Submission

n.

1. Euphemistically, a “procurer” or agent employed exclusively for the currying of goodwill and / or renumeration. Said agent is only awarded the status of a submission should he or (infrequently) she be successful at his or her task, appellation thus being retrospective and never a matter of direct address. I.e., the submission is never addresses as such, nor does he or she recognize him- or herself as a submission while serving in that role. Submissions are key figures in both national superstition and folklore, and stories of submissions who fail to suppress their self-consciousness in the execution of their duties have had a profound influence on our moral literature. Because “submission,” strictly speaking, has no stable denotative—much less literal—meaning, and it may be argued that, by virtue of it currency being entirely reliant upon the specific and ephemeral circumstances of its each usage, the word is demotic proof of the theorem broached by Wittgenstein’s in Remark 258 of the Philosophical Investigations.
[No example, as in, available.]
adj.
1. Not unwanted, but unenjoyed. Applied to the direct object of transitive verb phrases to imply that the thing was shed like persona, but willingly and without the threat of exposure or face-lessness.
As in, “I threw the chasm my submission wrist.”
As in, “I gave my heart the submission pills, and went dancing.”
As in, “Submission pity, or.” (Common agrammatical fragment).
v.
1. To perform an act with due awareness to the honorific context of said act. The use of this word over the similar “submit” indicates the desire to express particular awareness of social rank. As in, “I duly submission my timecard.”

Joe Milazzo is the author of the novel Crepuscule W/ Nellie, two volumes of poetry — The Habiliments and Of All Places In This Place Of All Places — and several chapbooks (most recently, @p_roblem_s). His writings have appeared in Black Clock, Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Prelude, Tammy, Texas Review and elsewhere. He is an Associate Editor for Southwest Review and the Founder/Editor-In-Chief of Surveyor Books. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, and his virtual location is http://www.joe-milazzo.com. Here in these definitions in danger are what these words now mean, or might mean, or must mean if they wish to escape the new world incommensurate with the perceptions they’re accustomed to inhabiting.

Eric Lindley is a musician, writer, and artist living in the bay area. His writing has appeared in Fence, Joyland, Tammy, and elsewhere, and other work at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Machine Project, Telic Arts Exchange, The Knitting Factory, and The Smell. With Janice Lee and Joe Milazzo, he co-edited the online interdisciplinary arts journal [out of nothing] from 2009 to 2015. You can find Eric’s work online at https://likeoverflowing.com/