my matterlessness.
Van Guericke’s little weather man. Or. A tube of brass and glass
dipped in a basin of water. Or. Mercury. Which rises higher in fairer
weather and falls within the storm. The work of muttering magicians. Or.
An instrument for measuring atmospheric pressure. As. The aneroid barometer.
A portable device that measures pressure not by the heights of Mercury
but by its action on the lid. Of. The hermetically sealed box. But. If
the pocket aneroid resembles a watch in its appearance, you strap the
barometer onto your wrist. Strap my body on to yours. Leap out from the
sky-writing plane. And. Fall. For.
Take a tube a yard long, close it at one end and fill it with Mercury.
God of travel and of thievery. Close the tube at one end and invert it
in a vessel. You will soon see that very few drops will drop out. As.
The atmosphere pressing upon the surface supports the weight of the Mercury.
And. If there is a difference between the atmosphere. And. The apocalypse
of your falling body. I ask you to stop pressing yourself upon. Me.
There you see the city of rain. There, the pink structures of its politic.
Here. My widening wound. Or. My wide remorse for time. For. Hallowed be
thy name. Your barometer. Six. Five. Four. Is falling. For. If the pocket
aneroid resembles a watch in its appearance, glycerine can used in place
of Mercury for exacter readings. As. Sweet syrupy fluid obtained from
fats by. Saponification. And. You must now see. We are running out of
time. For. The barometer was first made public by the nobler searchers
of nature. And. Your fob. Like a barometer. Shows the temper of your beating
heart. As. An indicator of fluctuations. Or. A standard for comparison.
Both the benchmark and the touchstone. The yardstick and the paradigm.
Are we diving? Or am I dying? For. This time, the child just dreams. Of
parachutes. In bloom. |
