face
My face is made from human skin.
My arms are made of human muscle and human skin.
My human lungs are made from human lungs.
My human face is made of human skin.
My breasts are made from human flesh.
My human hands are made from human flesh.
My human bones are made from human bones.
My human hair is made of human hair.
My human face is made from human skin.
My human legs are made from human flesh.
My human penis is made from human flesh.
My human feet are made from human skin.
My nails are made from human nails.
My human knees are made from human bone.
My eyes are made from human eyes.
My lips are made from human lips.
My teeth are made of human teeth.
My penis is made of human skin.
My blood is made from human blood.
My back is made from human skin.
My human neck is made of human skin.
My human belly is made from human flesh.
My palms are made from human palms.
My scars are made from human flesh.
My human soles are made from human soles.
My human wrists are made from human bone.
My lungs are made of human lungs.
My throat is made of human flesh.
My human tongue is made from human tongue.
My human breasts are made from human skin.
My bones are made of human bones.
I face my human skin
ReplyDeleteI arm my human muscle
I breathe my human lung
I muscle my human arm
I scan my human face
I skin my human breasts
I flesh my human hands
I bone and muscle my human bone
I hair my flesh my human skin
I skin my flesh my hair my human skin
I flesh my skin I tear my human hair
I face my hair my human skin
I humane my hair my human flesh
I nail my flesh my human hair
I eye my human hair and flesh me
flesh, I flesh me humanly
hairing legs and belly made of blood
and lungs of human breath
and lips and teeth and tongue
palming flesh and soles of human feet
made bones and flesh and blood
humanly
human
bones
dust
I'm not sure what to make of this. Being Jewish, the references to skin etc. are also references for me to the Holocaust; it wasn't an attempt at an enumeration. I do like what you wrote a lot; I don't think they'd work as a pairing. What you're describing is what you're doing to yourself - verbs beyond the copula; what I'm describing is by a kind of distant proxy what might be done to someone. So it's both a description of the body as it is, and a reference to a form of torture that is always on the horizon...
DeleteThanks. I wasn't intending to reference the Holocaust, that didn't occur to me but I understand how it could. It was more of a reaction to your piece, rather than a pairing - and also to the broader context here and beyond, e.g. how the ubiquitous digitisation of the human form affects how we relate to our own bodies.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you; it's an odd pairing and on the level of digitization they both work well together. In a way they're like the darker sci-fi novels - I think there was one called something like I have no mouth but I must scream? - something like that. So both relate to that and to an insistence on the physicality of the body, at least as far as humans are concerned...
ReplyDeleteInteresting that 'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream' was turned into a video game, it seems - interactive fiction - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream_(video_game)
ReplyDeleteThe description of the game/story itself is the stuff of nightmares... I see the relationships here - if we were really running a seminar that should be one of the texts -
ReplyDeleteI've just read the original short story by Harlan Ellison in the rare English sunshine in the garden. *Very* different from how the game looks ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG_5dgYnKsI ). The story is quite horrific, much more like being inside a game-world nightmare/nightmarish game-world. (Although the female character is disappointingly, predictably one dimensional.)
ReplyDeleteI just looked at the game; I have to stay away form things like this - Doctor Who in his worse moments is bad enough! The one-dimensional thing is expected I think, given the male-orientation of this and so many other games... Thanks for the url by the way - and where are you in England? We've had cloudy rainy days for quite a while now, combined with miserable humidity -
ReplyDelete