flying limpid
bramble drop
verdant nebbe
of two tartari
startled bright
concrete stair
from HallucinationFind more by William Fuller at the library
Copyright © 2011 William Fuller
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
Category: William Fuller
When I was the age of three in the sultry heat the weeds were blos-
soming and I looked off to the east. Cut from stone, my hand
strained for the wall. Long ridges of corrugated steel shot past,
moving south to north. And there stood a man upon whom the sun
had descended. Later my hand grew fluent of speech, and ap-
proached me, quiet and unpretending, laid out on the earth to dry.
from WatchwordFind more by William Fuller at the library
Copyright © William Fuller
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
After being possessed and overcome by the Devil I lost access
to my own thoughts. This meant that in order to recover them
I had to ask question after question of strangers, which for the
most part they couldn’t answer. When someone felt he or she
could answer, I took careful note of what was said and how it
was said, and made a point to request an account of its origin and
development. In this way, over many months and years, I was
slowly able to regain access to my mental life, even translating
it into propositions for public or private use. But problems soon
arose when my intentions proved too elusive for my means to
convey them, which resulted in unexpected deflections and dis-
tortions, and turned my ideas into twigs. Despite this I have
something to tell you. What for so long you and I have observed
together, day in and day out, has been constantly modified by
what we don’t see, leaving one whole side of experience blank.
And now that we’ve grown old, we lack energy to work out
what these dark lanes or vacant areas impart to us. Although the
intellect takes pleasure in exercising itself according to the five-
fold method—listening, reading, grasping, remembering, forget-
ting—there are some tasks that make it bristle. I hereby repre-
sent myself to you as the residue of things that aren’t true. Or
can these even be distinguished? Whose face shades the differ-
ence? Whose memory stores it?
from PlaytimeFind more by William Fuller at the library
Copyright © 2015 William Fuller
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
spiny paths once a hand
or cluster of them
how do they apply the
curve of the turnpike
the feeling of lace the
setting out of a caravan
not for us rapid motion
that come from worms
floating in lamplight
cold and clear
some few refuse to
jump all these geese
swimming in the
opposite direction
from WatchwordFind more by William Fuller at the library
Copyright © William Fuller
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
This (historical) object has decided to exist obliquely and by virtue of its existence to become correlated with the approaches taken to it by diverse groups of object-beholders—constituents—who appear motivated in their actions by a hunger for possession, or by the opposite impulse to escape from themselves into what they see. Dredging up strange but deeply felt emotions, they apply them directly to the screen—which is gray and framed by burnt plastic. One pushes it aside like a shadow. Austere but fragrant (redolent)the object branches down stairways, through hallways, out doorways, along streets and rivers until, carried away by birds, it is allocated over numberless empty landscapes. Out of its dispersion new objects are confected, to be placed side by side, on a mountain meadow, while a backward-looking daylight wanes, and the hand recedes that grasps the string stretching away to the great dead images of the past. I reach toward them from the present. How is it thinking of them, transparent or ashen, implausible then and now, arranged in the casual order of assumed routines, unconsciously shuffling through the days that bore them and that they came to represent as signs conceived to recoup an intensity and splendor that defined some prior synthesis—how is it by occult operation ordinary things occur? Whose present with its ‘here’ is here? Who drinks nectar through a nail?
from HallucinationFind more by William Fuller at the library
Copyright © 2011 William Fuller
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
The chances are good you were built from kings like these,
whoever you are, so it’s no wonder they’re inside you banging
to get out and then regretting it immediately when they do—and
I’ve come up from the basement with a stack of leaves and a bent
candle, intending to set new rules for accepting appointments,
although not today as I fall back on absolutely no resources, and
even the kings are sleeping or at most paying attention to nothing but the garden’s gradual self-augmentation. Over time they
grow old, die, are buried, to rise again with green eyes, plant
flowers, negotiate contracts, advocate secular liberation, seek
repeal of Section 2 (a), and become comfortable with activities
that are increasingly hard to define.
from PlaytimeFind more by William Fuller at the library
Copyright © 2015 William Fuller
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.