Ten Ways to Put Together an Airplane
by Noah Eli Gordon
1.
Turn toward the undifferentiated vastness in the first of all flowers.2.
Turn partly in delight & partly inspired by the sick awe of rebirth.3.
Turn a weakness of the libido into the asset of a well-stocked garage.4.
Shatter utopian tendencies against the earthly ballast that anchors them.5.
Turn a spiritual aspiration into the ill-omened echo of a dog’s far-off cry.6.
Turn all animals into theologians, psychotherapists, classicists, & art critics.7.
This theory would liken flight to a kind of castration of the intellect.8.
Engage in nothing on the fringe of everyday activities save that of forgetfulness.9.
Turn the sonnet like a saw blade upon the woodsy fixity of received form.10.
Launch into the air an asexual organ of reproduction. Say it: fuel equals fear.
About the Author
Noah Eli Gordon is the co-publisher of Letter Machine Editions, an editor for The Volta, and an assistant professor in the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he currently directs Subito Press. His recent books include THE YEAR OF THE ROOSTER (Ahsahta Press, 2013), THE SOURCE (Futurepoem Books, 2011), and Novel Pictorial Noise (Harper Perennial, 2007). More info can be found here.
Image
From Grand Theft Auto V (2013).
