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SECTION: HALF EMPTY

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: various sections


            BUSINESS FOLDER. “Leather-look” vinyl with metal corners. 
            Comprising two document pockets. A $ pad and pen. Size 12 1/2" 
             x 9 3/4". Fully Guaranteed 1 yr. —Georges Perec, Life: A User’s 
            Manual.


            The white in Mondrian’s paintings seems space, the bars objects. 
            The white, if regarded as a fine texture, can seem a surface. 
            This double function is obviously ambiguous, and is naturalistic. 
            Small elements and even large ones on an indefinite ground always 
            seem like objects in space, things in the world. They are points in 
            space and the space is an empty surround. —Donald Judd,
            Complete Writings 1975–1986.

            An idea I thought about 
            Became the things I do. —John Ashbery, “Five Pedantic Pieces.”

            A SHEET OF BROWN PAPER OF ARBITRARY WIDTH 
            AND LENGTH OF TWICE THAT WIDTH WITH A 
            REMOVAL OF THE SAME PROPORTIONS GLUED TO 
            THE FLOOR. —Lawrence Weiner, WORKS.


Nota:   number refer to discrete sheets 
            sheets are numerical, housed in three volumetrically equal boxes 

            boxes can contain an unequal number of sheets, depending on the 
                 number of readers 
            individual items are labelled for re-installation 

            all items not contained in boxes are to be discarded after a 
                 reasonable amount of time 
            each number focusses an entry and should be starred by the reader 

            all internal references to colors are to be relabeled in a timely manner 
            no outside works are irrelevant to re-making or re-writing the text 

           from a vantage point inside the work, multiple points of entry may be 
                 construed 
            items in contiguity are considered apart 

            nothing is proximate 
            everything is exactly alike 

           whatever is described herein does not accompany the final text 
            a number of stairwells, fire doors, etc. etc. have been indicated in the 
                 text 

           insufficient range can be remedied with the addition of further text 
            placement of rope, thread, staples, glue and other attachments are 
                 not expressly dictated 

           you or someone are alone in the room 
            there is a box enclosed by a floor 

           the stairwell is behind you 
            the glass of water is near the rug 

           numerous blank spaces are indicated 
            instructions are entered 

           a ball is thrown unlike 
            a window is found alike 

           code: 
            butterfly: 

           I mentioned: I was confined in a single space 
            I did perform: I listened to whatever was requested 

           the heat has come on 
            somewhere, it has begun to snow 

           in Vermont. Sentences are to be repeated 
            the heat has come one, the years come and go 

           somewhere, it begins to rain, somewhere 
            it begins to be boring 

           If it is February, I wrote you a love letter 
            If it is February, you are listening at the door where snow is falling 

           gently into your blue hair, and the rosebuds I picked in early April 
            are pouring generously into the clothesline 

           Yes, it is like that 
            No, it is not like that 

           Chinese chair 
            Thing of winter, thing of recovery, thing of motion attached 

           To a clapboard, to a former president 
            to a buried rest, to a metallic bust 

           There is more tenderness, more in the box 
            I open it up and try to recover 

           The football is tossed and bobbled 
            She sews these notions in half 

           When it ends, the squares of recovery are even 
            The hand is touched with half a mint 

           The garden in winter what is it? 
            The planted santolina and thyme by the fountain what are they? 

           What is the bliss and the never native? 
            All along and tall 

           Wednesday, and a collection, foams backwards 
            Tuesday, and the bedtime goes, chewing the sun like a peanut 

           The box is filled with O’s, then 
            ringlets, perfume 

           Everything mounts the lover backwards 
            The box in the bread and the glass in the face. The recovery is in 
                 pearls 

           The timezone and the clouds 
            overhang will power 

           I paint the time backwards, but it is useless 
            I take out the colors from everything, but it was useless 

           Nothing is black and nothing was even 
            Nothing is white and nothing is even 

           The shoes begin but did not 
            The aches are apparent to those who have 

           Worlds upon worlds, sequins upon sequins 
            in the restaurant outside there is a Chinese waiter 

           I asked for a glass of water 
            I could not breathe 

           Nothing is punished for this 
            Nothing is gained by this counterweight 

           One the sofa, the casettes and the music 
            and 
                                               * * * 

           Stars of fennel combine, lead track with fluster and ditches 
            The foreign battery and willows, down draft and circle of doors 

           X of pleats, X concrete runners 
            In adoration, this y for my clothing 

