Series Notes Contact Rehearsal Hotel
Series Notes Contact Rehearsal Hotel
45.
H D After High Definition. †
Micaela Brinsley
H D After High Definition. †
Micaela Brinsley
* * *
Back to Rehearsal.
* * *
Back to Rehearsal.
* * *
Give me the stream’s cold path,
the grove of pine,
for garden terrace
the unclaimed
bleak
wild stretches
of the mountain side.
Give me no earth
H.D., ‘All Mountains’ (1925)
* * *
Helen of Troy, Helen of nowhere, Helen of nothing.
Philip Roth, The Human Stain (2000)
* * *
HELEN there’s a light, inside
the sound of nothing new / within its seam
in the paw of a severed rabbit’s foot
blood leaksss, scratchesss, coalesces a discooo
into shadows / extend from here to away
encroaching onto theatres older
than my name / bank accounts,
nope
n u m b e r s count themselves like ants
carrying a leaf from its roasting to the wedding
of a sister, don’t
know the codes
hidden
in the clicks of alphabet keys, carved into years
under stone
At the center of the stage is a DJ booth.
Aside from HELEN, who is controlling the
sound, all other characters noted within
the piece will appear as sound recordings
that are pre-programmed, that she plays
from the booth.
SENTRY We’ll be done forever with this
curse on all men.
HELEN also has the capacity to add new sounds
at any moment, as well as distort the tone of her
own voice.
HELEN I’ll finish weaving it soon, this course-correction
of sails pointing in the wrong direction / a repentance of a voice
d r i p p i n g
out of an open-necked parachute / secure it, the wings
to the wax / or else tumbling’s gonna turn from
a balance beam to broken
in a swirling sea
sss
voices
they moan about the fall, what follows
d
ages, I pass through them all,
collecting each and every one like candy / mothers
in leggings on Ventura Boulevard could never
ever, get away with how I’ve stolen from it / the crinkles
in its comforter of burgundy / the colour of
a pomegranate the s e c o n d after its orgasm
m
ships crossed an ocean
s
bump up the sound
ssssssss
men die
ssssssss
distort it
zzzzzzz
their voices, down long corridors, intertwining
with the thick of pillars
s
need more autotune
SENTRY Witch.
HELEN call me out
SENTRY Villain.
HELEN make it worse
SENTRY Whore.
HELEN the best one
SENTRY A demon.
HELEN not quite the oldest, but
I make it close
go to the back of the record store, I’ll be tucked
between the vinyl & mice gumming in a row / bought
too long to remember the label, its first colour
whether I was ever covered in plastic / full
of it / my personality?
need it louder
zzzzzzzzzzzz
not quite sure where it’s sourced,
the speakers
but I need sound to grow / like me / a rabbit
until one day a snake, every day scaling
a new height up a torso, circling
a staircase with a candle, lit centuries past a decade ago
SENTRY Slut.
HELEN chandeliers crash
tsunamis roar
I need an audio engineer
passing the way / to a jackfruit as fake
as the hope for perfume, the right scent, one / laughing
at inconstancy, I’m heavy with the weight
of a mouldy afresh
death, it cradles waves away from a shoreline, syncopated
right, left, right
d e c o m p o s e
forever’s the rocks against a cliff for a crumbling,
into a hug that’ll never arrive
quieter
I know you know this story,
the one I’m telling
ropes were tightened
to a t / they
thought they knew, what it was
they were in for / money’s always got the shine
for a bigger horse though, and Palestinians know,
poison time & again / this story
fake it is forever, the perishables of a promise
from a mouth, trashed of its homeland
the sound of nothing new / within its seam
in the paw of a severed rabbit’s foot
blood leaksss, scratchesss, coalesces a discooo
into shadows / extend from here to away
encroaching onto theatres older
than my name / bank accounts,
nope
n u m b e r s count themselves like ants
carrying a leaf from its roasting to the wedding
of a sister, don’t
know the codes
hidden
in the clicks of alphabet keys, carved into years
under stone
At the center of the stage is a DJ booth.
Aside from HELEN, who is controlling the
sound, all other characters noted within
the piece will appear as sound recordings
that are pre-programmed, that she plays
from the booth.
SENTRY We’ll be done forever with this
curse on all men.
HELEN also has the capacity to add new sounds
at any moment, as well as distort the tone of her
own voice.
HELEN I’ll finish weaving it soon, this course-correction
of sails pointing in the wrong direction / a repentance of a voice
d r i p p i n g
out of an open-necked parachute / secure it, the wings
to the wax / or else tumbling’s gonna turn from
a balance beam to broken
in a swirling sea
sss
voices
they moan about the fall, what follows
d
ages, I pass through them all,
collecting each and every one like candy / mothers
in leggings on Ventura Boulevard could never
ever, get away with how I’ve stolen from it / the crinkles
in its comforter of burgundy / the colour of
a pomegranate the s e c o n d after its orgasm
m
ships crossed an ocean
s
bump up the sound
ssssssss
men die
ssssssss
distort it
zzzzzzz
their voices, down long corridors, intertwining
with the thick of pillars
s
need more autotune
SENTRY Witch.
HELEN call me out
SENTRY Villain.
HELEN make it worse
SENTRY Whore.
HELEN the best one
SENTRY A demon.
HELEN not quite the oldest, but
I make it close
go to the back of the record store, I’ll be tucked
between the vinyl & mice gumming in a row / bought
too long to remember the label, its first colour
whether I was ever covered in plastic / full
of it / my personality?
need it louder
zzzzzzzzzzzz
not quite sure where it’s sourced,
the speakers
but I need sound to grow / like me / a rabbit
until one day a snake, every day scaling
a new height up a torso, circling
a staircase with a candle, lit centuries past a decade ago
SENTRY Slut.
HELEN chandeliers crash
tsunamis roar
I need an audio engineer
passing the way / to a jackfruit as fake
as the hope for perfume, the right scent, one / laughing
at inconstancy, I’m heavy with the weight
of a mouldy afresh
death, it cradles waves away from a shoreline, syncopated
right, left, right
d e c o m p o s e
forever’s the rocks against a cliff for a crumbling,
into a hug that’ll never arrive
quieter
I know you know this story,
the one I’m telling
ropes were tightened
to a t / they
thought they knew, what it was
they were in for / money’s always got the shine
for a bigger horse though, and Palestinians know,
poison time & again / this story
fake it is forever, the perishables of a promise
from a mouth, trashed of its homeland
SENTRY Come anyway.
HELEN so they said, with fingers up asses
lined in a row
p o p
it open, the sound of sucking,
suck
SENTRY We can take this city.
HELEN so they always claim
as if with the right brand of knife
nothing’s a danger
d
trainings for school shootings, even
5 years olds know / how
to crawl under a desk, which corner to hide
but when a horse appears in the size of a house,
we think of fires / the toasty kind
not, the one where bodies are thrown into
after 1000’s / 1000’s are slaughtered
& there aren’t any more open spaces
for graves
SENTRY Sacrifices must be made, always.
HELEN only some though, get to choose what to give up
others, they’re ripped away
from the hands of those 5 year olds, nail
marks on a waist / on a neck / on a stomach
next to bruises the sizes of continents,
they usually fade after time, but the screams of a daughter
don’t / aaaaaaa / leaks of blood ooze
out of veins sliced open
for sacrifices / Iphigenia’s, her whole neck
so the fleet could move
SENTRY We all play our part.
HELEN trying, they are
to forget m e / the armpit
at the edge of their patchwork empire / grasping,
tighter
again out of pitch
sssss
Adjust it, they scream to assistants
with higher SAT scores
the most beautiful woman in the world
why for him it was me, there’s no answer to give
robots can’t consent
even if we’d like to / our bodies
as real as metal is
to Russia
PARIS Come anyway, with me.
HELEN so they said, with fingers up asses
lined in a row
p o p
it open, the sound of sucking,
suck
SENTRY We can take this city.
HELEN so they always claim
as if with the right brand of knife
nothing’s a danger
d
trainings for school shootings, even
5 years olds know / how
to crawl under a desk, which corner to hide
but when a horse appears in the size of a house,
we think of fires / the toasty kind
not, the one where bodies are thrown into
after 1000’s / 1000’s are slaughtered
& there aren’t any more open spaces
for graves
SENTRY Sacrifices must be made, always.
HELEN only some though, get to choose what to give up
others, they’re ripped away
from the hands of those 5 year olds, nail
marks on a waist / on a neck / on a stomach
next to bruises the sizes of continents,
they usually fade after time, but the screams of a daughter
don’t / aaaaaaa / leaks of blood ooze
out of veins sliced open
for sacrifices / Iphigenia’s, her whole neck
so the fleet could move
SENTRY We all play our part.
HELEN trying, they are
to forget m e / the armpit
at the edge of their patchwork empire / grasping,
tighter
again out of pitch
sssss
Adjust it, they scream to assistants
with higher SAT scores
the most beautiful woman in the world
why for him it was me, there’s no answer to give
robots can’t consent
even if we’d like to / our bodies
as real as metal is
to Russia
PARIS Come anyway, with me.
