Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- On Headed Paper
- The Built Environment
- Sub-architecture
- Bernini's Apollo and Daphne
- What Gretel Knows
- Katana
- Where the Swimming Pool Was
- A False Winter
- Tammasmass E'en
- Notes: A Monumental Brass
- Inscription
- Cambridge Primitive
- On Reading the Meaning of ‘Falchion’ in an Encyclopaedia
- Wish You Were Here
- Othona
- Potpourri
- The Animal in Motion
- Cartography for Beginners
- ‘Grasmere Lake’
- The Valley of the Stour with Dedham in the Distance
- The Henry Hudson Bridge
- New Battersea Bridge Nocturnes
- Wet Season
- Lecture
- Objection!
- A Stretch of River
- Difference
- Building
- The Egyptologist
- Cockle Shell Beach, Low Tide
- Labour
- Daphnia; or, The Water Flea
- In Praise of Pollen
- Four Seasons, St Giles Cripplegate
- Notes and Acknowledgments
On Headed Paper
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- On Headed Paper
- The Built Environment
- Sub-architecture
- Bernini's Apollo and Daphne
- What Gretel Knows
- Katana
- Where the Swimming Pool Was
- A False Winter
- Tammasmass E'en
- Notes: A Monumental Brass
- Inscription
- Cambridge Primitive
- On Reading the Meaning of ‘Falchion’ in an Encyclopaedia
- Wish You Were Here
- Othona
- Potpourri
- The Animal in Motion
- Cartography for Beginners
- ‘Grasmere Lake’
- The Valley of the Stour with Dedham in the Distance
- The Henry Hudson Bridge
- New Battersea Bridge Nocturnes
- Wet Season
- Lecture
- Objection!
- A Stretch of River
- Difference
- Building
- The Egyptologist
- Cockle Shell Beach, Low Tide
- Labour
- Daphnia; or, The Water Flea
- In Praise of Pollen
- Four Seasons, St Giles Cripplegate
- Notes and Acknowledgments
Summary
WhatI've been meaning to mention is the folding machine;
how it's truly a marvellous thing and I want you to see it.
And I want us to take it to the beach or to visit Stonehenge.
The noise it makes when I set it to work is loud. Like the over-zealous
in the pub it wants to be heard. How I love that sex grunt,
that cha-cha of doing. Tap out the pain. I am repeating myself
but look, the folding machine again. It's not trying or trying not to
distract itself. Trapped in every second of me is the folding machine.
I want to put it beyond use. One dayI'll throw it into the grave
of my loved ones. It is so good at what it does. I tried to re-invent
the folding machine. There must be a first bit, a second, connections,
cogs. It's in me, stuck between my head and heart and my other
unnumbered, unlabelled parts. Reassemble and repeat. Sing: we love
the folding machine. It must be something like the sun, or the moon
at least. The noise. The casing of it! A miracle. The papers spilling
perfectly at the end. An end to repetition and patience (which is pain).
Someone made the folding machine. I tried to re-invent, repeat.
That clever, co-operative order of parts, that do and do and make
no apology for being one way and then another, that try and fail.
But try not to fail. Sing too loudly. Be exact then not so, fixed then
broken,
need instruction.I'm waiting for it.I'm waiting for this thing to exist.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Built Environment , pp. 1Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2018