Box

Tan Lin

SECTION: HALF EMPTY

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: various sections

BUSINESS FOLDER. “Leather-look” vinyl with metal corners. 
Comprising two document pockets. A $ pad and pen. Size 12 1/2″ 
x 9 3/4″. Fully Guaranteed 1 yr. —Georges Perec, Life: A User’s
Manual.

The white in Mondrian’s paintings seems space, the bars objects. 
The white, if regarded as a fine texture, can seem a surface. 
This double function is obviously ambiguous, and is naturalistic. 
Small elements and even large ones on an indefinite ground always 
seem like objects in space, things in the world. They are points in 
space and the space is an empty surround. —Donald Judd,
Complete Writings 1975–1986.

An idea I thought about 
Became the things I do. —John Ashbery, “Five Pedantic Pieces.”

A SHEET OF BROWN PAPER OF ARBITRARY WIDTH 
AND LENGTH OF TWICE THAT WIDTH WITH A 
REMOVAL OF THE SAME PROPORTIONS GLUED TO 
THE FLOOR. —Lawrence Weiner, WORKS.

Nota:   number refer to discrete sheets
sheets are numerical, housed in three volumetrically equal boxes 

boxes can contain an unequal number of sheets, depending on the 
number of readers 
individual items are labelled for re-installation 

all items not contained in boxes are to be discarded after a 
reasonable amount of time 
each number focusses an entry and should be starred by the reader 

all internal references to colors are to be relabeled in a timely manner 
no outside works are irrelevant to re-making or re-writing the text 

from a vantage point inside the work, multiple points of entry may be 
construed 
items in contiguity are considered apart 

nothing is proximate 
everything is exactly alike 

whatever is described herein does not accompany the final text 
a number of stairwells, fire doors, etc. etc. have been indicated in the 
text 

insufficient range can be remedied with the addition of further text 
placement of rope, thread, staples, glue and other attachments are 
not expressly dictated 

you or someone are alone in the room 
there is a box enclosed by a floor 

the stairwell is behind you 
the glass of water is near the rug 

numerous blank spaces are indicated 
instructions are entered 

a ball is thrown unlike 
a window is found alike 

code: 
butterfly: 

I mentioned: I was confined in a single space 
I did perform: I listened to whatever was requested 

the heat has come on 
somewhere, it has begun to snow 

in Vermont. Sentences are to be repeated 
the heat has come one, the years come and go 

somewhere, it begins to rain, somewhere 
it begins to be boring 

If it is February, I wrote you a love letter 
If it is February, you are listening at the door where snow is falling 

gently into your blue hair, and the rosebuds I picked in early April 
are pouring generously into the clothesline 

Yes, it is like that 
No, it is not like that 

Chinese chair 
Thing of winter, thing of recovery, thing of motion attached 

To a clapboard, to a former president 
to a buried rest, to a metallic bust 

There is more tenderness, more in the box 
I open it up and try to recover 

The football is tossed and bobbled 
She sews these notions in half 

When it ends, the squares of recovery are even 
The hand is touched with half a mint 

The garden in winter what is it? 
The planted santolina and thyme by the fountain what are they? 

What is the bliss and the never native? 
All along and tall 

Wednesday, and a collection, foams backwards 
Tuesday, and the bedtime goes, chewing the sun like a peanut 

The box is filled with O’s, then 
ringlets, perfume 

Everything mounts the lover backwards 
The box in the bread and the glass in the face. The recovery is in 
pearls 

The timezone and the clouds 
overhang will power 

I paint the time backwards, but it is useless 
I take out the colors from everything, but it was useless 

Nothing is black and nothing was even 
Nothing is white and nothing is even 

The shoes begin but did not 
The aches are apparent to those who have 

Worlds upon worlds, sequins upon sequins 
in the restaurant outside there is a Chinese waiter 

I asked for a glass of water 
I could not breathe 

Nothing is punished for this 
Nothing is gained by this counterweight 

One the sofa, the casettes and the music 
and 

* * *

Stars of fennel combine, lead track with fluster and ditches 
The foreign battery and willows, down draft and circle of doors 

X of pleats, X concrete runners 
In adoration, this y for my clothing 

The plan for restoration of service, a kitchen in monochromatics 
I voyage into the dome, the colors blacken and decline 

Whatever alters one half, a horse without visible color 
Whatever reasons with numerals, a zone without moods 

I hallucinated a compass, the lock pieces harbor an outlook of 
indiscretion 
In porcelain, the heart aborts from its hearing 

Doors that were there, again and again 
The windows I landed, useless and rushed 

I have a name, it sleeps against skin 
None of this touches sensation or highlights, removes dust from 
the carpet 

You and mine, wind chimes go rubber with cordouroy 
You and they, pajamas linens and terrier 

What are chairs they billow like hands at your side 
An e, two sides of a lake = calendar 

The siamese brush rises like smoke on its tissue of sex 
I formally undo the tender hues of the bra 

The frame is useless to spell, unresolved as a playground 
The blend rises uselessly to leash its orbital daschund 

Splendid, the flower attachment had the face of a man in a woman 
The mouth glued in the plywood cabinets, the eye blinking back at 

formica and sigh. The hands fly white as mine. The nails protrude 
A pin prick of blood forms on the lip, no smaller than what I think
must be a needle 

Of racing greyhounds and the sounds of mustard 
And erasing 

Where I lie down 
There is an elbow 

Everything is level 
The flower and the face of a lover flower 

The flower has not enough hands to touch me, the hands of the flower 
Are too delicate to rub off my clothes with the blunt edges of petals 

It takes seven more years 
To take off my shirt. When I wake 

This is remembered upside down 
The skin performs the color of sand 

Where is this summer 
The limelight docile in the gauges aspire 

Where is this summer 
The limelight docile in the gauges expire 

Corruptible coinage, bedstand wavers 
Sobbies 

Venus or Mars Clandestine 
Distant door harp. Far flung suntan 

The jamb of planets scolds these figurines 
For a kiss to the outermost lobbies of Poe 

I was so slow I taped my love to you like doughnuts 
I was so slow I called you itchless in the portrait of my hurries 

So long is a word of mystical aching 
Going out is a bong of vegetal update 

Let me begin 
You do not always know what I am 

Stars at morning one things of April half receding 
Moons at evenings one thinks of Turquoise dishes from the 
farthest counter 

of soup knitted 
oblivion clockwise 

Nature usually mine 
The city alive in thousands of paintings 

Frick and Met 
Byzantine Mosaics 

Meanwhile, like a dish of solid alabaster 
Two peacocks strum through the garden at the Cathedral of Saint 
John’s 

To be unaware of numerous losses, someone is standing upstairs 
To be unaware of you, the flickering postcards at the museum 

Fuzz something lovelier. I am half lazy from seeing you 
And you are not resting something 

Like a book of matches 
On the kitchen counter. When I am alone 

A second day appears 
To stand 

At a window 
The smudges of prediciton 

I am not finally realized by this recognition later 
I feel the sometimes go 

I feel like this sometimes go 
With the box and its absence of pleasure or pain 

So I lie: nothing is precious, a street filled with March 
So I tell the truth: Nothing combined me to take off my clothes 

And weep for a mouth I made 
And deep for a south I laid with you 

This, the form I take 
The vegatative buildings and all the lakes of margarine fool 
goodbye to the soul 

A form taken by custard colored boats across a bandstand of 
watery pistols 
I tangoed with a blade of minute hands, Persia held a sprig of 
thyme between my teeth 

The Byzantine horses sleep for hundreds of years before their love 
matures 
Or a hero makes them hungry for a pizza 

Each of us has a different reason, those incoherent, pestered with 
daylight 
Petered out for sleeping beside a glass of water in a motel room at 
6 with the 

Tablets just starting to come in 
The curtains beefy with fever the fever heavy with beer 

I could be married this year 
Like the frame of painting, or the painting of a farm in Zanesville Ohio 

I could not go so far (until) 
A wish is sent into this newsprint 

This is a box and the ardor of poses 
Are you a movie or kite 

I know whatever is abstract (variant) 
The worldly breasts worn smooth from kissing 

On Monday I wrote a poem. This was its nature 
It repeats the day that it was: to be called an apparition 

Of pollution. It had an earthly section 
I recycled it (I), It spoke a title to you: