I don’t know much about architecture, but life poured concrete into my poem room. Thank you Joe Young for helping me peel the walls off. This piece was loosely about parking garages—their structure and function. I was surprised to discover in thinking about them that they are actually everything.
Start small,
like with plaster guys.
Form follows.
—
parking garage walks into a bar
bartender says, you are not taking into account my human experience
what’ll you have
parking garage says, dampness
and, sometimes I melt into fog
it’s brutal
—
brutalism, envy, and firmness walk into a garage
a parking garage, whether
it is distinguishable from other buildings
its architecture
is its architecture distinguishable
without form to follow
other buildings
this is unknown
is this the nature of it—
of brutality, and weather
you have to go all the way up to the roof
do you have to start with the roof
what about when the parking garage becomes
metaphor, what about when
the roof melts into fog
would the kids still reject it having not seen
its façade
—
– of the body
– of the mind
– of a structure/house
– of language/poem?
– of Helsinki
– of government
– of Aggression
– of teaching
– of happiness
– figurative is apparently a type
—
after hours a form on the mezzanine
becomes grainy and indecipherable
cats know this
dampness
equally, they pretend, and pacify, and
fawn, and
get hungry
how does a person cope with vastness and
indecipherability—do they just go back home or
just walk back to the car and maybe
kneel or no—what is meant by having
lost in the middle of the night
mothers don’t feel real, and
neither does a cheeseburger
or some other
participle (which is existence)
quiet, all quiet, usurped by
running water usurped by the dark
scenes recede to slurry gray and then it’s
time to take the shuttle
(usurped by the space inside a space, a mundanity)
violet afterimage betrays spaces on spaces
where does a person become soluble, like a pet,
xanthic, like a flower,
yellow after yellow after yellow after yellow, after wet,
zillionaires don’t need to remember their level
—
“Firmitas, utilitas, venustas.” In fact it ticks all three. It is generous. Is it humble? It is not austere. A parking garage has no more perfect proportions than any human body. Is it a cathedral? A square is a rectangle; my man is a cardinal. The parking garage itself does not take your money, your arm outstretched, Vitruvian. Then there are the acoustics! Which was your level—an oriole? My man, from his navel, is a science, a triad, arising, and figurative. Consider the optics of this—you could do that thing with your key fob, sure, but what about the birds? The optics of suggesting and extending, as if a body is the universe. I’m begging you.
—
Let me explain. I was trying to explain. You have to go up first before you can come down; there’s just no way around it. Get it? You have to start with the roof. The gift shop. I was on stage, with my Man and my mother, covered in every pink thing I could find, singing that song by The Band. I am trying to explain to you the beauty of this design–that if the whole thing collapsed flat, it would be perfect. You could just pull it right back up to standing; it’s a trick. A safe trick. Is it safe? It’s like an accordion, but it is a lantern. Can we come down? We are standing on the stairs, under so many blankets, and start to sway: “Put the load, put the load right on me.”
—
Zuckerbergs of antiquity, let me see
your stale crusts (rattling around like
xenophobic frat boys at 2:30am), the box
where you have stashed your patents,
vinyl from some sick dig, and your
“u up?” before dawn–go up before you go downtown
tired and having tried some type of speed
(structurally like a dove, but on a whole other level)
“rediscovered” something dove-like, evoking dove,
quiet clucks and coos by the window, two on the rocks,
peaceful morning to be covered in every pink thing
oh, darling architecture, turning coral
nevermind how you treat her; you learn
Mandarin and get married in the yard
lo, regular people, and
kiss her, embarrassed, and lose your treatise
just when I think
I have no idea what this poem is about
he appears, and centuries collapse
garages collapse
façades collapse and crumble
eateries and auditoriums and water parks and
dive bars embed into the book and then–
collapse
box of crusts, and doves, and dynasty; a valley; a crush injury
aqueducts for gardens, extravagant, with only gravity
—
- Aqua Appia (unsophisticated/buried)
- Aqua Anio Vetus (raised)
- Aqua Marcia (wholesome)
- Aqua Julia (confusing)
- Aqua Virgo (does not chalk significantly)
- Aqua Claudia (one of the four greats)
- Aqua Traiana (collection of sources)
- Many are described as having fallen into disuse
—
there is an idea to paint rowhomes the exact color
of a certain time of day, so that they
can disappear very briefly with everyone inside
it would never work, and this is why I am a failure
I fail at architecture, and at failing
all those years requiring scaffolding and people
to clean the windows (like actually sitting inside of the frame
and leaning out into nothing with a bottle of Windex and a rag),
awaiting condemnation,
and now I am a house inside a house, like an apartment
palette neutral (quiet, surprised)
sitting inside the frame and disappearing
very briefly
—
What did one stone mason say to another stone mason when he felt underappreciated? “Don’t take me for granite!”
What kind of acrobat reads files and is also made of mud? Adobe.
What do you get when you cross durability, utility, and beauty?
—
Go big: Scientology.
Episodic, validated,
Lots and lots of cars
—
Lauren Bender lives proudly in Baltimore and was the erstwhile author of Whale Box (Publishing Genius Press) and co-editor for Narrow House, a publisher of interdisciplinary writing and recordings. Otherwise Lauren is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst working with children with autism, is an identical twin, and enjoys running around aimlessly in the woods.
