two poems



To call up an object, one must learn its name 


    
To name things is to ------------------------------------------------------------------------------predict a future
To name things is to ----------------------------------------------------------------------put forth a resignation 
To name things is to -------------------------------------------------------------------------------start an ending
To name things is to ---------------------------------------------------------------know it won’t be contained  
To name things is to ---------------------------------------------------------------be aware of breaking hearts  
To name things is to --------------------------------------------fidget an object with someone else's tongue
To name things is to ---------------------------------------------------------------------run around with a map
To name things is to ----------------------------------------------------------------------------manifest a failure 

Then, 
For you,  

        I (shall) forget my names, my fate,1 my countries, my lies, my bookshelves, 
        Primal! as I told you. 


catalogue of unfoundable objects 
catalogue of missing foundations  
catalogue of misplaced equations  
Once again, everyone was against epic poems but  we all do monologues when we feel like 
the mouths need a little something         Like the time you told me 3 stories and I memorised 2 of 3 (unfortunately) 
         I wrote the best chapter of my thesis via my everyday bike rides & you said you were jealous        
of something, I forgot-  
Now that I cycle with more attentiveness (a physical hence mental relocation), I wrote less: I        still          talk to you a lot, like too much   : A long poem, as he had encouraged everyone to give it 
a try 
          I can go on n on on on on n on on n on n on about my feverish thoughts but, as always, by the 
end          of the ride, I wake up with sweats (forehead and neck) and don’t have time to scribble down 
anything but maybe text you a little 
         But I delete them. (But what about my Microsoft Word of the letter? Well, we shan’t let Time  
Machine get into it.) I have a ton of people in my phone without saved names: I do forget   their names, 
but, oh well… my number isn’t mine, why would it be mine? It’s not mine. Only me is mine. 
         I borrowed it, and I shall return it, and return, and return, someday somewhere sometime. 
         And you have power, but you insisted that I do- I dont! Why would  
         you/I? 

                                                                The Battle of Semantics  


Le fleuve des conversations passionnées, 
i.e. we go into oceans.2 

         And before returning to oceans, I am committed to forgetting to type and print in A4 sizes.  



    
    
1 Singular. Let’s come back to this, at some point.  

2 (Finally, leaving the bloody mid-west, I shall say. I shall! I shall!) I would have told you that I should be in Scotland this Autumn; I stayed, met you, then you, and now I am living again, breathing between kisses.
    


(o)bituary: Unnamed 


    
    If        O is dead,
Oh, shall not be recalled. 

O was perfectly vertical, and  
after its horizontal  


                                     leap 

Oh, then only l-i-v-i-e-r lives on. 



Someone else livelier than O was. 
Less circular, less ambiguous,
less naught, less undecipherable


Oh, but then O is dead;                        horizontal. 

Orderless:         rearranged

              the o-l-i-v-i-e-r

                                                        l  (i)  v  (i)  e  r 




1 A carcass they came across. Some sort of gender I shall never embodied (again). I felt the desire to want to come clean to you: I am an imitation slug who desires to become a snail. Bury me with your sluggish snail-body. 



  

olivier is a research-based artist+writer and archives worker. They speak Cantonese at home with their demonic cat. Their practice is rooted in the ephemerality and the anarchival in queer and trans theory, and ufology. They toy with poetics and semiotics, caress languaging and linguistics, draw with speculative projects, artists’ books, videos, performative lectures, happenings, surveys… and lead a secret mail art practice. olivier holds an MA in Visual and Critical Studies. Born and raised in British-Hong Kong, they are now temporarily floating in the rivers of Chicago after some adventures in the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. For the past decade, their time-machine has been stuck in this dimension. So it goes. www.xoliiviierx.com.