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Chapbook by Emily Abendroth
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NOT WITHSTANDING shoring, FLUM MOX
NOT WITHSTANDING shoring, FLUM MOX
©Emily Abendroth 2012
L R Llittle red leaves textile editions
www.littleredleaves.com
©Emily Abendroth 2012
L R Llittle red leaves textile editions
www.littleredleaves.com
NOTWITHSTANDING shoring, FLUMMOXEmily Abendroth
NOTWITHSTANDING shoring, FLUMMOXEmily Abendroth
NOTWITHSTANDING shoring, FLUMMOX
NOTWITHSTANDING shoring, FLUMMOX
1
1
FIRST, there is the itemization:
lung gong
milkvetch & boxhedge
a moist crease
corpulent pull
impulse tussle
no freight is spurious
the four spumes (as if foliage)
That is to say “body creeping.”
That is to say “incarnadine f lush.”
That is to say “It’ ll come to you.”
FIRST, there is the itemization:
lung gong
milkvetch & boxhedge
a moist crease
corpulent pull
impulse tussle
no freight is spurious
the four spumes (as if foliage)
That is to say “body creeping.”
That is to say “incarnadine f lush.”
That is to say “It’ ll come to you.”
2
2
The two scientists PR EPAR E:
with splenetic disrelish
grubbed topsoil
a hemi-stitch
the occlusal wear of every biting surface
hemi-hawed
to dicker by rivulet
scuttlery & rust
Dare we admit that often these mounds’ exhibition
makes visitors complain.
That “This can be done otherwise too easy.”
The almost erotic delight with which they touched
the weapons, the broad beans, the ear.
The two scientists PR EPAR E:
with splenetic disrelish
grubbed topsoil
a hemi-stitch
the occlusal wear of every biting surface
hemi-hawed
to dicker by rivulet
scuttlery & rust
Dare we admit that often these mounds’ exhibition
makes visitors complain.
That “This can be done otherwise too easy.”
The almost erotic delight with which they touched
the weapons, the broad beans, the ear.
3
3
The T WO SCIENTISTS are, at paces:
normotensive
clarion moans
scaly moseying
a cynical name for shrapnel
musk-ox
posthensile
adding salve to their armamentaria
Their discussions of falling bodies
rarely elude to the presence of forces.
The data is not unequivocally stable;
it can be persuaded.
Against the “given of experience,”
pushes the “collected-only-with-difficulty.”
The T WO SCIENTISTS are, at paces:
normotensive
clarion moans
scaly moseying
a cynical name for shrapnel
musk-ox
posthensile
adding salve to their armamentaria
Their discussions of falling bodies
rarely elude to the presence of forces.
The data is not unequivocally stable;
it can be persuaded.
Against the “given of experience,”
pushes the “collected-only-with-difficulty.”
4
4
As the two scientists WATCH:
a compromised calcite housing
haze canopy
surrendered components
soft viscous f lesh
how one cannot count on impact
battery (n.) and battery (v.)
gesso
There comes a time for redetermination gambits.
Seldom or never just an increment of the already known.
A shoddy gathering. The lather of contact potentials.
The messy but treasured pressure exerted by light onto solids.
As the two scientists WATCH:
a compromised calcite housing
haze canopy
surrendered components
soft viscous f lesh
how one cannot count on impact
battery (n.) and battery (v.)
gesso
There comes a time for redetermination gambits.
Seldom or never just an increment of the already known.
A shoddy gathering. The lather of contact potentials.
The messy but treasured pressure exerted by light onto solids.
5
5
Under THE BR IGHT kiting about of lab INSTRUMENTS:
scab rubble
a brood patch’s bare heat
cheatgrasses
pliant & deportable
unexpected tubes or chambers
as if too cumbrous
the jar that nothing can jar
Repulsion is hardly the only secondary effect of suppression.
One’s special competence toward corpusclarism benched.
Sub-audible, come pulminating decibels. Come mop-up.
