Materials: Matchsticks, brick bits, salt, ice, thumbtacks, pencil sharpenings, vellum, steer bones, pigment powder (carbon, titanium, sienna), canvas, cardboard, poplar frame, centimeter nails.

Los Angeles, California
October, 2011

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing in a hurry, so this letter won’t be very long. In your own work, you must have pressing matters to attend to, what with the economy the way it is.

I wanted to let you know my Orgone research is making steady progress. Just two months ago, I succeeded in demonstrating the biological pulsation function of the Orgone—in a purely physical manner. This means a great deal.

If I can keep generating Orgone, there could come a great and endless rush of good. Blue matter in a thousand blue springs! It flows. I believe Orgone could be an antidote to radiation, perhaps even part of a cancer treatment.

If I amass a roomful of people, 50 people best, and if we are all concentrating together, I can balance various unlikely objects on top of each other—local objects like, here, the Chinatown figurine base, these potted palms, the cut or broke table taken from along Normandie Avenue on trash day. Local objects are best for balancing.

After about 10 minutes accumulating balances, I can sometimes start to perceive a small but absolutely certain shake, a shake starting at my ankles and moving up my legs. And then, a tingling in my head and hands… the blue matter, Orgone materialized!

Once, the Orgone came as light blue crystals. I found crystals lining the inside of my briefcase and in the kitchen of the apartment next door. Once, the Orgone looked like blue yogurt!

Well, that’s all I will say for now. I’m headed back to work. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on my progress.

Sincerely,
Marcus Civin

Bending, but determined to hold this position against the world.
As if from a mouthful of plaster teeth: My foxhunt yip, my prayers, snarls.
The chalkboard will say: maimed chest, left arm gone. I will be a wood box.
Send reserves—my wish, still, to rush forward, to fight for this land.

Dimensions: A head-sized hole. It is 5’5” tall. It is fat from not eating enough. It could fit in a silverware drawer. It is a pyramid stack of eighteen tin cans. You can hold it in your hand. Or, it is a bedroom carpet leaning against the wall, rolled up and flaccid in the middle, it could fit in a purse.