Pass through an everyday environment along an everyday route, preferably one
you yourself take often. Write down everything you must touch along that route.
Do not discount things touched by other non-hand appendages, track them all!
The objects may be named by material or by object name (eg: leather vs. glove).
Narrate your movement utilizing only letters included in the written-down
words. Narrate your movement using only letters excluded from those words
consistently in prose or poetry. Include the process of writing in your texts.
These will produce two parallel and simultaneous texts: one which describes
presence and one which extracts the absence within that description.
V1: All aggregated letters by material:
Air, cotton, polyester, wool, metal, glass, plastic, ceramic, coffee, skin, hair
Present: AICOTNPLYESWMGRFHK
Entering a Building and Getting a Coffee - Present Text Start at the concrete
on street-crossing. A snowless, iceless path forging to the entrance of glass,
metal, grey paint with floor serrations catching melting water. The floor,
concrete with white walls. Open the entrance, grey on metal, the key makes
noise. Scale the stairs, which open to a room. Scale them. Sit, unpack work
material. Take preliminary notes. Un-scale stairs for coffee. Get in line. One
Americano-Americano for a toonie fraction. Wait aside. Hot water sloshes. Scale
the stairs. Take a seat. Write notes.
Absent: BDJQUVXZ
Entering a Building and Getting a Coffee - Absent Text
Dud buzz bub. Jux dudz bub, dudz buzz. Jux dud bux, bux buzz. Buzz bub, buzz
dudz. Übü? Düx? Dub. bub. Bux buzz. Dü büx, bub. Vü büq vüz. Jux. Buzz. Dudz.
Jü žud vü. Vü dudz buzz'd, vü dub.-dub. ubuv büx, vü jux'd dudz ubuv jü.
V2: Lines by instance by material:
Air, cotton, polyester, wool, metal, glass, plastic, ceramic, coffee, skin, hair
11 lines for each poem with the following structure:
{PRESENT // ABSENT
AIR // BCDEFGHJKLMNOPQSTUVWXYZ
COTN // ABDEFGHIJKLMOPQRSUVWXYZ
POLYESTR // ABCDFGHIJKMNQUVWXZ
WOL // ABCDEFGHIJKMNPQRSTUVXYZ
METAL // BCDFGHIJKNOPQRSUVWXYZ
GLAS // BCDEFHIJKMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
PLASTIC // BDEFGHJKMNOQRUVWXYZ
CERAMI // BDFGHJKLNOPQSTUVWXYZ
COFE // ABDGHIJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ
SKIN // ABCDEFGHJLMOPQRSTUVWXYZ
HAIR // BCDEFGJKLMNOPQSTUVWXYZ}
Entering a Building and Getting a Coffee - Present Text
Air.
Not too cotton.
Loop steps stop lest styles test polyester.
Low wool.
Met late, tell metal.
Glass slag lags, sags.
Plastic class still lasts, it clasps static.
Ceramic ice race, ma amie a mirer
Eco coffee,
In skin,
Hair.
Entering a Building and Getting a Coffee - Absent Text
Nouns left excluded oxygen
A list weaves disparate flashes
Making? Flinging? Mixing?
Intertwined and distributed inside
On our own ground
Concrete under feet
No food odour over here
No posts through
Stray light abuts stairs as mass
Deferred movement prepared
To keep coffee
