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14 miles of Clichy-sous-Bois is broke exactly 10 years, over
longstanding dissimilar situations experienced by -Americans
and those under-resourced, in general, in Camden; Washington
Park; Chester, PA; Central City, New Orleans; or Joyland
young

reacting to long-term police affections that can feel similar
to a demonstration of channeling their own vulnerability
into “Nik les schmitts” scenes invoked by observers as

indicative of “new form of term: “the scum,” spread then
by Minister of Interior who had talked and talk-talked niqab,
niqab, niqab. And that was bald. And French. And there were
women in positions of and

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Indignities create sense of a life, urgency. Purpose are not
enough. Agency impact. Like, “Mamma, I’m a homosexual.”
Environments might have a tiny subsection of the population
exploiting both a belief system and the ostensibly justifiable
outrage of others, giving invisible person a tangible sense

and false demigod. Crusoe cast his island impoverished
companionship and ease of monarch. Though isolation poverty
born of those conditions cannot be ascribed
to religious identity. Amery elaborates oneself as exceptional,

Mind’s Limits: and Realities, where his use of word is quite
proximal to our current experience of “total sovereignty
transformed into flesh brought to the edge of the border
of nothingness without having to lose…entirely.

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Yet also there is: use value and the laboring body. Along with
the free place and the stash, Asylum also defines the “make-
do”: “us[ing] available artifacts in manner and for end not
officially intended” (A, 207).39 As when knife is “hammered

from spoon,” or “hospital-issue khaki pants…cut and tailored.
. . into neat summer shorts” (A, 207, 209). Given that
“[t]he personal possessions of an individual are an important
part of the materials out of which” self is built repurpose

an object can be potent. Self-fashioning (A, 78). Ellison makes
own version of “Harlem is Nowhere” taxonomizing the props
and “exotic costumes” of urban “masquerade,” suggest that
“boy gangsters” fabricate “homemade pistols” not only
to “shoot down their young rivals,” but also fashion
themselves anew.
Some many search for “freedom place,” or zone of diminished

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“surveillance and restriction,” to experience “relaxation
and self-determination.” Others turn to scavenging, hoarding.
“Ma[k]e the rounds of refuse dumps” with goal: finding “food,
magazines, newspapers, other oddments” (A, 213). Such items
are “stashed” or placed in “personal storage space concealed
and/or locked” (A, 249). The stash may seem a meager
collection of treats and bric-a-brac, but represents nothing less
than “repository of selfhood” for one denied other modes
of self-expression.

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Pistols for these boys and girls, ‘a toy yearning for manhood,’
purpose here or abroad, materialize aspiration slough off “folk
personality.” Object making as self-fashioning under social
conditions that restrict agency. Both political claim, these
conditions should be seen significant, but not omnipotent.

Perhaps these daughters and sons of nation states believe
that we free citizens open democracies. Actually: Certainly we
influence actions. Must believe that regardless of our potential
for legitimate aspects of we

perceived to be a part of the people gouged for decades. But of
course civilians expect to pay for actions plays it fast and loose
with target shields calling in what is perceived to be a
delinquent debt—Paris, wounded, still healable, could perhaps
not have deserved his unhealed fate absolutely?

***

This is an excerpt from Adam’s Day new poetry sequence, Midnight’s Talking Lion and the Wedding Fire.