i.
in tangled voice led astray
delayed once in a non-place
the sentence served:
(in)definite re(de)tainment
officially un-recorded
& no note taken of these lines
you are important
to me
ii.
but suspended ones
the gilded fork didn’t register
absentee processioneers
they absolve
the necessity of record.
for matter is as matter does
what it likes
hath found dwellan
binded words stately
to that which the site contains
& no note taken
iii.
the sentence of clocks computes
the newness a shade maintains
by waiting to be anywhere.
& with the cousin of that which is
doesn’t lift the gilded fork
to its lips—
doesn’t eat;
iv.
rather, doubles
the description of the action
in a circle: a silver light shines above
“RESTROOM OCCUPIED”—
w/ no-body behind
before the bolted door awaits
a new management—
the message-board booms
succinct:
you are important
to me if i am important
to you
you are important
v.
coral, unabsorptive piles
expired
i o u s beneath
the broken keys
caffeine cans
nicotine vouchers.
time moves in the pipes
of the house
spreads itself on us thickly.
patterns in space we are
a marine exhibition
vi.
if you are important
lead w/ the following:
wait until your eyes adjust
archive the site carefully
(what do you see?)
pull-out the pauses in yr speech
listen to the shape of it
[Author's Note: This poem is adapted from a multimedia performance work composed in collaboration with the new-media artist, Liat Berdugo, & the videographers, Abd Al-Karim Sadi & Udai Aquel, at the B'Tselem Camera Project. In preparation for this work Liat & I screened footage captured by these volunteer Palestinian videographers of their daily life in Israel & the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank. After selecting a number of quiet, banal, “normal” scenes of people (both Palestinians & Israelis) waiting for something to happen on both sides of the Green Line, I began scoring the footage with text as a means of responding to it. Liat, in turn, programmed custom software that allowed for real-time interfacing between video & voice. We first performed this work in 2014 at the Miklat 209 theater in Tel Aviv-Yafo. --AR]