The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

my sister's murder

you murdered my sister but i can get you off
my sister can get you off
afterwards you got off the bus
you murdered my sister but i can put you off for a while
afterwards she put you off the bus
afterwards you were put off the scent of death
look my sister gave up the ghost
when she came for you you gave up
you took up far too much of her time
she took up sex to forget you
now you get take-out whenever you can
trying to forget you once took her out
that night she gave out a bit of advice
the car gave out when you fled the crime
she screamed get out but you didn't leave
she got out of your way when you came for her
you put her out with the garbage and other stuff
because she'd put out and you wouldn't take
yes for an answer


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without order

i tried to deal without order, to apply topology, surfaces,
to the digital, construct for example a sphere:
within the sphere, curvature is uniform, there are no objects,
no striations; now consider a torus:
within a certain angle, vision is blocked, the cylinder connects,
connects smoothly above and below, of genus one in placement
nearby genus zero:
but these inhering differences go no further, elasticity problematizes
order within any configuration as handles, holes, bridges slide,
everywhere, ignoring the metric, there is no metric, let's make one,
just for the moment, no, it's useless:
so that there's something uncanny about the sphere's interior, we move,
near and far, we reflect upon ourselves,
something luminous must there be, or we dream of such, luminosity,
ourselves written, large within our world:
without order, there's nothing, it's all unaccountable, can holes merge,
of course they can, can bridges slide in deep interiors, yes and yes,
nothing is here, sphere to torus, but something to nothing, nothing
to something, always just invisible, for how may one leap, from sphere,
to torus, torus, to sphere, how may one cross, erecting order ?