LIST OF CHARACTERS

A BAND OF RATS – As They contort Their bones and skins in order to enter through a small aperture in the wall (Their furs brushing against sharp edges, smoothing them as they scratch)

A GUST OF WIND – As it pushes and/or pounds against a structure composed of walls (in search of the weakest point; a crack, or a window, or a crack in a window)

A COPPER-GLEANER – As He rips wires from the tracks in which they are set (coiling around fingers, with a tension on the brink of flaying)

A PANE OF GLASS – Remaining rigid, as Winds pummel, preventing entrance of objects (but not temperatures) (as fluctuations in light levels on either side cause variations in its transparencies and reflectivities)

IF THERE IS STILL ENOUGH TIME TO DO SO:
AS DARKNESS APPROACHES:
&/OR:
AS DARKNESSES APPROACH:
LIKE CANARIES INTO MINES:
WITH THE FREQUENCIES OF BATS:

& (made visible as an image as) seen (as light refracts through glass):
(left minutely) propped open, windows which (should have) sealed the interior from the outside world (have been) made breachable ...

& faintly heard (as it sinks, slowly):
A Band of Rats (THE MONOLOGICAL BECOMES DIALOGICAL UPON BEING HEARD)
& AS SUCH:
SCENE NO. 1

As They contort Their bones and skins in order to enter through a small aperture in the wall (Their furs brushing against sharp edges, smoothing them as they scratch). (The hermetic concept of “family” is defined as “members of a family residing in the same household who are related by blood, marriage, domestic relationship, or adoption.”)

A BAND OF RATS

1. “& Just As Bodies (may) Breach
2. Modulating Forms Like Gelatin
3. In Errancy of Structural formations which seek to
4. (a) Prevent Movement (physical/ideological), (b) Sterilize,
   (c) Exterminate
5. Formed (through) Proximity
6. Tails intertwined
7. Feeding off Plentitude
8. Occupying place against prescribed desires
9. Clobbered underfoot or Evading Detection
   10 Revealed as a traveler oblivious to border lines:
   & AS SUCH:
10. I am (We are) constructed
    (a) outside of sanctioned patterns of movement:
    & AS SUCH:
    (b) outside of sanctioned modes of behavior:
    & AS SUCH:
    (c) within a tendency towards illegal movement:
    & AS SUCH:
    (d) within a tendency towards errant behavior:
    & AS SUCH:
    I have (We have) studied the permissed forms
    (& subsumed them into our own)
    & AS SUCH:
11. I am (We are) building mimetic structures atop received structures indecipherable from the original: (a constituting of received structures in reverse)
    & AS SUCH:

12. I have (We have) produced codes from their language: (speaking in/through forms which seem innocuous but
    which contain imperceivable errancies)
    & AS SUCH:

13. & HAVING—carefully observed the terrifying present (terrifying because it is irreversible), I/we have attempted to assume forms which utilize available invisibilities / reflectivities / deflectivities (material, linguistic, optical, etc.) to evade detection;
    & HAVING—carefully observed the terrifying past (terrifying because it is being replicated), I/we have,: found myself/ourselves in a likewise terrifying state, in which (invisible) lines determining movements are enforced through (arbitrary yet mutualized) language, becoming effectual truths.”
    & THAT SAID:

(WITH THEIR TAILS INTERTWINED) THIS TOO COULD BE (FAINTLY) HEARD:

A BAND OF RATS
“OH! dear Wall in which we live!”
(the rat is the concicest tenant,)
“OH! dear Holes through which we squeeze!”
(& is malleable as earth,)
“OH! dear Crumbs which we pilfer!”
(& has the modestest needs;)
“OH! dear Traps which you set!”
(though its bones may be shattered,)
“OH! dear Poison with which you tempt!”
(& its stomach exploded,)
“OH! this Home is so warm!”,
(this could be heard, &:)
“OH! this Poison tastes so sweet!”
(it had been designed so...)
“OH! OH!”

A BAND OF RATS
But Still I/We/They Know:
These Walls — This hollow home is tenuous in nature: When it erodes, when it is felled, when it is filled, or when we are exiled; a new home we will find.
These Cracks — This inviting hole is tenuous in nature: When filled, or when it is covered, or when it expands, or when discovered; a new hole we will find.
These Crumbs — These discarded scraps are tenuous in nature: When rotted, when they are swept, when they no longer fall; new crumbs we will find.
These Traps — These instruments of torture are intended for us: When set, or when snapped, or when they take new forms (ones which we cannot learn or anticipate, when they become the reality in which we live, when the pain they inflict becomes indecipherable from all other states), and:
This Poison Masquerading as Candy — This poison is intended for us: When dispersed, when placed into ever new forms and in ever new spaces (when we can no longer tell what is so and what is not, when it has become the constant form which we consume, its effects the constant state in which we live; when we cannot imagine a state outside of such confinement, when we cannot remember a state outside of such pain; when such a state is so pervasive that they think we too have been finally subsumed into the world in which we are or are being gently and/or viciously lulled):
Still some of us will copulate, and replicate, and find ever new cracks in ever new walls, as our bones heal, as our digestive tracts become immune (again).

