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Cut To Tape
March 19, 2005    File under: Tapeworm

the dead woman lies breathing on the screen, politicians are
clamoring in her throat: solecism and sophistry: Tancredo
stands outside his home asking why we shouldn't give her

the same rights as death-row inmates: is he saying everyone
gets a second third fourth chance or saying perhaps that
the death-row folks are already dead: is he Jesus, is Bill Frist

Jesus standing at the tomb of Lazarus: cut to tape of photo-
tropic smile: lawmaker beaming for the camera while witches
deck the Capitol steps: second anniversary of war: earthquake

in Japan: little girl found dead: her father praying thanks:
cut to tape of bleach-blond anchor-woman angry: in this strip
of sand barren 200 sex offenders, maybe more: everyone

wants to know how, seems to want a law to sayYou are
safe, O my children, some safe in the iron of the State,
some in the stainless bars of the hospital bed, some in the

country's fragile soil: it seems you get to choose some fates,
not all: explosion on the Western Slope, the hotel accessible
only by SnoCat, helicopter, skis, several dead though no one

can confirm: file footage: film tomorrow at 11: sirens through
the membrane windows: crime scene tape flapping in the wind:
the city filling its basin with random flicker, a field like binary

snow, videotape after magnet wipe, close-up of hair of motion,
detail of senator on granite steps: the act destroyed now a ghost
in the static you only think you can see: respirator noise:

Posted by Jake Adam York at March 19, 2005 11:33 PM