I.
You could have looked
if you wanted
at the woman's face, which was
the eroded face of a woman
who had spent many years
looking out
onto the steppes from
halfway up a mountain
and thought maybe once
or twice that
this was a desert.
You would have seen
her mouth part
as though to speak.
Instead she would
call mutely into
the airflow.
You could have looked at her
face as her mind passed
over the steppes, her gaze
smoothing the rough
branches and twisted shrubs
and sand
like a hand
over a tangled swatch
of new sheared wool,
or an eye following wind.
And you missed her
and you miss her
and you don't know who
she was and you don't
know who you are.
II.
You missed the steppes
and you were a desert.
You are, you know,
following her like a hand.
Like the airflow,
tangled and halfway eroded.
You missed who you are
for years and years.
And years like sand
in wool. Or an eye.
12/2/10
11/5/10
Fucking Troika
(one)
In my house there are a great number of animals that I keep in pens just large enough for them to grow and to be happy.
One day, all of my animals will be taken away by the secret police, and I will be left with an empty house. I knew all of this before I gave these animals a place in my home and I still did it.
(two)
I am going to tell eight twelve-year-old boys that they will break their arms and have to wear them in a sling. It will be like a badge of honor, something illustrious and manly in a pre-teen way.
(three)
"The man carries so much anger in him and he just keeps building it up and he get angrier--"
"Mmmhm."
"And angrier till he just starts killing."
"Oh, Lord."
"Angry men taking lives of other men taking their lies and everyone's just dying--"
"Lord, have mercy."
"thinking they be bigger men for doing this shit. Stealing and selling crack. Ain't no good ever come of it."
"I know it. I know it."
"Just keep building it up, piling it on."
"Call that karma, they do."
"Mmhm. Yes, ma'am."
"Main thing they need to e doing is getting him off the streets."
"Yes, ma'am, it is."
"But they ain't be doing that. Just acting damn fools."
"Doing all that shit."
"Building up karma."
"Lord, they do. Every day."
In my house there are a great number of animals that I keep in pens just large enough for them to grow and to be happy.
One day, all of my animals will be taken away by the secret police, and I will be left with an empty house. I knew all of this before I gave these animals a place in my home and I still did it.
(two)
I am going to tell eight twelve-year-old boys that they will break their arms and have to wear them in a sling. It will be like a badge of honor, something illustrious and manly in a pre-teen way.
(three)
"The man carries so much anger in him and he just keeps building it up and he get angrier--"
"Mmmhm."
"And angrier till he just starts killing."
"Oh, Lord."
"Angry men taking lives of other men taking their lies and everyone's just dying--"
"Lord, have mercy."
"thinking they be bigger men for doing this shit. Stealing and selling crack. Ain't no good ever come of it."
"I know it. I know it."
"Just keep building it up, piling it on."
"Call that karma, they do."
"Mmhm. Yes, ma'am."
"Main thing they need to e doing is getting him off the streets."
"Yes, ma'am, it is."
"But they ain't be doing that. Just acting damn fools."
"Doing all that shit."
"Building up karma."
"Lord, they do. Every day."
7/5/10
On the Pink Life.
This city is a dead city.
It used to be alive but now it is dead.
If the city were a person, I would refer to the city as a she.
For example: 'It used to be alive but now she is dead.'
Et cetera.
A dead city with living inhabitants bears a metaphorical or metaphysical resemblance to maggoted bodies; to feeding on waste.
The maggots I mean.
This city is a dead city.
A man can eat out of a garbage can and glare into the distance, aware of my thoughts.
He can and he had and these were things that actually happened.
That are actually happened.
A man with one arm jangles the coins in his pocket and spits to the left.
A wedding occurs someplace in the distance, symmetrically.
The stump of the man's other arm is soft, newborn flesh and slightly misshapen at the end.
The stump is springy and firm.
He touches me with it accidentally.
That is how I know these things.
This is the dead city.
And when he touched me, I was stunned, walking as though I were either already dad or could die at a moment's notice.
The loudspeaker of the dead city blares loudest on hot nights.
Waves crash several hundred miles in the opposite direction: invisible, landlocked city.
Leprosy crumbles like damp moss here.
She is lean and grizzled.
It used to be alive but now it is dead.
If the city were a person, I would refer to the city as a she.
For example: 'It used to be alive but now she is dead.'
Et cetera.
A dead city with living inhabitants bears a metaphorical or metaphysical resemblance to maggoted bodies; to feeding on waste.
The maggots I mean.
This city is a dead city.
A man can eat out of a garbage can and glare into the distance, aware of my thoughts.
He can and he had and these were things that actually happened.
That are actually happened.
A man with one arm jangles the coins in his pocket and spits to the left.
A wedding occurs someplace in the distance, symmetrically.
The stump of the man's other arm is soft, newborn flesh and slightly misshapen at the end.
The stump is springy and firm.
He touches me with it accidentally.
That is how I know these things.
This is the dead city.
And when he touched me, I was stunned, walking as though I were either already dad or could die at a moment's notice.
The loudspeaker of the dead city blares loudest on hot nights.
Waves crash several hundred miles in the opposite direction: invisible, landlocked city.
Leprosy crumbles like damp moss here.
She is lean and grizzled.
7/1/10
Virginia Woolf talks about love
...Something in the distance, there, it is an invisible and secret elation that only I could possibly know. It is illusory, perhaps. Is is, admittedly, an uncertain thing, this phantom in the distance, though there are things, certain idiosyncrasies, qualities that are apparent. Take, for instance, this unfurling motion. There, you see it. Unfurling within, internally, as though ha swell of quiet delight. Take also, for instance, its grandness. It is grand. So very grand that you could know where it is though it is impossible for you to see.
It is quite curious, I say, that we both could know this grandness, this internal fullness and secret elation. But it is, I suppose, ours to share, this inclination, though I had many selfish plans already made. I can change my plans for the opportunity to discuss this passionless attentiveness, this brad that, perhaps, connects the both of our selves in an intimate fashion.
We are, presently, sipping ice water from glasses, outdoors there, directly to the right of that irrational balloon. Look how foolish we are, sipping ice water and gazing at one another, discretely, in brief instances. That foolish lemon, wedged onto the rim of that glass. I imagine its succulence. It could be nothing except sour and bitter.
But we, the young fools, laugh to one another and press our lemons into a saucer of sugar, a shared saucer of sugar, before we dare to graze our lips clumsily and suckle graciously on these citrons. And look, dear, how we laugh again to one another at this mingling of sensations after we sip cool ice water from these glasses, whichever they are. They, these glasses, dear, are quite beautiful by any person's estimation, I believe.
I do believe that I can see in both of our faces the knowledge of this invisible thing behind us. Yes, there, just across, we say in uniform glances in that direction and, second, at one another's eyes. How selfish, to know and yet to not acknowledge it. To press mild, sugared lemons to our tongues in the cool of a summer evening. Cruel, I say, to know it there and to say nothing. To do nothing out of naivete.
Though, perhaps in my own mounting sourness, my growing antiquity, I can see it frankly and justly describe its particular prowess. This phantom thing, this inclination, needn't be hidden to me anymore.
Ah, clearly, our cheeks are blushing with some blooming heat and aridness on our tongues, as usual. How great, how blissful, to think of that glass, lemon and sugar, the cool water... to think of these things as gestures of benign refreshment. Beautiful fools, we tend to be.
I suppose it unfair to know and to hold my younger self accountable however, knowing these consequences, these things. Unfair, knowing that this invisible balloon will, invariably, rise subtly, carrying us both away with it, in a gesture now invisible to us, yes, but secretly embedded, discretion applied to the lemon, sugar to the tongue, and heat to the hot air balloon, or this strange and rushing phantom zeppelin.
It is quite curious, I say, that we both could know this grandness, this internal fullness and secret elation. But it is, I suppose, ours to share, this inclination, though I had many selfish plans already made. I can change my plans for the opportunity to discuss this passionless attentiveness, this brad that, perhaps, connects the both of our selves in an intimate fashion.
We are, presently, sipping ice water from glasses, outdoors there, directly to the right of that irrational balloon. Look how foolish we are, sipping ice water and gazing at one another, discretely, in brief instances. That foolish lemon, wedged onto the rim of that glass. I imagine its succulence. It could be nothing except sour and bitter.
But we, the young fools, laugh to one another and press our lemons into a saucer of sugar, a shared saucer of sugar, before we dare to graze our lips clumsily and suckle graciously on these citrons. And look, dear, how we laugh again to one another at this mingling of sensations after we sip cool ice water from these glasses, whichever they are. They, these glasses, dear, are quite beautiful by any person's estimation, I believe.
I do believe that I can see in both of our faces the knowledge of this invisible thing behind us. Yes, there, just across, we say in uniform glances in that direction and, second, at one another's eyes. How selfish, to know and yet to not acknowledge it. To press mild, sugared lemons to our tongues in the cool of a summer evening. Cruel, I say, to know it there and to say nothing. To do nothing out of naivete.
Though, perhaps in my own mounting sourness, my growing antiquity, I can see it frankly and justly describe its particular prowess. This phantom thing, this inclination, needn't be hidden to me anymore.
Ah, clearly, our cheeks are blushing with some blooming heat and aridness on our tongues, as usual. How great, how blissful, to think of that glass, lemon and sugar, the cool water... to think of these things as gestures of benign refreshment. Beautiful fools, we tend to be.
I suppose it unfair to know and to hold my younger self accountable however, knowing these consequences, these things. Unfair, knowing that this invisible balloon will, invariably, rise subtly, carrying us both away with it, in a gesture now invisible to us, yes, but secretly embedded, discretion applied to the lemon, sugar to the tongue, and heat to the hot air balloon, or this strange and rushing phantom zeppelin.
6/22/10
6/17/10
The silver caliper loomed over the mantle
and mumbled his name in a foreign language
(it could have been Turkish or Polish)
while he sat in a straight backed chair
and ate graham crackers by breaking them
into pieces with his strong yet supple lips
and sucking on the pieces until they grew soft
and pliant, dissolving into his saliva and
becoming paste like. Another bite
and he repeated the ceremony of breaking
and sucking and softening into paste.
The silver caliper didn’t speak for a moment,
looking on in consideration as he ate stale
graham crackers in a straight backed chair,
the crumbs caking on the sides of his
delicious mouth (which was exactly
twenty eight and eleven hundredths of
a centimeter in length) and falling in his lap.
Ants carried the crumbs in a long line
toward their wriggling nest. He looked at the
silver caliper again and, in seeing the screws
turning slowly, panicked. He placed the next
stale graham cracker on his bottom lip
(which protruded somewhat and was strong
and red) and he used one finger (the right
index finger) and he pushed it inside,
all at once, cutting the corners of his mouth.
The silver caliper snapped shut and screwed
tightly together. His mouth bled quietly in dismay.
and mumbled his name in a foreign language
(it could have been Turkish or Polish)
while he sat in a straight backed chair
and ate graham crackers by breaking them
into pieces with his strong yet supple lips
and sucking on the pieces until they grew soft
and pliant, dissolving into his saliva and
becoming paste like. Another bite
and he repeated the ceremony of breaking
and sucking and softening into paste.
The silver caliper didn’t speak for a moment,
looking on in consideration as he ate stale
graham crackers in a straight backed chair,
the crumbs caking on the sides of his
delicious mouth (which was exactly
twenty eight and eleven hundredths of
a centimeter in length) and falling in his lap.
Ants carried the crumbs in a long line
toward their wriggling nest. He looked at the
silver caliper again and, in seeing the screws
turning slowly, panicked. He placed the next
stale graham cracker on his bottom lip
(which protruded somewhat and was strong
and red) and he used one finger (the right
index finger) and he pushed it inside,
all at once, cutting the corners of his mouth.
