Episode Two: Standing On Front Porches (Revised)

A Monday of apologises for a lost suitcase
But it’s o.k. I have a 5 ml lip balm.
10.30 unwrite these pages, jot new words
To stuff into back pockets.

Stand -
Script text
Set score
Stamp view down.

Breakfast in Amherst. In Newport by 4.45
We dine at Christie's
Converse with an economic waiter.
He offers two tickets

Dilemma -
What do we do?
Resolved -
What can we do?

9.45 Two New Yorkers take us down Ocean Drive
Mom says "No talkin' to strangers"
We talk, share thoughts on city-life, its 'no stare policy'
Yet gesticulation in abundance.

Piling loo in the back bin fag seat,
Generating fag steam loo bin heat,
Bin pulsating to the fag back loo beat.
Two cities converse side by side.

11.00 at Marble House
Gawping and gorging
Of too much of too much.
Take the Coastal Walk

It gives me time to think, to think of Suzy Lee.
I'm told missing her is unhealthy
More unhealthy than cheese on pasta, cheese on toast, cheese on cheese?
Tonight we eat out on the porch of a stranger.

Tomorrow to The Armory -
To antiques and fine art
To stare into the eyes of someone I could love for a while (at least).
We catch the 2.30 out

You call me anti-social. I'm listening to what Joey says Danny says -
It's crucial to understanding an emotional life on the road.
The 5.00 to Copley
Where our map stops unfolding.

I change behind the gas station
And end up asleep on your lap.

Episode 3: Swinging On Front Porches

O the bells of Quincy 1825
The artisans, the peddlers and their carts
That keep the red brick alive.

It's Friday the 21st and I get George Moore
So every day I head to the library to check in and say
Isabella, I think you're architecturally astounding -
I could watch you go up, extend, lie still forever.
We'd rest on the common and stain my white shoes red.

Today you take advantage -

Instil in me mass consumption.
You tell me that this is the modern world!
Your pants swing from the garage door
Decorated in red ribbon and green clover.

10.18 Breakfast at Bartley's
Take off your shoes. Sit on our rugs!
Tell us in advance what is yet to come.

There will be sound checks at 5.02
But we're still in the yard eating leftover fruit.
I picture her chunky bracelets
And trace her movements in and out
Of all houses wherein men have lived.

8.30 The lizard lounge. I'm glad we came
It's Sunday and it's the 1990s
The district is busy. We roll up our jeans.

Tonight they take over the cemetery
Recreate the battle of O' Normal
Bellmen shiver at the sight of bright orbs of light,
Guests quiver at the sound of rocking chairs,
Yet there are no rocking chairs in this hotel

On Copp's Hill -
Would you do things differently?
Course not, but think most probably.

3.15 And we swing in time
Books stuffed into side-streets
Books stacked into neat peaks

Scratch in this moment –
Say something cliché: the willow strokes the surface and parts the lake
And Duck, Duck, Goose - Duck glides right on through
Or just scar the skin with needles and pins.

Books spill into your suitcase.

I change direction out of a taxi
And end up asleep in Seat 19 C.

I’m waking. I am awake. I’ve sown the seeds. I reap the harvest of daily disease. Three souls leave this room tonight. I’m waking to mornings of bitter coffee (I’ll just drop two sugars) bitter disease. Thoughts of bitterness and disease that clamp clasp and close the soul tight – tight like the rope, the ropes that pull our college flags high above our cities. Cities infected with fear and concern limp and weak like bloody mucus seeping through the table top. I’ll tell you again, life’s taught me the importance of selective memory taught me that remembering to forget is on my list of things-to-do like laundry. What about the prescriptive drugs that sit on the tip of my tongue, in or out uncertainty? I hate indecision. Powerlessness is everywhere in parlours, in bank houses and now on park benches. Listen. I’m waking. Yes I'm awake to latch-key kids and their one-minute heroes. Here goes, throw yourself into school corridors and witness incomplete workbooks, lonesome desks, absent flipcharts – minds forging their way through what’s not on the curriculum. Wake up! Three souls leave this room tonight. Why fear pain – that strain to stretch the rope that will divide your world from mine. Fine. Ok. If it’s rope and the soul you speak of
Rope, to get rid of soul

To get rid of soul, rope

Rid of rope to get soul

Get soul rid of rope to

Rope, rid of soul to get

Soul, to get rid of rope
To get rid of rope, soul

Rid of soul to get rope

Get rope rid of soul to
Soul, rid of rope to get
Ok Ok If it’s this we speak of tie me to my soul with rope. How can I? It left two hours ago along with the hopeless. Why to wander the streets of New York alone piss-fights jello ellis island city cops and fists. It’s probably on its way now from taxi to backalley. Three souls leave this room tonight. Yeah mine left early.

Antonio Gramsci
imprisoned in 1927
Antonio Gramsci and hegemony.
Hegemony
social power and domination
Gramsci's innovative perception
that
power can be maintained without force
that
if
the consent of the dominated
can be obtained
through education
through kinds of cultural labour
power can be maintained without force.
"civil society"
"political society"
correspond to the function of
hegemony.
The intellectuals
the dominant group
exercise the function of
hegemony.
Consent given by the masses
to the general direction
imposed
on
social life
by the dominant group.
Discipline
constituted
for the whole of society
in anticipation of
crisis
power can be maintained without force.

Handmade and Bound

The Affordable London Book-Art and Zine Fair

saturday 8th november

12 - 6 pm

st. aloysius social club

phoenix rd, london nw1

(nearest tube: euston)

free entry

for further info: www.handmadeandbound.com

The next Openned night takes place on Tuesday 18th November
at 7.15pm
at The Foundry, 86 Great Eastern Street London EC2A 3JL Old Street tube (exit3 ).
Readers: Harry Gilonis, Chris Goode, Luke Roberts, me (Karen Sandhu), plus another extract from the video interview with Allen Fisher
Admission free.
http://openned.com/