&: As A Gust of Wind, the force of which is not new but comes with a temporal scarcity that allows us to forget Its potential, which shatters the barriers which we have constructed and which we have believed were impermeable by definition (we believed this, despite all, to be true); as this billowing has shown these structures to be breachable in nature, and as it becomes (again) clear that these structures will be and are being breached; as the Windows are shattered, and the doors are pried, and the roofs are collapsed; it is the words of these Rats, who have lived in this state for centuries, within a constancy of enmity and for whom evasion is a natural state, which we (can) hear (if we tip our heads just enough to make audible, if we suspend our language just enough to decode), as they ask (once again):

A BAND OF RATS
WHAT CAN WE BUILD IN AN AGE OF WALLS? WHAT CAN WE DISSEMBLE IN AN AGE OF EROSION?”

and as they answer (once again):

A BAND OF RATS
When a wall is built a path is set
(for:)
(a wall is a road in horizontal form)
(the reverse being also so.)

& AS OUR EARS ARE SO TUNED: I/We/They can/may/must also (try to) hear the Winds, whose actions are not themselves malicious in nature, but serve as signs of what can/may/will come, Their vibrations and patterns of conduct containing frequencies which can be read and which can inform, which are tethered to the natural &/or ideological formations of the structures which set them into motion, and which, as ideas structured in(to) monological formulations, can/may/must become dialogical upon being heard, be used to decode & to disrupt their logic, coaxing them to breezes or re-constituting them for oppositional means.

& (fixed as an image as) seen (as light alters material):
as (the) currents of (cold) air (from without) compress against corresponding currents of (warm) air (from within); condensing (on glass). (Law of Equilibrium.) ...

& faintly heard (as it sinks, slowly):
A Gust of Wind (THE DIALOGICAL BECOMES CULTURAL UPON BEING DISPERSED)

& AS SUCH:
SCENE NO. 2

As it pushes and/or pounds against a structure composed of walls (in search of the weakest point; a crack, or a window, or a crack in a window). (The hermetic concept of “household” is defined as “domestic quarters wherein one or more persons live and eat separately from occupant(s) of other living quarters, if any, in the same building.”)

A GUST OF WIND

1. “& Just As Words (may) Circulate
2. Shifting Definitions Like Bodies
3. In Errancy of Structural formations which seek to: (a) Prohibit Dispersal (physical/ideological), (b) Immobilize, (c) Dissipate
4. Formed (across) Distances
5. Gaining momentum
6. Accumulating Debris
7. Shifting directions with detached pragmatism
8. Weightless or with Immense Force
9. Ungraspable as a stowaway posing as passenger:
   & AS SUCH:
10. I am (We are) moving
    (a) outside of sanctioned patterns of language:
    & AS SUCH:
    (b) outside of sanctioned modes of dispersal:
    & AS SUCH:
    (c) within a tendency towards illegal language:
    & AS SUCH:
    (d) within a tendency towards errant dispersal:
    & AS SUCH:
    I have (We have) encircled the given material facts (& filled their hollows)
    & AS SUCH:
    I am (We are) filling the lungs & the pockets of negative space which fill & surround: (& which form the material world in reverse)
    & AS SUCH:
    I am (We arƒe) constructing a vacuum: (with the mimetic qualities of an echo or a bird call which contains imperceivable errors)
    & AS SUCH:
    & HAVING—having the power to lure or push the object world (forming it through force), I/we have attempted to reconfigure its verticalities / horizontalities / angles (structural/gravitational/metaphorical, etc.) to re-relate;
    & HAVING—the power to erode the object world (smoothing contours to nothing in time), I/we have,:
    found myself/ourselves in a likewise terrifying state, in which (imposed) structures articulating movements are reified by (perpetually self-replicating) structures, becoming ideological symbols.”

