Portrait of the Artist Right Now

portrait of the ghost as a young man, monacapone


__I.
(heights I have fallen from:
__useless without lips,
__Time measures its own quantities
__(once, the two steps to our front door, broke my teeth)
__(twice love, ssshhh, enough of that)
__sometimes slows enough to give you a good look
__(december 12th, 2006)
__the smell of paint is fresh inside me
__(my birthday presents from the second story window, tears fall in parabolas too)
__summer edges upon us anyway, listen:
____here come the waves.


__II.
i know precisely this: _._
i am lucky to have gathered soo much.


__III.
i stumble upon a mountain-range, purely by accident.
i had not known my drops soo steep.
three steps from the white-fence, two steps from the last tree i climbed,
i lie there, fall asleep in the perpendicular sun.
mumble to myself, humming scores to midafternoon dreams.

an ocean too, besides the old tire-swing.
swells and falls with the tide, my heart,
governed by ticks and tocks.
i smile, the pure necessity of being,

the sand edges off around me.
somewhere a child yelps at the cold water.
my tilted hat falls off my head,
my forehead drips the sweat of anxious futures dying to get out.
the heart's ocean expands like lungs,
a dark bird floats on a dark surface.

by a doorway i sit.
landscape after landscape,
measuring angles with my sextant.


__IV.
my hands sit in my lap.
having no piano keys,
no female fingers,
they keep an eye on clouds.
ah! when impressed.


__V.
a third prayer ceases in silence;
the abrupt language of finality.
someone looks around...
__- see the miracle?
__- perhaps... no, not yet.

__- it's here. i see it.
__(all look across)
__being! (he smiles)


__VI. (part 1)
night is a creature.
inchoate at sunset, uncertain of her powers.
grows;
deep.
__dark.
____more and more silent (diminuendo)
____(she speaks loudest in whispers)

sshhh, i am cats, and grass grown grey, and stars are the pearls that were my eyes,

__[smile]

and i am fingers, and i am sheets, and i am moans, and i am the sand behind your ears

__[turn, moan in sleep]


__VI. (part 2)
to leave and be left simultaneously
(if there were more words, we still wouldn't be able to say what we mean)
(please remind me who I am)

In other news:
the world continues to spin on its axis;
most, but not all people, wake the next morning,
clouds don't care what we think.