Worldmakers Close In!

Borders are like burials. They enclose the land and the people and the more-than-human beings who inhabit it. Borders inhume possibility by limiting interactions between complex ecologies, disregarding the ever-changing dreams of the commons and disrupting the “movements and migrations” of bodies in transit.1 But even as enclosures, borders (and burials) produce contingencies that environmental agents and factors can neither entirely foresee nor control. Barbed wire rusts. Vultures move into US Customs and Border Protection radio towers.2

Now, more than ever, our stratagems must go beyond borders that are burials: from the Rio Grande, the mountain ranges of the Caribbean, and the Great Plains to Africa, Central Europe, and East Asia. We dream of relentless forms of resistance that are anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and anti-patriarchal in their worldmaking. Our propaganda spreads like spores powered by the wind and the sound of the future.

Recent student protests against genocide in Gaza are a revolutionary sign. An encampment within a university can spontaneously and autonomously erupt from the most monolithic structures of power, the same as a newly-planted olive tree burgeoning from occupied territory. As we write, ghosts are returning from the dead, prisoners are planning their jailbreak, and migrants are arriving on the other side of a tunnel. Against necropolitical governance, the poiesis of enclosure reminds us of the Mexican proverb: “Quisieron enterrarnos, pero no sabían que éramos semilla.”3

In response to the hypocrisy of institutions and individuals who remain silent before the genocide of Palestinians and the destruction of their land, our process of worldmaking is a clandestine language for coming together in enclosure. We know that it doesn’t matter how naïve or neutral a project appears to be; it either resists, consolidates, or maintains the status quo. You are either for or against hegemonic powers.4

We are a pedagogical propagandist, a liberation builder, a post-colonial poet, a bio-technological hacker, a feminist filmmaker, an iconoclastic sculptor, a kinship kindergartner, a kynical lector, and a migrant ghostwriter who have abandoned our studios to meet on an underwater island, where stories become poetry, inventing unruly pedagogies for Loudreading our resistance.

Here, we are building a Loudreading machine that can pierce through the most hermetic architectures. Now is not the time to be lonely nor to leave others alone. Mahmoud Darwish’s words are erupting from the Narrative Underground:

The Earth Is Closing on Us

The Earth is closing on us, pushing us through the last passage, and we tear off our limbs topass through.
The Earth is squeezing us. I wish we were its wheat so we could die and live again. I wish theEarth was our mother
So she’d be kind to us. I wish we were pictures on the rocks for our dreams to carry
As mirrors. We saw the faces of those to be killed by the last of us in the last defense of thesoul.
We cried over their children’s feast. We saw the faces of those, who will throw our children
Out of the windows of this last space. Our star will hang up mirrors.
Where should we go after the last frontiers? Where should the birds fly after the last sky?
Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air? We will write our names withscarlet steam.
We will cut off the hand of the song to be finished by our flesh.
We will die here, here in the last passage. Here and here our blood will plant its olive tree.5

Like a conch shell emitting the ocean from its most inner spiral, Loudreading imagines other worlds. Our bodies say “Palestine,” producing the sound needed to propagate the tools and materials to create out of enclosure. We Loudread to each other our resurrection, our insurrection, avoiding desertion in the time of crisis. By reciting poetry like that of Darwish, we produce new possibilities for resistance and find words to stand by at the last passage. Loudreading is the surge of our voice breaking through silence.

How far can our voice travel?

Does my voice sound unworldly to you?

How far can our voice travel?

Does it reach the last frontier?

A blueprint of a Loudreading machine. All collages by Post-Novis.

#FIRST SEED (REFUSAL)

The Earth is closing on us,
pushing us through the last passage,
and we refuse to tear off our limbs to pass through.

Pity those who have assumed her as our enemy,
those who have accepted to pay with our blood,
the toll for the last passage.

Because Earth, as she closes on us, remembers.
We will not die here, not here, squeezed,
killing each other, gasping for air.

We have heard the songs of dancing galaxies.
We know of a tenderness that was here before,
that made us, that will outlast us.

#SECOND SEED (MEETING)

the Earth is closing on us,
the border we’re reaching is borne by companionship, translation mourns an endless tunnel,haunted by ambiguity, will you be there from
the beginning?
we’re writing on the wind now. out of order, at an antipode. winter’s passing (gauze)
and Earth’s noisy crust is flattening. words dwell without a casket
tattooed like a bird, on our skin

the face of experience is bringing you here with me now, our campus is our memory and alive now

we, me, you, us—are without socks! now. I “is you” in another language now! it’s raining in NYC now and will
rain tomorrow. put some earth on me in the name of us now,
guard our irreducibility, taking us to the last passage. the spiral is not law but metric, open
to the diagram, a flower
there are people in the streets now

#THIRD SEED (CASTING CIRCLES)

“The Earth is closing in on us. New circles must be cast,” speaks a woman, marking a circle against a wall.6

The room is lit.

Fire flickers on linked hands of the women who’ve gathered in this sacred circle.

The woman returns to the group. Three others follow her actions, creating new markings.

The ritual continues. The markings on the wall move in

directions
shapes
spirals
lines
poetry

A larger fire is lit.

The second part of the ritual begins.

Each woman has a turn
reflecting
sharing
pausing in silence

looking at her fellows, her partners.

They close—always—chanting.

We call on us. By the air of our breath, be here now.

By the air of our breath, be here now.
By the waters of our living wombs, send our flow.
By the earth that is her body, send our strength.
By the power of fire that is our spirit, send our flame.
We call on us, be here now!7

The circle is cast.