Working backwa(o)rd. Torquing porous. Rousted.
Under THE BR IGHT kiting about of lab INSTRUMENTS:
scab rubble
a brood patch’s bare heat
cheatgrasses
pliant & deportable
unexpected tubes or chambers
as if too cumbrous
the jar that nothing can jar
Repulsion is hardly the only secondary effect of suppression.
One’s special competence toward corpusclarism benched.
Sub-audible, come pulminating decibels. Come mop-up.
Working backwa(o)rd. Torquing porous. Rousted.
6
6
Via public BROADCAST, the scientists report:
an excessive gist of gristles
available for hijinx
familiar supernuclear events
seed bed of being
I must guard my own crust
utility in fizziness
the newest conf lations of epidermal pulses
geotherm mall
Should f lares be regarded (be itemized) as optical counter-measures? As punning?
Must it accord with a stored shape? Must it accord?
Just what, pray tell, is an umbral threshold? Are we holding one now?
And if so, has it been breached?
Via public BROADCAST, the scientists report:
an excessive gist of gristles
available for hijinx
familiar supernuclear events
seed bed of being
I must guard my own crust
utility in fizziness
the newest conf lations of epidermal pulses
geotherm mall
Should f lares be regarded (be itemized) as optical counter-measures? As punning?
Must it accord with a stored shape? Must it accord?
Just what, pray tell, is an umbral threshold? Are we holding one now?
And if so, has it been breached?
whereupon, the henchpeople’s ZEAL did SPUTTER some
whereupon, the henchpeople’s ZEAL did SPUTTER some
8
8
~Daughter colony within a daughter colony
pollinating but dry-docked by a rockblasted holdfast
outlasted until even the crass act of shattering
exhibits a riveting division of segregated labor power.
From the over-bordered channel least expected to chivvy
comes a guttering indigence, a dickens of a disembroilment.
The specimen is heard venting:
“I was in a manner they didn’t believe was dignified,
but then that was the very manner by which I was.
And so an aesthetic homicide seemed every bit upon the table.
It was as real as cable cars or fertilizer or Kaiser Permanente or courage.”
~Daughter colony within a daughter colony
pollinating but dry-docked by a rockblasted holdfast
outlasted until even the crass act of shattering
exhibits a riveting division of segregated labor power.
From the over-bordered channel least expected to chivvy
comes a guttering indigence, a dickens of a disembroilment.
The specimen is heard venting:
“I was in a manner they didn’t believe was dignified,
but then that was the very manner by which I was.
And so an aesthetic homicide seemed every bit upon the table.
It was as real as cable cars or fertilizer or Kaiser Permanente or courage.”
9
9
The specimen thought, this is how important it can be to posterity
to make an anomaly conform.
vestigial lobe
vestigial love
vestigial oviduct
vestigial cudgel
The specimen thought, this is how important it can be to posterity
to make an anomaly conform.
vestigial lobe
vestigial love
vestigial oviduct
vestigial cudgel
10
10
~I’d like to believe that you would actually approve
of this exuberant lubrication of the elements
despite the enraged accusations of your nation-fearing disciples
despite the stipends they were just handed in reward as good wards.
But these difficulties are terrestrial, you protest, while those are marine.
On the other hand, still others are steam-rolled, teeny but tenfold.
They reject either cold storage or manipulative hand-holding.
To appear both larger and older, their individual hairs are erected
one by one, the ganglia f lame forth in sympathetic chains,
the oh-so-faintly tangerine cartilage goes coastal.
~I’d like to believe that you would actually approve
of this exuberant lubrication of the elements
despite the enraged accusations of your nation-fearing disciples
despite the stipends they were just handed in reward as good wards.
But these difficulties are terrestrial, you protest, while those are marine.
On the other hand, still others are steam-rolled, teeny but tenfold.
They reject either cold storage or manipulative hand-holding.
To appear both larger and older, their individual hairs are erected
one by one, the ganglia f lame forth in sympathetic chains,
the oh-so-faintly tangerine cartilage goes coastal.
