△Ark

 Prologue

Once I went into the neighborhood with S.. We broke into an attic.

We climbed out onto the roof to look at the northern tower of Atlantic Mill.

There was a huge hole - ripped - gashed into the top of the tower.

James Turrell’s grandmother told him in the quaker meeting hall - find the light -

he couldn’t - so he made the light - “Mad Genius Buys Volcano

Transforms it into Naked Eye Observatory” -

Light is a miracle - that there is any light - 

that you watch the orange security light

turn more and more orange by degrees until suddenly it flips off 

leaving a flare in your eye - a burn or blast - a vibration -

flak bombs exploding over the field or the rusted roof.

I. Glass Windows

P. took photos of the cracked glass on the floor -

light - light - flash - flash - flash -

Is that what the glass looked like 

when the rocks came through the window?

P. says he wish he could have photographed it as it happened -

same night as the Boston bombings -

reading/watching the news - people losing limbs.

Imagine what would have happened if I had been in the building with M. -

would she have had her blind eyes cut?

the eyes - the flash - flash - flash - of P.’s photographs -

rocks

*

This was what precipitated the building’s next phase: 

the factory building's gates were replaced by gates without rust -

the doors were painted red - red without lead paint -

and the red curtains in the prostitutes room were removed.

see the feather that’s still hanging from the window?

see the poster of pipes looping through a building -

see the name of one of the punk group’s show: “recursion” 

see the place where it says - “finished”?

*

The last punk group is getting evicted.

They smashed the window of my makeshift area 

when they found out.

Headless Anarchism says M. - 

the sun slides through the window’s frames 

and strikes me in the face.

II. Island

The lamplit - the flooded - the well-lit and auto-fluorescent -

the inflamed - the sunlit -

blast furnaces - capital one & capital two -

rays of light -

verticals - diagonals -

“We are moving into the future where the factory is everywhere, 

and the design team is everyone" - fuck -

*

A. was there with his two silver face studs -

two permanent artificial dimples.

He was there with his womens cowboy boots -

his yip and his low growl - his unsarl and go -

his index finger pointing down 

at the water that had flooded the factory one foot high.

D. was there too, but standing on the roof -

watching a neon ferris wheel in a nearby park - light/light - 

purple that becomes red -

that becomes blue -

that becomes white - 

D. afixes his language to the ceiling of the building -

The words glow, illuminating the dust.

That language is its own being - what remains -

nesting in the ceiling - prima materia - presence - reality -

or just a bunch of fluorescent lights - humming -

*

I go out onto the roof and look out.

All I see is ferris wheels - rays and rays of light - 

diagonals - vortices - other mills - 

I wrap myself in textiles -

I imagine the shattered glass

melted down into a knife.

III. Dream Catchers

Graffiti: “un-cooperative co-op” - “the dungeon” - 

There’s a hanging sculpture in here,

brown twigs wound into a circle with a radius of three feet.

There’s a black mesh in the middle -

what is it - I asked -

“it’s a dream catcher” -

E. walks up to the wall - flicks on a fan -

the whole room hums.

There’s a hole in the ceiling - a concrete shaft

with light coming down from the hole -

gunmetal - concrete - but not soviet.

*

E. told me that they wanted

to build a whole second story full of rooms -

a music studio - a photography studio -

fish tanks -

the ideal collective living space. 

Some kid from Colorado came

and built this huge net

you could hang out on -

the net - like the canopy of a tree - 

the net and the dream catcher -

a little dream catcher and a large dream catcher -

IV. Production Problems

We walked out onto the roof, looked down at the river 

running alongside the mill.

E. says he was afraid someone was going to fall -

“Do you think they would die?” I asked.

I kicked my legs over the edge.

E, says that if someone had fallen,

they would have just buried the body.

E. told me once C threw a bunch of firecrackers

over the wood wall and into Witch Club, the other collective space.

They came back another night in mask

and beat the shit out of him.

Then another night C. knocked down all of E.’s fish tanks

so E. ripped down the fabric that C.’s room was made out of

and punched him in the face. 

The first time I came to Providence, I posted on the list serve: 

“I’m here, show me the spaces” - and everyone posted -

“narc, narc, narc, narc”

but C. showed me around.

C. said they lit a fire and let the smoke out the ceiling -

 lit a fire on the concrete in the building wilderness -

gathered around it, “if you were fucked up, we wanted you,” he said.

V. Lift Off

The factory levitates

and a man made of long fluorescent tubing 

jogs inside it.

The rest of us float, hanging with our feet pointed up towards the sky.

The factory is producing air: its blue-gray doors open, shuddering,

and clouds drift out, momentarily obscuring us from each other.

From here up in the dark, I can see the white security lights above the river -

points inside a mirror.

The ferris wheel is below us - 

fireworks chase us.

Somehow, I float into the sky-doors in my sleep, wake  up -

I grab them and my gravity reverses 

and I am sitting on the landing, inside the building, looking down at the street.

I can hear the sound of the fluorescent man

walking between the machines  - 

crunch - crunch - crunch -

Everyone from Youth Build is coming to work, but then they look up

and see that the building isn’t there -

it’s in the sky.