New spaces of entry require a new entry of time. May a greater circle based on love be cast, a circle refusing to be possessed, conquered, or alienated by a linear, measured-out, colonial, patriarchal system of quantitative time.8

This love we have is what makes us stronger. Its collective energy makes us impossible to stop.

#FOURTH SEED (REMEMBRANCE)

The Earth is closing on us
Forcing us out of the comfort of our realities
Now fading into distant memories
Yet they remain our guiding lights
Into new territories
We search for impressions of hope
That compel us to push forward
Following paths paved by those before us
Faded transformed yet never forgotten
In solitude or company
Forging trails for those who follow
Pressing on through passages uncovered
Forming new and emboldened patterns
Emulating familiar places we inherit
Building upon lands we come to inhabit
In search of lasting refuge
In safety, resonance, and determination
Beneath an endless
Sky

#FIFTH SEED (BUILDER MAMMY)

The Earth is closing on us
Not in fear I will build
Left, right; up, down; tie around, tie below
I’m up in the sky, with thatch, with mud, with stones
I dream up to tie down
I’m floating up with mud caked on my feet
I feel breeze, I hear songs
Synchronized chants unifying hands
Mud, hand, up the sticks, push hard, don’t slice the hand
Mud, hand, between stones

Left, right; up, down; tie around, tie below
Not my land, I must move
Foundations of stone remain
While the magic walls I must carry to far land
I say magic to make them smile
Making these walls appear on sight
Building our home, once again
Spells of wood, stones, earth, water, songs, dance, rum

Left, right; up, down; tie around, tie below
A road in between two worlds
We look left passing space, my right ear with whispers of truth
See me, touch me, stop, come in
Hear my stories, they are yours too

I dream, I build, I live
In my womb, with my hands, with my feet, with my eyes
Left, right; up, down; tie around, tie below

#SIXTH SEED (LISTENING)

The Earth is closing on us
And yet we share the same open wounds
If time is a loop we are here
again
Though I am now holding you in my arms

As I tighten my grip I hear our voices joining the ones of the Land
The ones of the Land joining the ones of the ones who were
The ones of the ones who were joining the ones of the ones who will be

Your heartbeat makes me stronger
she said
But your humanity makes me weaker

It’s not you
she said
It’s always them

And as we cry over and over again
The Earth is wet under our feet

Are our tears it?
Are our tears what is left after they have exhausted our poems?
Does the Earth cry too?

All I can hear is the silence
And us standing here
now

#SEVENTH SEED (MULTIPLICATION)

The Earth is closing on us, in this stage
as we Loudread to the wind
under the crushing sound
of machines
outlining blueprints of radical institutions
and worldmaking, as ourselves
collectively

When we met for the first time
Each of us was several,
So we were already quite a crowd
Dispersed in the furnitures designed,
The posters plastered and the newspapers distributed
In the cornfields, en el mangle
And the swamps, and the ruins of the tobacco factories
That are memories of anarchists and communists and feminists
Always antiracist and anticolonial
Whether in person or online,
Whispering and screaming, and listening to the cliquetis
Dreaming of borderlessness, sin fronteras and rid of fascists
And their lies and occupations
That operate in the curricula, and the law
In the land and the body
In the islands and archipelagos
In the mountain range and the valleys
I recognize ourselves, shifting images and trading slogans
Multiplying beyond recognition but always present in
the fictions and poems
and films and walls
and sculptures and codes
and screenplays and customs
and masks and books
and pedagogies and evolving languages
In the hidden, not-so-hidden messages
That become slogans
For our collective liberation
as we retell history
in each
of
your
wor(l)ds

#EIGHTH SEED (TRANSMISSION)

The Earth is closing on us
Now is the time
When the burial must become an unearthing
We till the soil
Add air, light
We plant seeds in the hope that they will rise up
That we will learn from our past to become better ancestors

Silt under fingernails. We agitate the surfaces
Children’s games played in rubble
They play to test out new possibilities
They play to try to make sense of what they have experienced
They play to understand power, fairness, and reciprocity
They run lines for new possibilities

The Earth is closing on us
The day is done
New possibilities metabolized. Tonight we rest
(…)

A prototype of a Loudreading machine built on an underwater island.

THE LOUDREADING MACHINE STOPS, OVERHEATING FROM USE. THE WORLDMAKERS OPEN ITS INTERIOR AND PLUG DIRECTLY INTO IT.

THERE IS INTERFERENCE. THEN SYNCHRONICITY. THEN INTERFERENCE. THE EARTH OPENS TO THE OCEAN’S DARK DEPTHS. THE UNDERWATER ISLAND FLOATS TO THE SURFACE.

#NINTH SEED (DIRECT THREAT)

To the encryption of my thoughts, my attributes, <p = align=”left”>this is my error?!</p>. It passes through my walls. Now, so easy. It looks better with the holes. You look better with the… scars. They’re tough, you’re protected. Like a passcode. It’s just that, once they’re inside, you’re exposed, compromised. I’m sorry.

Encryption complicates things. It’s easy if you know their trajectory. When you don’t, it bounces off, passes through you. It’s not so easy. I think I am password protected. If I’m not now, I will be after they tear down my walls. It’s their trajectory.

My resolution isn’t great. I can’t seem to organize my structural elements. But I’m cascading, I’m introducing new features. These are strategies for encryption. Something they can’t break, one property at a time.

There’s distance in the mirrors, depth. It’s reflective, complex. I find myself in the data, a special character. I’m weak, yet cascading. I will use a passphrase. Thank you for your support. You’re right, my exterior is damaged. I’m rejecting finality.