11
11
horn of uterus
horn of plenty
horn of primordial follicles
horn of choleric sheep
horn of the motherland
horn of scorn for others
horn of our horniness
horn of fester and of resist
horn of uterus
horn of plenty
horn of primordial follicles
horn of choleric sheep
horn of the motherland
horn of scorn for others
horn of our horniness
horn of fester and of resist
12
12
~It could be an unduly hard move sometimes to assign
which were the zones of inhibition or auto-impingement
versus which were those of open growth or co-exfoliation.
What was an area encysted in muscle and what was an area insistent upon it.
A hard move sometimes to separate that which soothed from the ruthless
gelatinous sheath, contractile vacuole, oral groove.
We had been asked once again, and politely, to please believe
in the benevolent hegemon only to find, rather violently, that we could not.
We might as well have refused water, the clutter of slaughterhouses,
beguiling bile ducts, unctuous rivalries, or our very own trial dates
with all their accompanying and premeditated punishments.
Sleep deprived, we waggle danced continuously, but often less than accurately.
We - the discalced, the baretushed, the squishy.
We learned that as a public act the inside of your body often wants to stay inside.
~It could be an unduly hard move sometimes to assign
which were the zones of inhibition or auto-impingement
versus which were those of open growth or co-exfoliation.
What was an area encysted in muscle and what was an area insistent upon it.
A hard move sometimes to separate that which soothed from the ruthless
gelatinous sheath, contractile vacuole, oral groove.
We had been asked once again, and politely, to please believe
in the benevolent hegemon only to find, rather violently, that we could not.
We might as well have refused water, the clutter of slaughterhouses,
beguiling bile ducts, unctuous rivalries, or our very own trial dates
with all their accompanying and premeditated punishments.
Sleep deprived, we waggle danced continuously, but often less than accurately.
We - the discalced, the baretushed, the squishy.
We learned that as a public act the inside of your body often wants to stay inside.
13
13
By “inside” I mean, of course, “velvitized”
I mean “ideological leniency”
I mean “fruiting”
I mean “longer than was strictly necessary”
I mean “hairy and emboldened (be it with or without cause)”
By “inside” I mean, of course, “velvitized”
I mean “ideological leniency”
I mean “fruiting”
I mean “longer than was strictly necessary”
I mean “hairy and emboldened (be it with or without cause)”
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14
~For this audience, it is the stain that most gainfully demonstrates
the fundamental features of being. We notice the pattern of greening
and of blanks. We notice the soft patter at girdle view
wherein the renewed application of resin is a true necessity
if we are to make out anything at all. We notice the fall of tissue
which gives rise to a new and oozing issuance which gives rise to prancing
followed by f light.
Her finances in complete arrears, she reared up at first, but then was f lattened.
She shoved a quick fatty in her back pocket and ran. Such unplanned desertions
do occur. They are the tradition-shattering components to tradition-bound activities.
They release their infeasible call for more insubordination of the materials,
of our arterials even. And such desertions do occur. They unfurl.
Hurling themselves forward at midvein, midtangle, midtemper, midepidermis...
~For this audience, it is the stain that most gainfully demonstrates
the fundamental features of being. We notice the pattern of greening
and of blanks. We notice the soft patter at girdle view
wherein the renewed application of resin is a true necessity
if we are to make out anything at all. We notice the fall of tissue
which gives rise to a new and oozing issuance which gives rise to prancing
followed by f light.
Her finances in complete arrears, she reared up at first, but then was f lattened.
She shoved a quick fatty in her back pocket and ran. Such unplanned desertions
do occur. They are the tradition-shattering components to tradition-bound activities.
They release their infeasible call for more insubordination of the materials,
of our arterials even. And such desertions do occur. They unfurl.
Hurling themselves forward at midvein, midtangle, midtemper, midepidermis...