HELEN so he says, to 3 women lined up in a row
Hera / Aphrodite / Athena
is it a choice, when one option precludes
an act of violence, definitive?
crack it open, the sound
of a popcorn machine / in an abandoned parking lot
no, it could mean
I might not get to say yes
to anything / ever / again
whatever
he wants, they’ll give him
L’Oréal
anger, the underlayer
lower
a mask
for their glee at getting away with it / for so long
too high, to
take, the only response they know / a cartridge
always loaded
need to amp up the bass
closer
c
go on, go on
in slow motion, I rotate over tables
set for me to pose on
robots never get to consent, filleted
first in stories about bodies ripped apart, without the right
kind of soap to wash off / the slime-drenched coating
into the billboard charts I climb, crushing
every up-and-comer
selling different versions of the same CD
d
c
… oh, oh, oh…
PARIS Come for me.
HELEN war: I’m standing at its center
carrying a suitcase of ash / cremated
in ovens framed in barbed wire, so
echo me further / past the stream where a boy wilted into a
flower / t h e r e,
I’ll be able to look at it / my face
such as, Simone Weil challenges
us to love / what's there, the person we adore
not as we wish them to be
cruel / a blonde / not me naturally, but good enough
for those reprinting my files into digital
PARIS Come for me.
Hera / Aphrodite / Athena
is it a choice, when one option precludes
an act of violence, definitive?
crack it open, the sound
of a popcorn machine / in an abandoned parking lot
no, it could mean
I might not get to say yes
to anything / ever / again
whatever
he wants, they’ll give him
L’Oréal
anger, the underlayer
lower
a mask
for their glee at getting away with it / for so long
too high, to
take, the only response they know / a cartridge
always loaded
need to amp up the bass
closer
c
go on, go on
in slow motion, I rotate over tables
set for me to pose on
robots never get to consent, filleted
first in stories about bodies ripped apart, without the right
kind of soap to wash off / the slime-drenched coating
into the billboard charts I climb, crushing
every up-and-comer
selling different versions of the same CD
d
c
… oh, oh, oh…
PARIS Come for me.
HELEN war: I’m standing at its center
carrying a suitcase of ash / cremated
in ovens framed in barbed wire, so
echo me further / past the stream where a boy wilted into a
flower / t h e r e,
I’ll be able to look at it / my face
such as, Simone Weil challenges
us to love / what's there, the person we adore
not as we wish them to be
cruel / a blonde / not me naturally, but good enough
for those reprinting my files into digital
PARIS Come for me.
HELEN hot for a fuckboy, wet / tongues
hanging
down from rafters / overlooking pistols, they
scream
SENTRY BOOBS.
HELEN old news / cows, slaughtered
younger than boys / left to rot out
in the sun as the pitch
rises / eee / nothing’s fixed
the future, it isn’t written in Vitamin D
v
ahead of time
but trying not to kill it
on / top of it I lie
never asked if I wanted it too,
him
PARIS You know you do.
HELEN I don’t
actually, as sugar does
to salt
PARIS Just let yourself go.
HELEN a young girl, turned into an orphan
in everything but name / later
just a little later
a l e g e n d / fixed to the compass
of an imagined future
f
this is the ritual, to talk
about what happened / as if it's new
fuck, it’s been old
forever
war: I’m standing at its center
Distort please don’t go
Distort I'll never forgive you
Distort ever
Distort don’t know what I'll do if I lose you
Raw voice war: it’s the school where I studied /
clashes of metal against metal / on arid plains
sister against sister / in practice, preparing
not too many years later / sitting
across from a pair of stoic brothers / but 10 years
earlier, I was already trained
for it, an eventual abduction
r e m e m b e r / I need to explain this
how / I trained with my brothers
Castor & Pollux / Theseus
took me from a training ground
when I was 10 / thought he could get away
with it
ha
droooling / before a girl
unspooled a thread in search of his heart,
through a labyrinth
can´t read a room / stop it!
