Codex Atlanticus
To transform the body to a flying machine hollow the thorax
and add lime to laundry bluing. Make a straight jacket of burlap bags
around the shoulders. Tighten the curry combs and wax attachments
to umbrella joints. Hold the rib cage of orange crates in place
with a belt train. No gear, yet, for steering the high unstable launch,
the platform run on whim and wound clothesline, rolling by the curvature
of earth. Of course, in the design phase, the draw-bridge impediments
of space are counted as spokes of free fall. We would want an exploded view
of the figure in its starched newspaper statics laid laterally with stolen reels
of motion from the Drive-In.
But the statics and resistance — cast off sheets, canisters
of galvanized buckets, the rake handles and off days
with details scratched below the loading dock —
blot the delicate ballistic studies with their scalpel of breathing units.
When the top string wound within the entrails is reeled in,
an updraft is coaxed from a slammed encyclopedia,
lift imprints through the layers of wish fulfillment
by pedals abridged to a washer drum.