& THAT SAID:

(GRASPING AT THE LEAVES) THIS TOO COULD BE (FAINTLY) HEARD:

A GUST OF WIND
HOWL! WOAH! sweet Wall which I erode!
(entered with impunity)
HOWL! WOAH! sweet Sail which I push!
(forcibly forged)
HOWL! WOAH! sweet Rock brought to sand!
(dismantled in time)
HOWL! WOAH! sweet Wave which I enlarge!
(brought to a fore)
HOWL! WOAH! sweet Ship which I sink!
(causal consequences)
HOWL! WOAH! this Wall is so hard!
(brushed like a bone)
HOWL! WOAH! this Lung so soft!
(crushed like a skin)
WOAH! WOAH!

A GUST OF WIND
But Still I/We/They Ask/Wonder
What is a Wind?
(A wind is a force not seen but felt)
What is a Wall?
(A wall is a structure built to exclude other structures)
What is a Skin?
(A skin is a surface which encases a system)
What is a Body?
(A body is a system composed of networked elements functioning together in service of a whole)
Is a Wall like a Skin for the Skin of a Body?
(A body is a fortress that is containable only until it is not)
With lungs filled like a sail it is the circulating air that connects the inside to the outside and to everything in between (clean or toxic, just the same).

The logic of currents, like the logic of currencies, are predicated on the laws of accumulation, so that, in order that they may be quantified they must be considered in relation to a pluralized system or systems. (She trembles. Leaves tremble. But of which should we speak?) It is for this reason that their accumulation causes relative power to compound as it accumulates, to the exclusion of inverse forces. (He reflects. Pools reflect. But objects, or despair?) Measured with instruments, unlimited growth increasing the divide. (A body as a structure that wants another structure.) Acted upon, prompting action, paying actors or agents to enact external(ized) desires. (Is it still enough? Is there still enough?) Formless concepts perpetually forming concrete contexts. (A living organism, like a rhododendron, like a dictionary.)
LAWS OF IDEOLOGIES FUNCTIONING LIKE LAWS OF NATURE. PERCEPTIBLE ONLY WHEN THREATENED, SUSPENDABLE ONLY AS FICTIONS.

A GUST OF WIND
As a body of water or the body of a camera
(is:)
(entered or manipulated by the body of a human)
(all constructing desire.)

& AS OUR EARS ARE SO TUNED: I/We/They can/may/must also (try to) hear the pillagers, whose actions are themselves malicious in nature, and serve as signs of what can/may/will come, their sounds and patterns of conduct containing intentions which can be read and which can inform, which are tethered to the natural &/or ideological formations of the structures which set them into motion, and which, as ideas structured in(to) monological formulations, can/may/must become cultural upon being dispersed, be used to decode & to disrupt their logic, melting them to liquids or re-constituting them for oppositional means.

& (dispersed as an image as) seen (within a conduit like and of light): (all material revealing its porousness eventually. all matter circulating through all in time.) ...

& faintly heard (as it sinks, slowly):

A Copper-Gleaner
(THE CULTURAL BECOMES CONTEXTUAL UPON BEING NORMALIZED)

& AS SUCH:
SCENE NO. 3

As He rips wires from the tracks in which they are set (coiling around fingers, with a tension on the brink of flaying). (The hermetic concept of “private property” is defined as “mutualized recognition of dominion over or control of tangible and/or intangible things to the exclusion of all others, including the legal and economic relations therebetween.”)

A COPPER-GLEANER

1. & Just As Floorboards (may) Rot
2. Water Desolidifying Material Givens
3. Reformulating Structural formations which seek to:
4. (a) Regulate Values (physical/ideological), (b) Protect,
   (c) Endorse
5. Formed (within) Destabilization
6. Stockpiles full
7. Taken with Confidence
8. Accumulating against prescribed legalities
9. Capital Gains over Biological Necessities
10. Revealed as an operator oblivious to property lines:
    & AS SUCH:
11. I am (We are) constructed
    (a) above sanctioned patterns of movement:
    & AS SUCH:
    (b) above sanctioned modes of behavior:
    & AS SUCH:
    (c) within an immunity allowing illegal movement:
    & AS SUCH:
    (d) within an immunity allowing errant behavior:
    & AS SUCH:
12. I have (We have) dictated the permissed forms
    (& subsumed them under our own)
    & AS SUCH:
13. I am (We are) building empty structures around substantive structures indecipherable from the original: (a duplicated exterior is a mannequin not a clone)
    & AS SUCH:
14. I have (We have) overtaken the construction of language: (a truth is only true for as long as it is believed, so to control belief is to own the truth)
    & AS SUCH:
15. & HAVING — carefully obscured the terrifyingness of the present (terrifying because it is irreversible), I/we have detected and edited the laws of communication in order that they cannot evade our detection;
    & HAVING — carefully obscured the terrifying past
    (terrifying because it is being replicated), I/we have,:
    found myself/ourselves in a likewise terrifying state, in which (invisible) sounds
    determining perceptions are enforced through (arbitrary yet mutualized) codes, dictating permissed behaviors.”
    & THAT SAID:

(WITH WIRES GRABBED FROM WALLS) THIS TOO COULD BE (FAINTLY) HEARD:

A COPPER-GLEANER

damn sheetrock have i told you how i hate you (clank) today / sole comfort ah my pick-axe (clank) claws at your skin and you / crumble oh oh floorboard you you worthless plank oh (clank) / how i hate you but oh how i love it to saw you these bricks / oh you bricks you cause me (clank) me pain but i chisel out your grout / with joy fuck ouch ow damn fuck you tiles i slice you oh (clank) ow / oh happy day a rathole with fresh prey oh now i catch you / smash you (splatter) (crunch) (clank) (slurp) was your home is mine now / law of equilibrium

A COPPER-GLEANER
But (clank) oh damn
Oh Sheetrock — oh your granules when i rip you fill my nose fuck (cough) oh hell this dust my lungs oh (clank) oh (cough) my eyes they sting i cry and and /
Oh Floorboards — what a horror as i suck up all your moisture (gulp) your moldly cracks disgusting fuzzy water in my throat /
Oh Bricks — what have i done to you to reap such painful fortune as you (clank) (oof) crush my legs and feet i pull you down you crash and /
Tiles Oh — tiling and linoleum the tools im made to use to rip you up and slice into your skin so sharp and hard to grasp / your skin so like my skin so soft and so so ripe for ripping in to pieces and like paper flayed and fluttering to the ground /
(The Rat as a Dish--)
— a rat is like a candy its so sweet and oh so tasty but to bite it is to crack your teeth but sucking takes too long / but stalk a rat youll learn so much bout how they live and so evade detection from our kind who wants them all so dead and cleansed / ive learned to use them as a lure to teach me where to go to oh (clank) help me find the hidden cracks from which i steal my loot / but while so sweet they rot my gut the poison that i fed them is now in me oh but (slurp) who cares i want them anyhow / and every time i do this i become yet more immune and oh whats more / still some of them will copulate and replicate and find new cracks / in newer walls and oh it is a self-renewing source /

A COPPER-GLEANER
Pennies for copper
(&:)
(copper for pennies)
(futile cycles left unquestioned.)

& AS OUR EARS ARE SO TUNED: I/We/They can/may/must also (try to) crack the panes, whose structures are not themselves malicious in nature, but serve as signs of what can/may/will come, their materials and states of being containing consequences which can be read and which can inform, which are tethered to the natural &/or ideological formations of the structures which bring them into existence, and which, as ideas structured in(to) monological formulations, can/may/must become contextual upon being normalized, be used to decode & to disrupt their logic, grinding them to dust or re-constituting them for oppositional means.

& (received as an image as) seen (as light dissipates and reformulates itself):
(planes of) time like (panes of) glass, liquid (states) posing as solid (states), (gasses frozen then thawed then evaporating once again in cycles of time) ...

& faintly heard (as it sinks, slowly):
A Pane of Glass (THE CONTEXTUAL FORMS THE IDEOLOGIES WHICH DICTATE OUR DESIRES)

& AS SUCH:
SCENE NO. 4

Remaining rigid, as Winds pummel, preventing entrance of objects (but not temperatures) (as fluctuations in light levels on either side cause variations in its transparencies and reflectivities). (The hermetic concept of “nation-state” is defined as “an homogeneous group of citizens within a region whose cultural, political and geographic boundaries are aligned.”)

A PANE OF GLASS

1. & Just As Borders (may be) Delineated
2. Creating Divisions Like Wounds
3. In Opposition to Biological forces which seek to
4. (a) Gain Entry (physical/ideological), (b) Breach, (c) Infiltrate
5. Constructed (with) Indemnity
6. Structure reinforced
7. Protecting Plentitude
8. Reifying place towards prescribed desires
9. Detecting and Clobbering
10. Enforcing the supremacy of accorded territories:
    & AS SUCH:
11. I am (We are) operating
    (a) within sanctioned patterns of movement:
    & AS SUCH:
    (b) within sanctioned modes of behavior:
    & AS SUCH:
    (c) against tendencies towards illegal movement:
    & AS SUCH:
    (d) against tendencies towards errant behavior:
    & AS SUCH:
12. I have (We have) deigned the permissed forms (subsuming them into our needs)
    & AS SUCH:
13. I am (We are) manipulating linguistic structures which determine behaviors and altering them as such: (slowly enough to evade perception)