Jay from Olneyville Housing

stamps his feet and shouts - “Come down!” 

“Come the fuck down, right now!” -

Everyone wakes up, laughing.

The Sky Brigade floats towards their horns -

French Horn - Tuba - Bad Ass Horn - Big One -

floating around the building - 

*

Listen to this, all the names of clouds:

“cumulus - stratus - cirrus - nimbus - heap - layer - curl - 

alto-stratus - cumulonimbus”

The factory is manufacturing the air - more and more of it.

“Is this supposed to prevent global warming” - A. asks -

J. says, “It’s our cover, I asked the fluorescent guy to keep it all going” -

“You know that guy?” I say.

VI. A Concert in the Air

Brass brass everyone - brass brass everywhere -

there’s music coming out of the sky-doors.

Jay O’Grady seems like a dick - music - 

tone - pitch -slick -

thirty songs - let’s go.

The Sky Brigade is a 19-piece brass band -

from Providence, RI, USA. 

The sound is an aggressive mix -

of Bollywood, The Balkans, New Orleans, Samba and Hip-Hop - 

played with the intensity of metal, requiring no amplification.

We prove that great parties need no electricity - 

our live shows defy boundaries - 

appealing equally to punks and farmers, old and young.

*

It’s like they took the factory machines

and beat them into instruments - 

It’s like the sound of a thousand looms reconstructed

into a marching band.

It’s like bridges being smashed -

It’s a horn out front - fuck that horn out front - 

who the fuck is that - is that D., Sousophone D.?

He once collapsed a lung due to his antics with this band -

After a few months, he was back to risky

tuba-based behavior -

There’s another horn in the background -

G. - born a small white child -

G. grew to an even larger white child - 

a giant child who blows horns - he does it deep -

be it esoteric philosophy - scuba or noise -

The machines are marching - 

The sky is marching - 

All those shit-head clouds are marching 

Somewhere - 

Where the fuck are all these people going?

Jay O’Grady is marching -

PVP pipes slice the air -

Even the goddamn bricks of the building are marching 

loaded with a strange light -

*

Light cathedral of 

noise - noise - noise -

some kind of light machine - pink lights -

cerise lights - purple lights - the brass itself reflecting 

the sky clouds - street lights -

The light extending and clashing and smacking

against everything -

N., he’s on the horns:

“Sometimes, at shows I try to go up to people -

and dance with them but my pointy bones frighten them -”

Where is S.

and her god damn houses that are musical instruments?

Why isn’t the factory itself some kind of instrument?

The industrial revolution chased by light -

The digital revolution -

And the very first light of the world -

Caused by יהוה, removing himself -

C. -

C. plays trombone, and hopes to someday 

play all the notes, ever -

like the Big Man himself.

*

There’s only one song left - and its sad.

The trombones  seem like soldiers about to fire rifles into the air -

bang - bang - bang - bang - bang -

The last march before the eviction -

All the light has stilled and rests in puddles around the feet of the musicians.

How did sound get turned into light?

And why is this light so sad? 

twilight light - 

light before the new world is born light -

music light - stupid light -

star that lets the last light go -

tamborine light -

click light - click - click - click -

look out there beyond the far light - there’s

a new universe - bubbling up - and that fucker -

look at that fucker explode !

VII. Forest

The forest is always coming up to the factory.

The forest will always reclaim the factory - 

Acer Rubrum - Acer Sachrum - Betula Nigra (Heritage) -

Celtis Occidentalis - Gingko Biloba - Gleditsia triacanthos inermis -

The forest is always there - Gymnocladus dioicus -

Liquidambar styraciflua - Liriodendron tulipifera - 

Metasequoia glyptostroboides -

You can see the forest from the top of the mill.

You can hear the cicadas.

You can imagine the forest

being inside of the building after everyone has left.

You can imagine the shafts of light that the vines

have whittled through the stone - Platanus x acerifolia -

Quercus bicolor - Quercus imbricaria -

White warm sunlight quiet of the dust

Quercus palustris - Quercus phellos -

The river is wider than ever before.

There’s a brick wall standing

where the tower used to be.

There’s a brick standing

where a wall used to be.

It’s only a matter of time

before lightning strikes the building again.

Quercus robur - Quercus rubra -

The windows are falling inwards -

and they are breaking and shattering light across the floor.

Styphnolobium japonicum - Taxodium distichum -

Once I was walking with J. in the forest 

next to the building and I said it seemed like the garden of Eden.

She said, “I’m the forbidden fruit” - “obviously”

*

Sitting with S. on the roof. 

The red moon rises over the building,

rises over the forest above the river,

over the lights of Olneyville,

over the lights of S.’s cell phone,

a little square.

The forest surrounds the mill, not quite piercing it,

not quite reclaiming it.

The cut on the top of my palm,

the jagged arc of hot steel that hit me when I was welding.

To S., this is just dead space.

She doesn’t have the associations.

We talk about how she made algae glow

in a vial for one of her installations.

We talk about how she walked around 

with a plant from the forest

in a plastic frame attached to a gas mask

so she could breathe the plant’s oxygen. 