this isn’t so easy, to draw a line
from then to now
PARIS … oh, oh, oh…
HELEN stop it, droooling
thought I could fight
my way out of it / horses
they aren’t just prey animals, this
is the ritual, to talk
about what happened as if it's new
what to do, when
so much is lost / too much
taken
from me without a return
flight, unscheduled
Distort please don’t go
Raw voice turning on each other, they fought
over me / as p r e t e x t
hero to hero, sworn
brother to lover
the layers of every body / soft
on the outside & penetrable, if enough pressure’s applied
to the skin below the blood
its systems / liquid
inundating veins connecting
invisibility / swerving / into undoing a reason
don´t know
what I'll do if I lose
you / every morning as if a habit—praying
not so easy
Messing with sound as she says this— cheater
tease
never
there
slut, nope
wet
fake, a tool
shadow
a phantom statue, a reel
c r a s h
metal hitting metal / hitting
flesh under a scream, a network
of showers / for power
a wheel rasps, a wail
a leg sliced off, billow
a sail / the straight mind squeals
unlocking a carriage door
& the whinnying of horses
push past / the limit of endurance, of balances
echo
they’re all free to wander now
in the underworld, walk through corridors
recite prologues to the register of Lacanian speech
given hall passes / martyred
back home, their memory a serenity
followed up with a nice:
Distort how tragic, what a life,
taken too soon
Back to normal register—I’m here, can’t you see?
trapped
abandoned
reined in
disembodied
listen, ghosts in the scaffolding
behind a column
on a chair
SENTRY We will be done forever
at some point, with your curse on all men.
hanging
down from rafters / overlooking pistols, they
scream
SENTRY BOOBS.
HELEN old news / cows, slaughtered
younger than boys / left to rot out
in the sun as the pitch
rises / eee / nothing’s fixed
the future, it isn’t written in Vitamin D
v
ahead of time
but trying not to kill it
on / top of it I lie
never asked if I wanted it too,
him
PARIS You know you do.
HELEN I don’t
actually, as sugar does
to salt
PARIS Just let yourself go.
HELEN a young girl, turned into an orphan
in everything but name / later
just a little later
a l e g e n d / fixed to the compass
of an imagined future
f
this is the ritual, to talk
about what happened / as if it's new
fuck, it’s been old
forever
war: I’m standing at its center
Distort please don’t go
Distort I'll never forgive you
Distort ever
Distort don’t know what I'll do if I lose you
Raw voice war: it’s the school where I studied /
clashes of metal against metal / on arid plains
sister against sister / in practice, preparing
not too many years later / sitting
across from a pair of stoic brothers / but 10 years
earlier, I was already trained
for it, an eventual abduction
r e m e m b e r / I need to explain this
how / I trained with my brothers
Castor & Pollux / Theseus
took me from a training ground
when I was 10 / thought he could get away
with it
ha
droooling / before a girl
unspooled a thread in search of his heart,
through a labyrinth
can´t read a room / stop it!
this isn’t so easy, to draw a line
from then to now
PARIS … oh, oh, oh…
HELEN stop it, droooling
thought I could fight
my way out of it / horses
they aren’t just prey animals, this
is the ritual, to talk
about what happened as if it's new
what to do, when
so much is lost / too much
taken
from me without a return
flight, unscheduled
Distort please don’t go
Raw voice turning on each other, they fought
over me / as p r e t e x t
hero to hero, sworn
brother to lover
the layers of every body / soft
on the outside & penetrable, if enough pressure’s applied
to the skin below the blood
its systems / liquid
inundating veins connecting
invisibility / swerving / into undoing a reason
don´t know
what I'll do if I lose
you / every morning as if a habit—praying
not so easy
Messing with sound as she says this— cheater
tease
never
there
slut, nope
wet
fake, a tool
shadow
a phantom statue, a reel
c r a s h
metal hitting metal / hitting
flesh under a scream, a network
of showers / for power
a wheel rasps, a wail
a leg sliced off, billow
a sail / the straight mind squeals
unlocking a carriage door
& the whinnying of horses
push past / the limit of endurance, of balances
echo
they’re all free to wander now
in the underworld, walk through corridors
recite prologues to the register of Lacanian speech
given hall passes / martyred
back home, their memory a serenity
followed up with a nice:
Distort how tragic, what a life,
taken too soon
Back to normal register—I’m here, can’t you see?
trapped
abandoned
reined in
disembodied
listen, ghosts in the scaffolding
behind a column
on a chair
SENTRY We will be done forever
at some point, with your curse on all men.
HELEN this body a w e t s u i t
over my larynx
the soul chooses
the body it wants, someone
says in the distant future / for this long?
no sense for how
it’s clung on
1000s, without
a friend / a memory / a name to speak aloud
to curse with a drink after
h e l l — i n
the list on the wall grows longer
every time someone says it, with gossamer
wings, fairies descend
to paint me a shadow darker
in hell / smiles, they offer sympathy
only when experience recognises experience
otherwise, they cut sharper
than a knife, across the face of a rock
as far as the size of my hand, that’s how close it gets
~ try multiplying proximity by 2000 ~
yearsssss / the weight of carrying a death toll, as if
a flag of a coloniser or a slogan
of a corporation / so little space to adjudicate, to contest
this n a r r a t i o n
minimal
witch / villain / whore
all
minted on gold, plastered across billboards
screamed in battles by actors
type-cast / who know nothing different
300
in scripts of terrible films—
give me some of the residuals, why not?
GENERAL A witch, a vulture—she’s untrustworthy.
SOLDIER Where are we?
PARIS Who are you?
HELEN who am I?
SENTRY Am I a ghost?
HELEN no, you’re alive as I’ve never been
GENERAL You cursed us. I saw you on the ramparts. No art is beneath your power.
My children, my legions; for you the ships were burnt.
HELEN collective transcendence
offered / a few decades ago by LSD, from children
of Catholics who found nowhere to turn to
mmmmmmmmmmmm
our bodies / a repository, a conduit for potential energy
to turn kinetic
now we go, to concerts in search of the thrill of it, the high
of forgetting the reasons, for
here:
overpopulation & greed
obsession & nepotism
rage & the weather
mouths & pride
lost / lost / lost
over my larynx
the soul chooses
the body it wants, someone
says in the distant future / for this long?
no sense for how
it’s clung on
1000s, without
a friend / a memory / a name to speak aloud
to curse with a drink after
h e l l — i n
the list on the wall grows longer
every time someone says it, with gossamer
wings, fairies descend
to paint me a shadow darker
in hell / smiles, they offer sympathy
only when experience recognises experience
otherwise, they cut sharper
than a knife, across the face of a rock
as far as the size of my hand, that’s how close it gets
~ try multiplying proximity by 2000 ~
yearsssss / the weight of carrying a death toll, as if
a flag of a coloniser or a slogan
of a corporation / so little space to adjudicate, to contest
this n a r r a t i o n
minimal
witch / villain / whore
all
minted on gold, plastered across billboards
screamed in battles by actors
type-cast / who know nothing different
300
in scripts of terrible films—
give me some of the residuals, why not?
GENERAL A witch, a vulture—she’s untrustworthy.
SOLDIER Where are we?
PARIS Who are you?
HELEN who am I?
SENTRY Am I a ghost?
HELEN no, you’re alive as I’ve never been
GENERAL You cursed us. I saw you on the ramparts. No art is beneath your power.
My children, my legions; for you the ships were burnt.
HELEN collective transcendence
offered / a few decades ago by LSD, from children
of Catholics who found nowhere to turn to
mmmmmmmmmmmm
our bodies / a repository, a conduit for potential energy
to turn kinetic
now we go, to concerts in search of the thrill of it, the high
of forgetting the reasons, for
here:
overpopulation & greed
obsession & nepotism
rage & the weather
mouths & pride
lost / lost / lost
I am tired of the memory of battle
I walk the length of this porch / not long ago
a dancer in a studio, lost
faster / slower
from pillar to pillar, from
monument & around, again
to the river / here
there are iron-rings where the boats, long
ago made fast, but the Nile changes its
course / only temple lakes contain holy water
now, what was there’s faded, we lost
too long ago / when the ships swayed
here & it’s stone, built to last
until some c r a s h,
trash images on its surface will never fade, they said
as they carve into its surface / with knives
the size of an elbow
no
I walk the length of this porch / not long ago
a dancer in a studio, lost
faster / slower
from pillar to pillar, from
monument & around, again
to the river / here
there are iron-rings where the boats, long
ago made fast, but the Nile changes its
course / only temple lakes contain holy water
now, what was there’s faded, we lost
too long ago / when the ships swayed
here & it’s stone, built to last
until some c r a s h,
trash images on its surface will never fade, they said
as they carve into its surface / with knives
the size of an elbow
no
there must be
other islands to go, open
to hospitality without the crystallisation of bigotry, teach me
to build something, to take me
t h e r e
other islands to go, open
to hospitality without the crystallisation of bigotry, teach me
to build something, to take me
t h e r e
† An extract from a play-in-percolation.
Micaela Brinsley is a Tokyo-born writer, editor, and independent researcher of art and performance. Recent work can be found in Minor Literature[s], Cutt Press, Tique, Asymptote and other publications. She writes ekphrastic essays about women artists of the surrealistic and abstract periods for the journal A Women's Thing, and is the co-editor-in-chief of the arts and literary magazine, La Piccioletta Barca. Brinsley can be contacted via micaelabrinsley@gmail.com / Instagram, @mic_brinsley if you're interested in learning more about this project, After High Definition.