14. I am (We are) introducing defects into their language: (so they speak in/through forms which seem consequential but are ultimately rhetorical)

15. & HAVING—diligently constructed the terrifying present (terrifying because it is irreversible), I/we have attempted to assume forms which appear as protective/neutral/nurturing (in service of the public interest) to evade opposition;
    & HAVING—carefully obscured the terrifying past (terrifying because it is being replicated), I/we have,: found myself/ourselves in a likewise terrifying state, in which (invisible) lines determining movements are enforced through (arbitrary yet mutualized) structures, becoming empirical facts.”
    & THAT SAID:

(THROUGH PUMMELING WINDS) THIS TOO COULD BE (FAINTLY) HEARD:

A PANE OF GLASS
The tracks along which my planes are set are set with notches which allow my planes to vary in proximities and consistencies, altering constantly with the qualities & intensities of the light. Instead of placing yourself in front or between my planes, you have perched atop my panes, you have burrowed into my tracks, you have congealed in my glass, in order to see from above, from below, from inside. You have preyed on my structures in order to decipher & destabilize the visual world & infect & inflect it in equal measure:

A PANE OF GLASS
But Still I/We Exist
In Vertical Form — (in order to facilitate views across the horizontal plane);
&/or:
In Horizontal Form — (in order to facilitate views across the vertical plane);
&/or:
In Transparent Form — (as a conduit for vision);
&/or:
In Opaque Form — (as a conduit for reflection);
& as such:
As A Liquid Posed As A Solid — I stand (tenuously) in place, giving the illusion of impermeability, but (being the weakest element of the structure) posited against external elements which wish to breach my body, lifting or slicing, swinging open or smashing, as border-lines shift (like fault lines along which power grows) and evaporate (like histories replaced by myths), a type of surface (one form among many) with a unique set of properties, and, pelted by rain turning to hail, my capacity to see also leaves me vulnerable, as:
A crack in a window can cause minute fluctuations in angles to react to light in such a manner as to facilitate simultaneous views both through and of.

& heard: We love home. It’s the best place in the world. But not everything inside your home is lovable. There are things that beep at you; fail without warning; keep you in the dark. There are things you’ve learned to ignore. We think they should do more. We are focused on making simple, human, delightful things. That’s how we’re creating the thoughtful home: A home that takes care of the people inside it and the world around it. We do much more than just sound a shrill alarm when there’s danger in your home. We speak to you, telling you where the danger is and what the problem is. When doors are pried, when roofs are collapsed, through the constancy of emnity within which you live, as threat of invasion is your natural state, we speak to you in words and colors instead of just beeping. We will cloak you in the comfort of impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful walls. There will be no tolerance. There will be no amnesty.
LAWS OF IDEOLOGIES FUNCTIONING LIKE LAWS OF NATURE. PERCEPTIBLE ONLY WHEN THREATENED, SUSPENDABLE ONLY AS FICTIONS.

A PANE OF GLASS
Without a window a home is a bunker
(and:)
(a bunker is the logical conclusion of the ideology of the home)
(as wants become needs.)

& AS OUR EARS ARE SO TUNED: I/We/They can/may/must also (try to) breed the rats, whose bodies are not themselves malicious in nature, but serve as signs of what can/may/will come, their organs and states of being containing consequences which can be read and which can inform, which are tethered to the natural &/or ideological formations of the structures which bring them into existence, and which, as ideas structured in(to) monological formulations, can/may/must become ideological upon being formulated as language, be used to decode & to disrupt their logic, hiding them in sewers or re-constituting them for oppositional means.

& (configured as) scenes (in dark ages):
within a tenancy of conciseness, means determine action ...

& WITH WINDOWS RAISED TO THE WIDTH OF A FINGER:
(JUST ENOUGH TO GRASP UNDER THEM):
& WITH GRATES ERODED TO THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF ROPE:
(JUST ENOUGH TO PUSH INTO THEM):
& JUST AS:
PANES OF GLASS (IN THEIR FRAGILITIES & THEIR RESILIENCIES) CAN BE VARIOUSLY CONSTRUCTED:
& JUST AS:
CAPACITIES FOR CRUELTIES (AS THEY FLUCTUATE & THEY OBFUSCATE) ARE UNKNOWN UNTIL RELEASED:
& JUST AS:
THE CONTOURS OF FINGERS (AS THEY TORTURE OR THEY CARESS) APPEAR THE SAME THROUGH ALL:

& faintly heard (as it sinks, slowly):