On The Limits of Memory (a notapoem)

____up into the silence the green
____silence with a white earth in it

____you will(kiss me)go

____out into the morning the young
____morning with a warm world in it

____(kiss me)you will go

____on into the sunlight the fine
____sunlight with a firm day in it

____you will go(kiss me

____down into your memory and
____a memory and memory

____i)kiss me,(will go)


_________E. E. Cummings

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the book of sleep, __minutes on sunday, __cello symphony, __i never remember having a front lawn, __the spider in Africa i remember soo large, __love has no eyes and i floated away,

what i lack in eyes
(the outstretched hands of ghosts,
i hear murmurs all the time)

makes me less
(i can hear the sound of mandolins, __a sleep with no dreams, __heights i have fallen from, __who are you? __i cannot be this old for too much longer, surely. my hands are too tender to manage air)

(please please please please)__(3 steps north, climb onto the sidewalk, put both hands firmly on head: follow these directions precisely if you want to get nowhere)

there are dreams i dare not...

(and once, i came home from school and saw my mother holding my sister to her chest, crying. sobbing. in her bedroom. the walls were pink, i had painted them, had gotten it in my hair. my sister had called me a rose. the walls and their faces were the same color. i stood behind the door, three inches too open. why can't i remember the sound of it?, why is it all reduced to the color pink? __and my heart can replay the Morse of its beats, sshh, listen!, put your head to my chest___)

float away from me, __once i blew a dandelion, __just once
__(once i blew with my eyes closed, and opened and chased, my hands in the air laughing,

(smoke rises, __steam rises, __friday nights alone, i could not bear it, would walk to Surfers and sit alone on a park bench watching everyone else.
can a soul manage to escape the stratosphere?)

what i lack,

"why do you move away whenever i touch you?"
"i don't know, just __stop, seriously, stop stop, step back, __personal space"
"you used to be really affectionate"
"i know."
"what happened?"
"i don't know__ i just... it's really uncomfortable now."
"i read recently humans need touch. The article suggested if you aren't having sex, at least get a massage."
" ... "
" ... "
" ... "
"are you having sex again?"
"no."
"maybe you should get a massage."
"i hate massages."
"you used to be really affectionate."
"i know"
"what are you gonna do?"
"__i don't know."

some wind. ____i cannot hope these dares to dream.
i cannot dream to hope these (dare to fall)
dare to hope to dream to fall to rise to where (to what?
____________________________________to how!?)

some wind. __soo pleasant. __(ssshh. stop talking, let me hear it)

______Q, where are you?

once, in the mist... and it rained. and the beach was all rocks and waves... and our little hands lifted the blackest of them, and turned them over, and delighted at the sight of crabs. we were so brave.
______(can you hug me out of this?

what i lack
(my grandfather sits invisibly, inaudibly, with one foot in San Diego zoo with me on his shoulders, and strokes his handsome frame against the table leg, barely it shakes, i stare at the page of the little book, trying to get through it, you hear me old man? how are we going to do this? __he shakes his head. (my hand to the face of the table, suddenly wet. once a tree's cheek, it cries its last honey tear
______i lay my lips to her. breathe. __all grows blurred. __with my nose i draw a line through it. __she sighs, __the room is cooler, i breathe deep, we are inside one another.
(my grandfather rises, shaking his head, he takes some steps,

"how have you been my son?"
"i'm tired."
"me too."
"i'm old."
[laughs] "you're too young to say that"

(my grandmother says: i dreamt of him. he was standing by the phone, slouched, his head against the wall, he said i'm tired here. i'm always soo tired. What does it mean?

______Q, where are you?

__(what does it mean?)
__(can you hug this out of me?
____-me out of this?
____-sometime ago, sometime before i can remember, i was a child,
__someone showed me a picture once, __i was blond

the book of hidden secrets, __this is what we do, __the dark of my eyes has won,

what i lack in humanity
(the broken monument of my own self lies in Brisbane and gathers dust. a Me that failed me. __WILLIAM BLAKE, AN INTRODUCTION __Neruda, Collected Poems (a Bilingual Ed) __the Trivium, the Greek tradition of Rhetoric, Dialectic, and Grammar __Ginsberg, Collected Poems ____be careful when you open them, that dust

where to now?
all's blurred:
all i lack, humanity

floats (once, eyes closed, i wished)

(dare to fall dreamer?)

i can't hear the sound anymore... __there are no mandolins. __there is no wind. __the night has too much patience

____________who?