The moon’s corona.

Hyperlocalist memories -

city edges - everything like a grip.

Sophia pulls out her little square of light.

Different glow - the windows - different glow - the light

popping out of the building -

different glass -

VIII. Nursery

We go to the tree nursery close by to listen to the crickets.

Dark - dark dark goose - walking past the grate,

past something that smells like a body.

The nursery is a reverse forest - 

a forest that is surrounded by mills -

We enter into the gate - 

I reach my hand out and touch all the tall-standing flowers.

They feel fuzzy.

S. says she always needs someone to go first - 

so she’s behind me and I can hear her footsteps

falling on the wood chips.

We cut a path through the cricket clicks, blindly making

our way into the nursery.

It’s just dark and light and green and we are pressed in

by the red bricks on all sides and even at 2am -

bam - bam - bam -

someone is swinging a hammer against metal.

*

Bycles pass - cars pass - we are surrounded by the fence -

“Do you ever come in here alone?” she asks.

“No,  I don’t.”

I look around - but it’s just someone walking

and the headlights of the cars shine over the small trees

casting shadows on the bricks.

There are tubes -

S. points to them and says that the trees 

must be fed automatically and she touches a branch.

“I wonder where they are planted afterwards?” I say.

There’s the glassiness leaving her eyes for a second

while she looks at the trees and checks the insulin

pouch that’s against her thigh. It beeps -

I go looking through the pieces in her portfolio in my mind -

There’s one called ‘abandoned experiment’ where 

there are needles floating above a jet black lake.

She’s got another piece where she’s left a bunch

of glowing orbs glistening on the beach -

 ‘washed up in a near distant future,’ she called it.

IX. Colored Glass

J. - sitting at a table on the top floor

tossing fabric into the center -

laser cut textiles.

She’s starting a business in the mill -

or thinking about it - amaryllis - 

azalea - allium - begonia -

blackthorn - bluebell -

She shows me the laser cutter -

boronia - bloodroot -

I said I hated the landlord.

She wishes she could spend more time with him -

get to know him - 

change his mind about things.

She lays more textile on the table - 

She found a manufacturer bringing in just the right kind of felt.

Her parents helped her purchase some. 

She’s watching the laser cut the textile -

then she’s sewing the felt together into a flower.

*

She told me she grew up in Queens and she was looking 

at a fish tank with all these colorful fish inside it.

She said everything she makes looks like this - 

traces back to that one moment staring through glass.

The color in the room is peculiar - it’s this reddark -

not really comprehensible brown - it’s dangerous to go into

the colors up here - on the top of the building -

She shows me her website:

it’s J. with a blow-torch and goggles burning and refitting glass -

turning it into shapes with thousands of different colors -

all hanging from the ceiling -

“Glass Rain” the installation was called.

*

We walk into the other room -

Push through door and its flowers - flowers everywhere -

made of yarn -

“What is it?” - “It’s a hibiscus” - immense - bright shocking red -

What else was in the room?

A pillow that looked like a cat with a bunch of eyes -

I.’s poster - all blue - of the ideal cooperative living arrangement -

“Look,” she says - 

“Here’s a felt flower” -

and I see it in the poster -

X. Altar

J. had built an altar because she knew the building was closing -

lots of lace - flowers - a plate on it with parrots and other birds -

a panda made of paper mache - a goblet -

The bees are dying - plenty of them

belly up - dead against the altar,

lying in the fake flowers.

S. had been a bee-keeper - so some of her bees were still around.

There was also an article on facebook about small robotic

bees that would do their job.

Maybe they won’t notice and we can build a garden on the roof -

maybe we can build a window farm -

may we all have farms in heaven.

To the root strikers -

to the people who come by x - may we all have farms in heaven -

may the altar be the lost key - or the farm in heaven -

May J. be the last person here up on the roof -

may she be the altar builder - the welder - the weaver -

glass and textiles - and blinking lights - 

small LEDs woven into fabric -

small LEDs attached to robotic bees -

*

There’s fire on the roof - dayfires - so different from nightfires -

Day-farms - day fires - 

other things that don’t exist -

Forest in every direction - and the greenhouse

on the top of the mill,

and J. - J. saying - be the best of yourself.

J. volunteering at the church - J. turning the water

wheel and turning water into fire on the roof - 

felt into flowers - bees into robotic bees -

hardware into birds -

J. told me that she’s making an installation for Calvin Klein -

and that they’re assholes - they’re asking

that she combine glass and textile.

She’s sitting in front of the mirror.

I took a photograph of her with her goggles on

and the torch like a little tongue

licks the glass which looks like honey.

I put down my backpack and J. looks inside -

it’s glistening a little bit - “What is that?” - “I brought you - 

some materials” - I slowly start taking out the glass -

“I have something I want you to make” -

I take out one of the larger pieces of glass and it has

all the dust from the mill on it -

She looks through it and into me -

“Is this from the event?” - 

“Yes, it’s from the event”

“I want it to be something else now” - 

I take the key to the building from my pocket,

the last key other than hers,

and I press it into her hand -