It’s okay, I said, no one hears, but he didn’t believe me, he didn’t believe. Maybe being an artist, as a rule, my voice can never be heard. Not even here, where there are words on the walls. James couldn’t hear because, being himself, he wasn't listening.
As a rule, I’m right far too often. Though maybe it isn’t an issue of context anymore, but means of expression, of verse, of scripture. If all things are of the people, then who are they to know; in accumulation, all through history, a whole world of silent voices. In the city, the internal and the external are unrelated, a schizoid duplication. Meaning, as a rule, cannot possibly exist.
::::::::::::::::::::
Ironically, for all my
preaching, we didn’t
say anything
worth listening to
.::::::::::::::::::::
If I were to interpret dreams, I’d say I was falling out of the stars, or that the stars were falling on me. Immaculate spears of dream took me in. If I could touch them, they wouldn’t move. No. If I could touch them, they wouldn’t be moving, not at me, not breaking in the mirror.
I guess I’d fallen asleep on the hill. The sky sank its weight on me, and fed me stars. A dark night, waking up on a mountain outside the city- if you could call it that (which you couldn’t). Fireflies phased out of existence. The grass was damp, pressing against my clothes, and I was damp with it, and we were damp together, in unification, the way time changes.
I didn’t believe that. Sometimes I have trouble believing in life, in the individual, or myself, as an individual that is, in relevance to others. Understanding undermines the principles of conversation. I’d been writing poems in the darkness, at loss in a big, big ocean. As if. Renouncing the idea of place hasn’t been innovative for hundreds of years.
If I had a story, this might be where it began.
III
—
in
sequence
.
…
to prove the world
was flat, I
went
on a great crusade.
The rain
came first. First
silence, then the rain, a (taptap) tapping
raindrops
falling quiet in the midnight streets droplets lying quiet
on the pavement quietly tires passing over
to smooth out the rain iron
our sins
into the floorboards
of the city down so low
not even the janitor
remembers to clean them up
any
more.
::::::::::::::::::::
As if
there were order to this introduction. I could say I met her there but that would
undermine the scandalous necessities of sequence. And
yes, I realize I’m rolling myself over, as if I could really make this journey back in time, but I don’t think the rules apply when you’re alone with
gorgeous girls
in
the rain.
::::::::::::::::::::
I met
her on the vestibule,
seeing as she was there alone. I have an affinity for strange places, facing
outwards onto the night. You could see the stars from there, but it wasn’t a good place to write poetry, though sometimes at noon the sun slanted at strange angles across the tiling, engraving the floor in skewed
congruencies of light, tangled in shadow.
Up above, the moon made faces for her. The emptiness pushed further away, a pressurized dilation, bowing down around the center. Every heart beat for her, every word to say. When it was for her, the world became real poetry, to be worthy, even for a moment. Maybe
she would greet me. A turn of the fingers, bright flicker of straining vibes. I knew she’d heard me, because she had ears, to state things blatantly, to name an attribute of her,
isolate the principles of
her
altogether, culminating a pantheon onto herself,
otherworldly beauty
and
blatant rendition (changing space). If there’d
been wind, she might have taken flight. Because
she could soar,
altogether. On the
vestibule, I met
her
there.::::::::::::::::::::
"Hello," she said.
"Hey."
Together. Here we were, to be with each other. I’ve never been an acolyte of
pain, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand intensity. Writhing, strings of dispersion. She had nothing phallic about her, that is to say, though really, though really. She said hello, did I worry her there? Almost seeing, she took whole galaxies and consumed them, not into herself, not worrying. If I were a saint, I’d never have come here. But I’ve never had much saintly about me.
Hey. To come and see. If
I weren’t a mystery, would you still be here with me: the way
I can’t help but revert to teenage lyricism
(
oh my bleeding heart my
skylit eyes you hurt me once you remember
last week we were united in our love together making
union
together you I me together
taking vigil of the whole goddamn fucking country
her cold corridors her angsts
fire and brimstone
poetry
rendition kissing
furiously
in alone places
my love) I just met you here
really that’s no way to approach the unknow-able no way to keep track of slipping time. Girl you said hello to me now I can never forget you. It’s not your fault you aren’t keeping track of words (I’ll never forget you). Really, is that any way to make introductions I can’t ask myself these questions while I’m so busy looking after whole new kinds of answers the kind you don’t already see in dreams.
Moon sky sun
scribe screaming
see
me
see me
I am.
::::::::::::::::::::
… that’s it, I see you again.
though really, of course I’d never seen her before. She’d been eyeless, faceless, armless, legless, skinless, hairless, unreal. Dreaming of European light. I could see into my own future. I met her there, in dreams. Really. I bet she knew. She knew. (armless, legless, faceless). It’s
not as though she would grow a body for me, grow legs and breasts and
beautiful,
beautiful face, though she did undermine ideas
of regularity, the cyanide kiss,
scent and moonlight, slipping
silently, a night killer, to make the darkness
bleed. I’d never
killed before, never thought of taking steps to create. Why she made me think. Could she intoxicate me, with stories, cleanliness adjacent to vampire purity? I’ve never been fond of the approached me.