For the happy man! - Collected writings DEPRESSION: Ed Atkins

(Flat palm butts
flat door – though each loaded, each TUMESCENT
with anticipation; each the limit of some hysterical other
– and this desire, this sort of symmetry of infernos
enough to make you recall the scene as part of some grungy
genre of symbolism and
haters demanding that the back and not the front of
the hand be employed and of fucking course they demand:
bearing knuckles and thin bones grimly rehearsed in beating,
slapping, striking away etc. – O! the back of the hand shown,
though you know it’s the fronts that display stigmatic authentication:
holes with fleshly, nervous beds nicked by the tips of
full-stretch blades)
And
O let me
penitence
or blessing
or rebuttal or simple resistance
–coming across as useless nervous performance in the
face of your body’s overriding cowardice.
I cringe at the thought.
And let me
being lied about
on bold, sweeping plateaus of scudded steel extending
to the horizon and lying.