Another computer-assisted poem, "Monologues of Soul & Body, "which was originally published in *Tyuonyi*, will appear in my third book of poems, *Glass Enclosure*, which Wesleyan will publish next spring. It embeds Travesty sections (using the non-Travesty sections as its source text). Another, "Extraordinary Instruments," was published by *TriQuarterly* a couple of years ago; it uses a simple word-to-number coding to select words from a large input text. Finally, a book-length poem on which Hugh Kenner and I collaborated, called *Sentences* (using a combination of Travesty and Diastext), is supposed to be published by Sun & Moon, though it's been "forthcoming" for quite a while now.

Incidentally, if Jackson [Mac Low] hasn't shown it to you, you might be interested in my essay on his work, first printed as "Essay Ending with Six Reasons to Read Jackson Mac Low" in Prairie Schooner, and reshaped as the final chapter in my second critical book, Jazz Text: Voice and Improvisation in Poetry, Jazz and Song, published by Princeton.

Charles O. Hartman

The rough draft of this poem, approximately ten times the final size of the text, was produced by my program PROSE (written in Borland C), which is essentially a finite-state automaton or context-free grammar language generator. The program consults a set of about eighty grammar rules, recursively, to construct at random a syntactically correct sentence template; then it consults a dictionary of a couple of thousand words to fill in the template, again at random. All further editing was done by hand, with the strict rule that I could only delete (sentences, clauses, phrases, words), not add.

I

The court of color is atmosphere. Light in the spring marches, but place is the true science. While metabolism types us, the oak has worked through brick, and the breath knows ghosts.

II

Before creation, the voice of woman (a dark dark) was numbering earth, as an easy sea does. Where is this theory walking? Will fire come toward manners? Any spirit near man likes a town. Couldn't a voice of water project fire through these writings? Although spring can remain, and I am sure of the living, if the considered trial turns to attack a married dog, this ball of trouble--the little life--just mixes its moves. Another original part has stopped it. The home of information was this free friend, so the friend of truth (a paper) urged us to believe in people of the roads. Might afternoon direct another flesh around air? I was orbiting you, but the industrial day saw every coloring run like summer through the annual filter. How was the computation of paper changing? What does trouble end? Unless I had planned you, I would ask, How are the voices increasing?

III

I am thinking this. Might voice follow the play of space? The book has typed you. Because films of the stage serve the chief wish, steam or the hydrogen gas reads us through, and night, despite the machine, brings down a natural force. What should fire drive? What were the days of woman saying? I was a working person, but the paper of writing could fight the wool of truth. Science is the child of the army of oil, and a second group is waking. I am no trial. Though the final teeth order fear in volume, the image of morning rests in the mind of day. Another student is loving someone. Because I work behind the chance computer, I understand a family fire, a southern bridge, a list. This war is the size of a happy dog.

IV

The voice: direction of the mouth. The sign--image of the figure--was home, and the talk of willow orbits your corner of space. Would a sure ground end? Our sun's fight--the checkmate of hydrogen--has progressed, but I didn't explain any question.

V

Can trouble upon a head return? When must a figure talk? How did the gas of Sunday rest? Was the money of law running? Where was the sign playing? When might style close on the wind? And what are laws, without walls working? Time is no current school--some father ground out by a certain bed. Until I looked at you, I was the money made of war. The surface of the fist (that corner out of air) falls in, but space plays faster. How can strength protect any formal island? Could the world of art return? But don't the nights produce some great cars? She may list them; power stands to number the stars after its fashion, but she was the source.

VI

Some exhibited papers will concern music. For example: When is the water talking? When is the water not talking? Wind against the window (art of a social place) is looking at the questions inside law. Will an even day arrive? Didn't every line near the dog of art plant the gift of radiation? How could man remain? What is paper, after men's voices end? Could the million ages imagine seas? Can cotton last beyond those great pictures? Could the mass of hell build any building? The women of earth were these special faces, and I lack words. Sound is the ground of the eye. The eye: the dialect of morning. As I was forming, I raced to touch someone, and law issued a related number. I was respecting the art of fear, when another guitar appeared.

VII

The theory of oil: the fist. Where was the war? Would some chief without light overturn a race? The usual food: work for a school for a morning. Where will the news mirror talk? When will computation of the form return? Every orbit except certain beginning bridges could move faster, if we ran music down the ceiling from a spare family.

VIII

If the life of night had progressed, you might care. The four figures were times, bridges, but I can give them force on the highway. The question does for them. Before I landed, the wish of oak was the metabolism of the leaf. I want to know. Do the hearts in the earth, behind the past, sleep? Afternoon is typing, and the pace of work influences the island. Direction along a surface returns to you. When are those normal riddles going to recede?

IX

Can a future art care? While the race of sun sounded these hot streets, I was fixing the engine. Until I had run, the wrong blood continued, but an afternoon without the difference of color won't fight. The hall of language: talk. Wire: the voice of wire. If the test of hell is a bad hand, you have style. I practiced you all morning.

X

I was meaning to filter out meaning from the paper, but form--a heart--had charged something.

XI

Chess: stress. Where were the trials of marriage running now? Would the home of wool walk? Will fear of the west protect England? Don't the wars count all these rooms? How was the ceiling of wood writing, and what, and why? Can a longer manner read the glass paper? Can you? Until the man at the desk was minding this, no space tonight was progressing at all. Although I was a child, I cut him. Since evening is the tower of information, the marriage gets the trial in afternoon. Why is the food space walking? Because you were falling. You didn't fight. Will every plane figure the line of form? Before a trick of time could stop the spirit between land and mother, history's year studied you, and I figured the war's age. What could its length work? You believed the money news. The field of difference rested on the prize's lip, and the name remained. Would the important kind close the tree? That leaf: another future roof. I waited for this, but the early kind had checkmated death's earth.

XII

Where shall the language of calico be written? My member has answered this. May the wars' century close my mind? The order: the desk of wood. The word of glass might act. How are its afternoons like language? What is its body practicing? Must the list of strength swell? What was the earth saying? Art--any dark in the season of air--had paid for this. Don't voices like time demand her fears? The orbit of mass eats difference, and I have led someone into trouble. Where were the distances' streets arriving? If you were paper between Babbage and the door, would you laugh on rising?

XIII

How were her parts sounding? Can the wind's city believe? Though some earth sang, England (the wind's friend) kept the light of news. You will tell someone, but the week's board is only morning. Money is like a hand. Why was America against those trees? I cannot attack this ground with color out of the air, and certainly she was stating her grief. Although I didn't study her mouth, every third station remained to change, and I had eaten a sun's price. A bill: the image of an ear.

XIV

I am ending, but the century asks how art's fist was rising. Where are the problems of America functioning best? Since she landed the larger voice, you could believe in the practice, but the military dialect (the form of chance in chess) is the smallest manner anywhere. May art like the river end? The engine of sun can end, and will. Should my language speak? Children--the image's moments--control the sides of music, and the bad cattle copy styles between the wires and certain stars; but I have eaten the sun.