by Maureen Owen
The quarters a pilot works in four feet eight inches high four feet six inches wide four feet six inches fore & aft I took 48 feet of heat tape four packs of four 3 feet lengths of insulation a flashlight a trouble light a roll of duct tape a scissors & a radio to keep track of the space shuttle. Left radio & insulation at stooping height Left trouble light & extra heat tape at crawling height Took duct tape scissors & enough heat tape Slip ping slithering on my back a miniature dust storm rotating thick dirt eyes & nose filling with sediment the body stiff caught between element & element Arriving beside the tiny cold copper piping but unable to move even my head side to side or lift an arm klos tro fo bi a, N. (fr. L. claustrum, a confined place + phobia.) Med. Morbid dread of being in closed rooms or narrow places. the Italian film where Ulysses is thrown into a heavy stone prison then ever so slowly the ceiling begins to descend first he is forced to stoop then to crawl then finally to flatten himself on the floor & push at the last second he is saved by Jason But the experience has left him a raving lunatic Don't cough storming more dust into the small stratosphere all fingers feeling less in numbing mercuries first woman to cross the Atlantic by plane first woman to fly the Atlantic alone first person to solo between Hawaii and California her horizon & her instruments
Titled MIDWEST Plan for a performance/installation. 1 A large box of ripe wheat, 100 feet by 100 feet. (Wheat just at the ripeness preceding swathing.) 2 Several tall black floor fans at the west flank of the installment. 3 Fans set at medium speed. 4 Gallery goers must remove all shoes and footwear at the door and not a word or sound is to occur once inside. 5 Only the rasp of the wheat beards rubbing against one another should be heard. 6 The undulating ripple of the blown air across the wheat should be the only movement in the gallery. 7 No windows should occur in this specific room and all gallery goers must stand to the north end of the installment or sit on the floor. 8 The walls should be unblemished white and the floor around the installment plain light wood. 9 Very bright sun type light should flood the installment. 10 It should be warm in the room, even hot despite the fans . . .
She had a thing about mornings You always woke up alone On Monday I'd written in my appointment book Get ready for Tuesday .... & in the cafe I mentioned everything too fast it's not a great idea to expose your total person to one other over beers various aspects of the personality should be responded to by various friends who know the different yous each from their different view Maybe that's why she started describing this gorgeous number she'd picked up last night afterwards they didn't hit it off .......... Outside the growling of the lions rose from steaming sidewalks She threw some ketchup on her scrambled eggs signaled the waitress for toast 0 Well she said A trick is a trick.
Dear KHAQQ just her tapping my foot eating oreos dunked in my coffee
At breakfast the question of nuclear weapons in space Now the voices were faded they sang to her Her own name in bits Underneath 2556 miles of water whistled shore tunes it's soft clapping a comfort & a horror The plane is the point at which the fog & the sea would meet. A koan is a puzzle that cannot be answered in ordinary ways. All my Electrons Lord! all my protons neutrons leptons mesons haryons all my Gravitons! "this will be the secret of my disappearance A massless particle is a particle of zero rest mass all of its energy is energy of motion"
from AE - Amelia Earhart, published by Vortex Editions, San Francisco. Copyright 1984 by Maureen Owen.
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