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Friday, July 15, 2016

Latah

I copy everyone's movements,
which is difficult in a crowd;
I become a flailing puppet.
A cafe is a better venue;
there only my hands and mouth
are always moving.
I mirror others because I have no
idea who I am or how to be.

You wave in my direction,
I wave back. 

* (see comment)

1 comment:

  1. William S. Burroughs mentions Latah several times in his 1959 novel Naked Lunch, "a parody of modern mass man under modern conditioning programmes of advertising and public[ly] induced morality", according to Eric Mottram.[5] Burroughs described Latah as involving echopraxia, as well as being forcibly induced rather than spontaneously occurring.

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