           The plan for restoration of service, a kitchen in monochromatics 
            I voyage into the dome, the colors blacken and decline 

           Whatever alters one half, a horse without visible color 
            Whatever reasons with numerals, a zone without moods 

           I hallucinated a compass, the lock pieces harbor an outlook of 
                 indiscretion 
            In porcelain, the heart aborts from its hearing 

           Doors that were there, again and again 
            The windows I landed, useless and rushed 

           I have a name, it sleeps against skin 
            None of this touches sensation or highlights, removes dust from 
                 the carpet 

           You and mine, wind chimes go rubber with cordouroy 
            You and they, pajamas linens and terrier 

           What are chairs they billow like hands at your side 
            An e, two sides of a lake = calendar 

           The siamese brush rises like smoke on its tissue of sex 
            I formally undo the tender hues of the bra 

           The frame is useless to spell, unresolved as a playground 
            The blend rises uselessly to leash its orbital daschund 

           Splendid, the flower attachment had the face of a man in a woman 
            The mouth glued in the plywood cabinets, the eye blinking back at 

           formica and sigh. The hands fly white as mine. The nails protrude 
            A pin prick of blood forms on the lip, no smaller than what I think 
                 must be a needle 

           Of racing greyhounds and the sounds of mustard 
            And erasing 

           Where I lie down 
            There is an elbow 

           Everything is level 
            The flower and the face of a lover flower 

           The flower has not enough hands to touch me, the hands of the flower 
            Are too delicate to rub off my clothes with the blunt edges of petals 

           It takes seven more years 
            To take off my shirt. When I wake 

           This is remembered upside down 
            The skin performs the color of sand 

           Where is this summer 
            The limelight docile in the gauges aspire 

           Where is this summer 
            The limelight docile in the gauges expire 

           Corruptible coinage, bedstand wavers 
            Sobbies 

           Venus or Mars Clandestine 
            Distant door harp. Far flung suntan 

           The jamb of planets scolds these figurines 
            For a kiss to the outermost lobbies of Poe 

           I was so slow I taped my love to you like doughnuts 
            I was so slow I called you itchless in the portrait of my hurries 

           So long is a word of mystical aching 
            Going out is a bong of vegetal update 

           Let me begin 
            You do not always know what I am 

           Stars at morning one things of April half receding 
            Moons at evenings one thinks of Turquoise dishes from the 
                 farthest counter 

           of soup knitted 
            oblivion clockwise 

           Nature usually mine 
            The city alive in thousands of paintings 

           Frick and Met 
            Byzantine Mosaics 

           Meanwhile, like a dish of solid alabaster 
            Two peacocks strum through the garden at the Cathedral of Saint 
                 John’s 

           To be unaware of numerous losses, someone is standing upstairs 
            To be unaware of you, the flickering postcards at the museum 

           Fuzz something lovelier. I am half lazy from seeing you 
            And you are not resting something 

           Like a book of matches 
            On the kitchen counter. When I am alone 

           A second day appears 
            To stand 

           At a window 
            The smudges of prediciton 

           I am not finally realized by this recognition later 
            I feel the sometimes go 

           I feel like this sometimes go 
            With the box and its absence of pleasure or pain 

           So I lie: nothing is precious, a street filled with March 
            So I tell the truth: Nothing combined me to take off my clothes 

           And weep for a mouth I made 
            And deep for a south I laid with you 

           This, the form I take 
            The vegatative buildings and all the lakes of margarine fool 
                 goodbye to the soul 

           A form taken by custard colored boats across a bandstand of 
                 watery pistols 
            I tangoed with a blade of minute hands, Persia held a sprig of 
                 thyme between my teeth 

           The Byzantine horses sleep for hundreds of years before their love 
                 matures 
            Or a hero makes them hungry for a pizza 

           Each of us has a different reason, those incoherent, pestered with 
                 daylight 
            Petered out for sleeping beside a glass of water in a motel room at 
                 6 with the 

           Tablets just starting to come in 
            The curtains beefy with fever the fever heavy with beer 

           I could be married this year 
            Like the frame of painting, or the painting of a farm in Zanesville Ohio 

           I could not go so far (until) 
            A wish is sent into this newsprint 

           This is a box and the ardor of poses 
            Are you a movie or kite 

           I know whatever is abstract (variant) 
            The worldly breasts worn smooth from kissing 

           On Monday I wrote a poem. This was its nature 
            It repeats the day that it was: to be called an apparition 

           Of pollution. It had an earthly section 
            I recycled it (I), It spoke a title to you: