on the verge of not doing so
The clock is disconnected by a cable
where the tripod lies, has yet to
go in but disappears to be
on the verge of not doing so
sporadic defunct window
for the facility,
it’s nobody’s definite answer
(but)
if we had front-to-front races
and everybody’s car broke off
we could maybe pull on six
to eight hours
of superfluid racing
superfluid racing is a
deceleration race
where collaborators collaborate perpendicular
a 4-mile occurrence where people, operating within
the expectations of
dominant gender norms,
are keeping their clothes on
————–
Source Material:
Friedman, Sam. “Fairbanks Borough assembly to hear drag strip permit appeal tonight.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 22 April 2014. Web. 22 April 2014.
Mowry, Tim. “Nenana Ice Classic clock is ticking.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 22 April 2014. Web. 22 April 2014.
Prompt:
Antonymy. Replace things with their opposites. Why reinvent the wheel? Here’s the prompt from the Oulipost site: In Oulipian usage, antonymy means the replacement of a designated element by its opposite. Each word is replaced by its opposite, when one exists (black/white) or by an alternative suggesting antonymy (a/the, and/or, glass/wood. I took some liberties with the form here but they were all in the spirit of the form.
Since the process of this Oulipost is by far the best part, here’s an example of some of the passages in original form:
* “The clock is connected by a cable”
* “Where the tripod stands, has yet to go out but appears to be on the verge of doing so”
* “Daily operating window”
* “It’s anybody’s guess”
* “If we had back-to-back races and nobody’s cars broke down, we could maybe pull off six to eight hours of drag racing.” (I had way too much fun contemplating ‘drag’ as a scientific property indicating high viscosity and finding the exact opposite of something which had high viscosity. I also had a lot of fun with phrasal verbs here.) And I know, off is not the opposite of down, but if something breaks off, it could definitely go up before it went down. …You know?
* “Drag racing is an accelleration race where competitors compete along a single straightaway”
* “a quarter-mile drag strip.” (Oh, the other definition of drag! You are like gold to me in experimental poetry ventures!) I also enjoyed thinking of the opposite of 1/4 being 4/1.
I’m into process over product on this one all the way.
custom interior 