The silver caliper snapped shut and screwed
tightly together. His mouth bled quietly in dismay.
6/11/10
Fatted
We used to live in Brussels until I ran out of money. Then I lived in Cairo with a cousin. I would rather not discuss my cousin anymore.
When I moved away from Cairo, I had nothing. If there was fortune to be found there, it was not mine. All the luck had been spent that the time. Karma was in short supply. Destitute, I was. And I moved away. Away away. Gone. Bang.
Jet to the south of France, duck country. Foie gras every day for lunch on crackers. Cheap foie gras, to say. Foie gras for crackers on pennies. Euro cents and sensibilities.
High times in the south of France. Aix, other cities. The sea. Je deteste les villes. Gay Paris. Le Paris homosexuel. Slathered my crackers there, too.
I trucked around for a good time or two and I had my fill of foie gras, I would say. I lived in a cottage in a little village with a pig in the backyard. A one home village, green and empty and full of sky. Beautiful shit. Beautiful shit. The sea.
After getting my last can of foie gras I opened a box of crackers and set them all out on the table. I smelled them, butter, salt. I could smell the salt from the crackers. Then the can of foie gras… I opened it and I put it on the table. It was very smelly for some reason. It was a light brown paste, a duck liver in a can.
I spread it on every cracker with a knife and I set each aside in a growing stack that, when it reached 10 crackers with foie gras high, I started another stack of crackers that, when it reached 10 crackers with foie gras high, I started another stack of crackers that, when it reached 10 crackers with foie gras high, I started another stack of crackers that, when it was done, I left on the table and went outside to look at the clouds passing by as I thought of things. Fuck, says I.
I went to Paris again that night and I got so drunk on wine that I shit in the streets. I stayed with a brother of mine near a monument and puked in his bed. His dog came into the room and licked up the little puddle of foie gras.
I drank some orange juice that morning and I went down to the city. Café, omelette, un café noir, des cigarettes. Au revoir, pisser extraordinaire. Des cafés de café.
In any event. I left France. Jadedly, I’ll admit, but still. Gone. Bang. Away, away.
I’m over the sea.
When I moved away from Cairo, I had nothing. If there was fortune to be found there, it was not mine. All the luck had been spent that the time. Karma was in short supply. Destitute, I was. And I moved away. Away away. Gone. Bang.
Jet to the south of France, duck country. Foie gras every day for lunch on crackers. Cheap foie gras, to say. Foie gras for crackers on pennies. Euro cents and sensibilities.
High times in the south of France. Aix, other cities. The sea. Je deteste les villes. Gay Paris. Le Paris homosexuel. Slathered my crackers there, too.
I trucked around for a good time or two and I had my fill of foie gras, I would say. I lived in a cottage in a little village with a pig in the backyard. A one home village, green and empty and full of sky. Beautiful shit. Beautiful shit. The sea.
After getting my last can of foie gras I opened a box of crackers and set them all out on the table. I smelled them, butter, salt. I could smell the salt from the crackers. Then the can of foie gras… I opened it and I put it on the table. It was very smelly for some reason. It was a light brown paste, a duck liver in a can.
I spread it on every cracker with a knife and I set each aside in a growing stack that, when it reached 10 crackers with foie gras high, I started another stack of crackers that, when it reached 10 crackers with foie gras high, I started another stack of crackers that, when it reached 10 crackers with foie gras high, I started another stack of crackers that, when it was done, I left on the table and went outside to look at the clouds passing by as I thought of things. Fuck, says I.
I went to Paris again that night and I got so drunk on wine that I shit in the streets. I stayed with a brother of mine near a monument and puked in his bed. His dog came into the room and licked up the little puddle of foie gras.
I drank some orange juice that morning and I went down to the city. Café, omelette, un café noir, des cigarettes. Au revoir, pisser extraordinaire. Des cafés de café.
In any event. I left France. Jadedly, I’ll admit, but still. Gone. Bang. Away, away.
I’m over the sea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)