act 1 scene 1 black box recorder this archivist is tired Elizabeth don't touch the paper interstitial play looking at the guilty the cosmo-magical basis of the ancient Chinese city pinhole camera

7. the cosmo-magical basis
of the ancient Chinese city

Shang dynasty               records on an oracle bone
in the shadow                                    of the gnomon
walls rise
                                                         quarter the grid

a central palace                             imperial archive
like this pen
                                         a gnomon on white space
traces it leaves                                     ink shadows

where light won't fall
                                            Lucifer from my mouth
                                                             pouring down
enclosing land with edges.

In the astrobiological                            (Berthelot)
mode of thought
                           irregularities in the cosmic order
could only be interpreted as misfortunes.

An Asian bondage                                    skin trade
locked within the network
                                                          ropes and walls
cyborg constructions               of the fourfold city.

It became necessary to maintain
                                                          this parallelism
                                             between macrocosmos
and microcosmos              geomantic precautions.

The tortoise-shell oracle
                                                    decided the matter
of cardinal orientation                                 axiality
see Wheatley                                            The Pivot

of the Four Quarters.
                                                           Paper lanterns
light words on a plane                subdued in a cage
of cardinal points.