.
Untitled (Hampden, Baltimore): photo by Patrick Joust, August 2013
The white horse parked in your ghost corral is going nowhere,
soldier. And from the front line, the imaging
center, the fear factory, these reports: sounding a well
of sorrow deeper than the deepest ocean. Always an asymmetric
warfare: freefalling
through an area of phantom density, lucency, shadowchasing
warfare: freefalling
through an area of phantom density, lucency, shadowchasing
behind lead shields. "They give out numbers. You are put in a room
where all the numbers
are waiting to go inside the tubes. And no one's saying a word." Eight
worried women naked
where all the numbers
are waiting to go inside the tubes. And no one's saying a word." Eight
worried women naked
under blue hospital kimonos, waiting in silence
not for any imaginable compassion
but for the computer
malfunction
to end.
but for the computer
malfunction
to end.
Untitled (Mount Desert, Maine): photo by Patrick Joust, June 2013
gas 'n go (view from an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III about to receive fuel from a KX-10A Extender on a training mission above southern Oregon): photo by Robert Couse-Baker (**RCB**), 25 September 2013
Untitled (Party store, Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, California): photo by Stephanie Young, 6 June 2009
Untitled (Me, photo by Suzanne Stein, 21 Grand, Oakland, California): photo by Stephanie Young, 29 July 2007
"We kept our distance" (Still from Indelible, Indelible by Rudy Burckhardt, New Yipes, Oakland, Vanitas #2 reading), photo by Suzanne Stein, 21 Grand, Oakland, California): photo by Stephanie Young, 18 February 2007
Untitled (Still from Indelible, Indelible by Rudy Burckhardt, New Yipes, Oakland, Vanitas #2 reading), photo by Suzanne Stein, 21 Grand, Oakland, California): photo by Stephanie Young, 18 February 2007
X-Ray treatment at George Washington University Hospital, Washington, D.C.: photo by Dick Swanson, August 1973 for the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica Project (U.S. National Archives)
(...): photo by Marek Wykowski, 2 May 2011
untitled [img316w): photo by john keys (rolleimppl), 8 November 2013
De mortuis (Dollville, Illinois): photo by efo, 29 September 2013
Angry chick and business woman (Chickies, Columbia, Pennsylvania): photo by efo, 29 September 2013
Untitled: photo by Joshua Perez (Strange Goodness), 4 October 2013
Marks, Mississippi: photo by janet larson (silvrdollmoon), 11 October 2013
... are in bad shape (Birmingham, Alabama): photo by Robert Saucier, 4 August 2013
Untitled (Laundry, Oakland, California): photo by Stephanie Young, 31 January 2009
Untitled (Me, Laundry, Oakland, California): photo by Stephanie Young, 31 January 2009
Store window, Berlin, New Hampshire: photo by Charles Steinhacker for the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica Project, June 1973 (US National Archives)
Movie theatre, Berlin, New Hampshire: photo by Charles Steinhacker for the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica Project, June 1973 (US National Archives)
Animalia (Emeryvile, California): photo by efo, 12 October 2013
Dimensional women (Mattawoman, Maryland): photo by efo, 4 September 2011
Momentum (13): photo by Marek Wykowski, 3 September 2011
McDermitt, Nevada-Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 22 September October 2013
Motel, Florence, Oregon: photo by Austin Granger, 25 October 2013
(...): photo by Marek Wykowski, 7 November 2013
7 comments:
There are unexpected diverting beauties to be found in everything, but this is a sad and scary trip.
Curtis
The body in its frailty and the machine. The frailty's the better part of us.
Much of the medical profession doesn't know what to do with our humanness. Not all of them, thank goodness.
"And no one's saying a word"
"The frailty's the better part of us." I sort of agree with the sentiment, but sort of don't, which won't surprise anyone. A little invulnerability now and then wouldn't be disagreeable. Curtis
Tom,
". . . from the front line, the imaging
center. . ."
"a sad a scarey trip" perhaps, but lovely -- Stephanie Young's photographs, for instance.
And yes Curtis, "A little invulnerability now and then wouldn't be disagreeable."
Thanks, all.
You can squeeze
vulnerable parts of a human body
into
or up against
but never tears from
a cold machine
Wrapped in cellophane and isolated from everything great
And that about sums it up. Amazing poetry there Tom, "Always an asymmetric warfare: freefalling" most striking with the refueling practice and the entire sequence of photographs. We are surely screwed but making the best of it. That other "unknown" was not me. I sign my unknown posts. Good to see your work as ever
Harris Schiff
Thanks, Harris. I can tell my Unknowns without a scorecard. The post addresses the replacement of human interaction by machines. A development I can't but regard as deeply unfortunate, but that's just me; I'm aware there are people who are more attached to their Smartphones than to their partner, dog, cat or teddy bear. It seems this is regarded currently as normal behaviour. And that there are people who are fascinated with medical testing. A woman from Maine who's a professional photographer has posted photos from her project to take pictures of every machine that took pictures of her over the course of extensive cancer treatment. The pictures are terrible to behold; the machines won that round.
The machines win every round.
It was one of those mechanical testing days that resulted in this poem and post.
The person who narrated the dialogic part of the evidence, having endured it, said "You wouldn't have lasted one minute in there." And she was so right. I still haven't gotten over the last time the machines were allowed to have at me (I had ceded volition), and there is a school of (twisted) thought that holds I still haven't gotten finished with paying for it, either. And I never even asked.
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