15
15
per surface area of ocean
per surplus tanker of gas
per pine-edged casket of talismans
per samsonite duff le
per cuff link
per quagmire
per person cuffed or bound or gagged
per surface area of ocean
per surplus tanker of gas
per pine-edged casket of talismans
per samsonite duff le
per cuff link
per quagmire
per person cuffed or bound or gagged
16
16
~It is not defacement, she argues, to add sentiment to dulled monuments:
a smock jacket called a slop, thick opulent and noisy anklets, mint negligees,
a plastic rose nosegay coated in lint, plus any array of droopy caps or visors.
These were the untapped motions of perturbed orbits; this was excoriation.
As if a person’s irises were rising to the occasion
but not the eyebrows, not the who-knows-now head.
Under cover of twaddle, came a red shift, a dawdling tendership.
Upon gripping my arm with obvious distress, you asked, “Would that be
gigantic scintillation? Would that be ‘you must needs bolt’?”
The coltish man whom we saw fanned out on a cot in the corner
wasn’t a journalist nor was he particularly interested in the measure
of his basal metabolism. And yet this figure was recorded for him anyway
and daily, via extraction. At the same time, safety brackets were drawn
in hatchmarks around those visceral masses that acted like jaws,
around a predatory intestine, a future anus, a grainy resuscitator,
a mandibular stowaway.
~It is not defacement, she argues, to add sentiment to dulled monuments:
a smock jacket called a slop, thick opulent and noisy anklets, mint negligees,
a plastic rose nosegay coated in lint, plus any array of droopy caps or visors.
These were the untapped motions of perturbed orbits; this was excoriation.
As if a person’s irises were rising to the occasion
but not the eyebrows, not the who-knows-now head.
Under cover of twaddle, came a red shift, a dawdling tendership.
Upon gripping my arm with obvious distress, you asked, “Would that be
gigantic scintillation? Would that be ‘you must needs bolt’?”
The coltish man whom we saw fanned out on a cot in the corner
wasn’t a journalist nor was he particularly interested in the measure
of his basal metabolism. And yet this figure was recorded for him anyway
and daily, via extraction. At the same time, safety brackets were drawn
in hatchmarks around those visceral masses that acted like jaws,
around a predatory intestine, a future anus, a grainy resuscitator,
a mandibular stowaway.
17
17
removed to show
removed to hide
removed to override hesitation
removed to destroy
removed with all the fascination of a bonafi de voyeur
removed to show
removed to hide
removed to override hesitation
removed to destroy
removed with all the fascination of a bonafi de voyeur
18
18
~Such messy gurgitations were less than completely precedented.
What had previously been only a simple hex or a vexation was now
a source of crisis. For instance, our unlicensed debuts straight into
the heart of their urban renewal. If cutlery could be a bedding,
they were headed there — the torturous perforations of false ledges
and unregistered privilege.
They spoke incredulously, as if the existence of a single girl tractorist
could somehow wholly refactor it. As if one visibly effeminate tyrant
could set all the elements cantering. As if the cant and bravado
of a formerly dead broke bloke who was now a global CEO was proof
of both the bestowal of access and the ladder alike. This was the trickery
of parataxis, the charade of proximity as pure equivalency. While all
the while a more profound disemboweling was uniformly scowled
upon by the administrators. While all the while everyone else
remained a ringer, remained involuntarily in the ring and subject to
fingering — the bothertheless.
~Such messy gurgitations were less than completely precedented.
What had previously been only a simple hex or a vexation was now
a source of crisis. For instance, our unlicensed debuts straight into
the heart of their urban renewal. If cutlery could be a bedding,
they were headed there — the torturous perforations of false ledges
and unregistered privilege.
They spoke incredulously, as if the existence of a single girl tractorist
could somehow wholly refactor it. As if one visibly effeminate tyrant
could set all the elements cantering. As if the cant and bravado
of a formerly dead broke bloke who was now a global CEO was proof
of both the bestowal of access and the ladder alike. This was the trickery
of parataxis, the charade of proximity as pure equivalency. While all
the while a more profound disemboweling was uniformly scowled
upon by the administrators. While all the while everyone else
remained a ringer, remained involuntarily in the ring and subject to
fingering — the bothertheless.
