Bathtub Panopticon

I had a little uninhabited I kept it in the close attention

it was a not many inches across, like a hand mirror,

it mov a scarcely any inches at a time, like an ice age,

I listened to 'Cortez', the atonal opera mecanique,

you could expend a siecle waiting for it to begin,

cancel each date, another siecle before the fin,

who isn't happy to be a killing machine?,

for 6 years I didn't make an incision in myself shaving, Charlotte,

my razor spoke in the voice of the world-historical,

my barren bloomed with thumb-sized palms,

had a little Revolution, had a little mirage,

brained me with a calendar, I lov the 2nd act,

"Fear, comma, The Great", the white voice of it,

the score wheeling around like a spinning-jenny,

the littlebook smashed like a spinning-jenny,

I leaned the bathwater back into your cotton bodice,

oh I knew I was suppos to locate it in the material substance

this modest end-of-things, you ne the material part

to have the phrase "to make progress to bed," Charlotte,

you ne the material part to have a place to hang your head,

you fling the desert to the Foreign Legion: like the razor says,

"you ne the Mountain to have Cortez,"

the razor says "the avant-garde is ideologically impaired

Charlotte, you need the razor to have Marat"

Copyright World verse Incorporated Jul/Aug 1996

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