___________V. What the Thunder Said
time speaks perhaps most clearly through the skin of the elderly. It is impossible that I will have eyes that glazed one day. a distant lost look like that, so perfectly fluent in hindsight. I am but 25- I can scarcely contain the weight of my recollections now, what a tonne of luggage I'll carry then. One faded-blue, plastic suitcase filled just with manuscripts. Papers with words typed. Just single words. Each an entire universe to me. Each a star in my nightsky:
S
SUNDAY. SPRING. SCATTER (and fall, I'll kiss your knee, I'll kiss it all). SISTER (my). SOLITUDE. SOCRATES. SOLILOQUY (... this night i cannot decide failed have i at one thing all?, or merely heard bats and angels twisting seconds into shapes my meager me) SOUL. (can fathom, handle, understand). SECONDS (all too many short each and every). STATISTICS. SUBMIT. SEX. SEA. SEE? SHRINE (empty but for me, eternity, and some evanescent lights I cannot sense because the me of me speaks in luminescence with the It of it and we speak a timeless tongue that makes 14 minutes my whole life and when I walk out I see the clocks reset, sigh then I do, another chance). SCALENE. SCENT. STYGIAN (the poor river that pennies do encumber, too heavy to move. One of them half-here half-there's dips a blued finger tip to the blackglasstop surface. one ripple expands outwards. a wave not a pin-prick high moves outwards. the universe responds as silently and as certainly as with a prayer. the gates open and the boat moves on). SERVICE. STALLED. SOMEONE. STILTED (it's only life, it's ok to) SLOUCH (sometimes).
Me as a miniature. Wrinkled and full of sidewalk cracks and hands the texture of desert rocks. I will turn slowly back to dust. I will take respite in knowing that I am soon to be food for tulips. Grass will take root in the hollow (unbreathing) hollow of my chest. I will be food for tomorrow, which is greedy and eats all today. Those short elderly men, those lost looks... I know what they see. Hooded figures. Every doorway streaming with that heavenly glow-light. We're at it again. look away look away it'll go away. I know what they see. Second hands. Geometric boundaries being annulled. A merging of form and language so that each rock is the history of a people, each patch of soimoist dirt beneath a tree tells a story of a 17 year-old me lying beneath reading Prufrock. They see intimations of ends:
the story that begins in rain, ends in sunshine. the story that stars in sunshine, ends in rain.
I am not scared to die, but to not live.
I can imagine the creaks in my bones now. The water stains on my skin. My heart will shiver rather than beat. Kinda shake the blood along. 'nother round fellas, deep breath- and we're off. To sit on couches and sink beneath cushions and wonder about how certain colors I only saw once during this one sunset. Or certain feelings, certain little truthlettes of life, only existed once during some drama or another. A veteran aliver.
Perhaps the affinity to these strange shadows, the elderly, (the conclusions and indexes and photography credits of life) is to bypass my fear of now. of tomorrow. of how to bridge it all together.
A
ASSUAGE. ART (all all all all all I ever was lost all is all said to be all true and also all). ASTOUND (time, love, home- and the loss of all three, and the changes of all three and the directions of all). ANSWERS (___) ABLE (not everyone is to). AND (next). AND (next) AND (all my nexts).
I cannot hide from numbers forever.
P
PORCELAIN (your skin) PRAYER (please please please please please please please please).
L
LOVE. LETTERS. LEVITY (be quiet and fly, far, far away. when we get lost we will ask a little black bird the rest of the way. just know I'll be sitting on my rainbow). LUSTROUS. LORD (please please please please please). LISTEN (everything you wanted to know the carpet hears from the roots of trees that listen to your steps and speaks back to you in the language of the ceilings, which pass it upwards- translated of course to the language of clouds- which then transpose to the color blue, and the sky approves and blows you kisses which you decipher as).
I cannot hide forever.
where will I hide till my hands turn the color of time?
(please please please please please please)
(and so we take baby's feet and wait it out till we have angels)
S
SUNDAY. SPRING. SCATTER (and fall, I'll kiss your knee, I'll kiss it all). SISTER (my). SOLITUDE. SOCRATES. SOLILOQUY (... this night i cannot decide failed have i at one thing all?, or merely heard bats and angels twisting seconds into shapes my meager me) SOUL. (can fathom, handle, understand). SECONDS (all too many short each and every). STATISTICS. SUBMIT. SEX. SEA. SEE? SHRINE (empty but for me, eternity, and some evanescent lights I cannot sense because the me of me speaks in luminescence with the It of it and we speak a timeless tongue that makes 14 minutes my whole life and when I walk out I see the clocks reset, sigh then I do, another chance). SCALENE. SCENT. STYGIAN (the poor river that pennies do encumber, too heavy to move. One of them half-here half-there's dips a blued finger tip to the blackglasstop surface. one ripple expands outwards. a wave not a pin-prick high moves outwards. the universe responds as silently and as certainly as with a prayer. the gates open and the boat moves on). SERVICE. STALLED. SOMEONE. STILTED (it's only life, it's ok to) SLOUCH (sometimes).
Me as a miniature. Wrinkled and full of sidewalk cracks and hands the texture of desert rocks. I will turn slowly back to dust. I will take respite in knowing that I am soon to be food for tulips. Grass will take root in the hollow (unbreathing) hollow of my chest. I will be food for tomorrow, which is greedy and eats all today. Those short elderly men, those lost looks... I know what they see. Hooded figures. Every doorway streaming with that heavenly glow-light. We're at it again. look away look away it'll go away. I know what they see. Second hands. Geometric boundaries being annulled. A merging of form and language so that each rock is the history of a people, each patch of soimoist dirt beneath a tree tells a story of a 17 year-old me lying beneath reading Prufrock. They see intimations of ends:
the story that begins in rain, ends in sunshine. the story that stars in sunshine, ends in rain.
I am not scared to die, but to not live.
I can imagine the creaks in my bones now. The water stains on my skin. My heart will shiver rather than beat. Kinda shake the blood along. 'nother round fellas, deep breath- and we're off. To sit on couches and sink beneath cushions and wonder about how certain colors I only saw once during this one sunset. Or certain feelings, certain little truthlettes of life, only existed once during some drama or another. A veteran aliver.
Perhaps the affinity to these strange shadows, the elderly, (the conclusions and indexes and photography credits of life) is to bypass my fear of now. of tomorrow. of how to bridge it all together.
A
ASSUAGE. ART (all all all all all I ever was lost all is all said to be all true and also all). ASTOUND (time, love, home- and the loss of all three, and the changes of all three and the directions of all). ANSWERS (___) ABLE (not everyone is to). AND (next). AND (next) AND (all my nexts).
I cannot hide from numbers forever.
P
PORCELAIN (your skin) PRAYER (please please please please please please please please).
L
LOVE. LETTERS. LEVITY (be quiet and fly, far, far away. when we get lost we will ask a little black bird the rest of the way. just know I'll be sitting on my rainbow). LUSTROUS. LORD (please please please please please). LISTEN (everything you wanted to know the carpet hears from the roots of trees that listen to your steps and speaks back to you in the language of the ceilings, which pass it upwards- translated of course to the language of clouds- which then transpose to the color blue, and the sky approves and blows you kisses which you decipher as).
I cannot hide forever.
where will I hide till my hands turn the color of time?
(please please please please please please)
(and so we take baby's feet and wait it out till we have angels)
3 comments:
well, i'm glad somebody got most of it. i was worried no would follow.
[note to writers: reading Joyce makes you immediately prone to abstruse esoteric opacity. ]
tuesday night?, should be right for an adventure. what have you mind?
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