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Your Bones Do Not Matter

Generated by a neural network trained on Charles Bernstein’s writing. A project by Charles Bernstein and Davide Balula. Read by Charles Bernstein’s synthetic voice.

I want to be on a boat near New York City –– not in an airplane, not on a train, not a subway, not in a bus, not a limousine, not in a white picket fence, not a minivan, not on a sidewalk.

I want to be in an empty lot with temperatures dropping to 10 below zero. No one around to hear my screams or see what I’m doing. I want to be in a secluded place with the fog in the sky rising like a sack of potatoes, and then on a truck, and then in Staten Island, with a cooler of beer, a jar of grapes, and my camera.

I’m not trying to create a controversy but to dwell in it.

That’s why I want to write poems. To be found in them.

(c) 2022 Charles Bernstein, Davide Balula