19
19
The woman looked aggressively up at the sky and suddenly couldn’t configure:
“Is it a full moon everywhere right now?”
In her rigor, she couldn’t stop repeating,
“Not in the least.
“Not in the least.
“Not in the least.”
The woman looked aggressively up at the sky and suddenly couldn’t configure:
“Is it a full moon everywhere right now?”
In her rigor, she couldn’t stop repeating,
“Not in the least.
“Not in the least.
“Not in the least.”
20
20
~The oscillating movements of the filaments were what gave it its name
but it was something else that gave it its swagger, its meager salary,
its fishbowl of smokeable swag, its bedraggled potential to clog
or to glom up or to cup in the thighs or to batten. In other words,
while outside the thin window France might fall, Eddy didn’t fall.
Although the stocks collapsed, Tynisha remained inf lated. Elated even.
New Zealand was at war, but Hector and Lisa weren’t. Or at least not
the same one, with neither the same guns nor the same punishing run
for your money.
And this is part of what it meant to be in a place but not of it, to be coveted
for allegiance to statehood whilst living in the hood or roaming the rural
backwoods. These were the kind of tassles that were first manufactured,
then offered to you as a satiating “award” when wrastling was cordoned off
as out of the question. A piece of embossed stationary in your ashtray, a ration
that you carried as required but weren’t married to either. A boomerang form.
~The oscillating movements of the filaments were what gave it its name
but it was something else that gave it its swagger, its meager salary,
its fishbowl of smokeable swag, its bedraggled potential to clog
or to glom up or to cup in the thighs or to batten. In other words,
while outside the thin window France might fall, Eddy didn’t fall.
Although the stocks collapsed, Tynisha remained inf lated. Elated even.
New Zealand was at war, but Hector and Lisa weren’t. Or at least not
the same one, with neither the same guns nor the same punishing run
for your money.
And this is part of what it meant to be in a place but not of it, to be coveted
for allegiance to statehood whilst living in the hood or roaming the rural
backwoods. These were the kind of tassles that were first manufactured,
then offered to you as a satiating “award” when wrastling was cordoned off
as out of the question. A piece of embossed stationary in your ashtray, a ration
that you carried as required but weren’t married to either. A boomerang form.
21
21
Cannot a rude jostle offer in secret a small loftiness?
How often can it?, you ask.
What are the preconditions for dissident action?
Is it eff luvium?
subfroth
intrafroth
exofrothfest
Cannot a rude jostle offer in secret a small loftiness?
How often can it?, you ask.
What are the preconditions for dissident action?
Is it eff luvium?
subfroth
intrafroth
exofrothfest
22
22
~We fell for what were surely fake documents and human stand-ins
who withstood tightly choreographed hoodings and beatings
before our eyes. From behind gill bars and slits, leaked lipid droplets
begetting a pestering tension of the back and shoulders, an adroit
overexposure.
The stand-ins themselves expressed confusion at their all too real
hospitalizations which more than occasionally followed the volatile
simulations to which they were subjected. It was an object lesson
not in what the prisoner goes through, but in what the soldier understands
him or herself to be doing. It was a strange and grueling mix of determinist
assumptions and avuncular concessions of equality.
“The danger doesn’t have to be real,” she said “to instill discomfort.”
A fort doesn’t have to be drill-worthy to kill those who encroach upon it.
~We fell for what were surely fake documents and human stand-ins
who withstood tightly choreographed hoodings and beatings
before our eyes. From behind gill bars and slits, leaked lipid droplets
begetting a pestering tension of the back and shoulders, an adroit
overexposure.
The stand-ins themselves expressed confusion at their all too real
hospitalizations which more than occasionally followed the volatile
simulations to which they were subjected. It was an object lesson
not in what the prisoner goes through, but in what the soldier understands
him or herself to be doing. It was a strange and grueling mix of determinist
assumptions and avuncular concessions of equality.
“The danger doesn’t have to be real,” she said “to instill discomfort.”
A fort doesn’t have to be drill-worthy to kill those who encroach upon it.
23
23
mock ticket
mock cattle prods
mock battlefield
mock talkative
mock lock-ups
mock balkanization
mock personhood
mock could
mock ticket
mock cattle prods
mock battlefield
mock talkative
mock lock-ups
mock balkanization
mock personhood
mock could
24
24
~~~~~~~From the caribous and the roosters, the child learned:
a nose-puckering sniffing of winds
coded signals via palpitations of the feet and scalp
great galloping speed
to cluck for luck, as well as at muckrakers
delousing with tree bark
the stark pleasures of slow mastication
From the humans, the child learned:
cartwheels
excreta containment
standing position
expressive mobility of the eyes and shoulders
old school free-basing
phase 2 finance theory
~~~~~~~From the caribous and the roosters, the child learned:
a nose-puckering sniffing of winds
coded signals via palpitations of the feet and scalp
great galloping speed
to cluck for luck, as well as at muckrakers
delousing with tree bark
the stark pleasures of slow mastication
From the humans, the child learned:
cartwheels
excreta containment
standing position
expressive mobility of the eyes and shoulders
old school free-basing
phase 2 finance theory
25
25
From indeterminable sources, the child developed:
a penchant for huckleberries
sleeping in a ball
adoration of taupe
ovular dove-tailing in traffic and in lines
a fine high-pitched squeal
Everywhere the child went, the child learned and burned
learned and burned
learned and burned
learned and burned.
~~~~~~~
From indeterminable sources, the child developed:
a penchant for huckleberries
sleeping in a ball
adoration of taupe
ovular dove-tailing in traffic and in lines
a fine high-pitched squeal
Everywhere the child went, the child learned and burned
learned and burned
learned and burned
learned and burned.
~~~~~~~
26
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Emily Abendroth is a writer and artist currently residing in Philadelphia,
where she co-curates the Moles Not Molar Reading & Performance Series.
Her print publications include: Exclosures {#1-8} from Albion Press; 3 Exclosures, forthcoming from Zumbar Press; Toward Eadward Forward from
Horse Less Press; Property : None / Property : Undone, a broadside and
multi-media collaboration with TapRoot Editions; and an extended excerpt
from the book-length work-in-progress “Muzzle Blast Dander” in Refuge/Refugee (Vol 3 of the ChainLinks book series). Additional work of hers can
be found in Digital Artifact, Encyclopedia, How2, Jacket 2, Pocket Myths, horse less review, Eco-poetics, Never on Time, and Cut & Paint. She is currently and
ever-so-slowly piecing her way through some writings and thinking on
solitary confinement practices in U.S. prisons.
This little red leaves textile series chapbook was designed and sewn by Dawn
Pendergast in Houston, Texas.
Emily Abendroth is a writer and artist currently residing in Philadelphia,
where she co-curates the Moles Not Molar Reading & Performance Series.
Her print publications include: Exclosures {#1-8} from Albion Press; 3 Exclosures, forthcoming from Zumbar Press; Toward Eadward Forward from
Horse Less Press; Property : None / Property : Undone, a broadside and
multi-media collaboration with TapRoot Editions; and an extended excerpt
from the book-length work-in-progress “Muzzle Blast Dander” in Refuge/Refugee (Vol 3 of the ChainLinks book series). Additional work of hers can
be found in Digital Artifact, Encyclopedia, How2, Jacket 2, Pocket Myths, horse less review, Eco-poetics, Never on Time, and Cut & Paint. She is currently and
ever-so-slowly piecing her way through some writings and thinking on
solitary confinement practices in U.S. prisons.
This little red leaves textile series chapbook was designed and sewn by Dawn
Pendergast in Houston, Texas.
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