"We should probably get out of here," I said.
We did.
I
…they can
(echo)
Sometimes
I wonder if it really isn’t an issue of time and place, of derangement, of blinking. Those are days I sit on an old tire and throw rocks into trashcans. Those are the boring days, the wasting days, the silent moments. My friends tell me I’m not the same anymore, but I don’t think they understand change. If I’ve changed, then I obviously don’t need sameness.
I’ve never been fond of magicians. They’re just extremely talented liars who are far, far too good at what they do. I don’t think people
understand that
either.
::::::::::::::::::::
"What’s your name?"
We were in the alley again, and it was dark here. Spilled trash, rotten onion, hydrogen peroxide, lubricating oil. Hidden spots are microchasms of waste. They don’t smell very good either.
"It’s Veronica," she said. Her hair spilled wild, an auburn cascade, her sense of European distinction; she was all jagged angles and emphasis, not an accessible beauty, not a face to pass by. She wore red today, or crimson, though it was crimson, with the context she gave it. I never understood how she could walk in heels, advertising herself- but no, they didn’t care for that, she was all surface contours and flair, to catch the eyes, to the anchor the gaze. Sometimes I wondered if it was possible to love her, but it wasn’t much of a question.
We talked for a while.
I had trouble following the conversation, its flow and curvature, fragmentary. There we were, dualistic, rebounding voices, alone in a dark place where none but the highest lights shone.
"Where are you
from?"
not, "here."
It’s not difficult hating this place, but even
harder to love it.
"Were you born,"
here?
I’ve never
really understood birth. "No
it’s not" a matter
of renewability either, just
I
had trouble following the conversation. A while in she told me, that maybe, if I
hadn’t been buying her time, she might have given it to me anyway. I said thanks, though I’ve never been liberal with gratitude. We stood together in the alley, drifting together, drifting away. Then we sat on opposite sides, facing together, where I could see up her skirt. I wasn’t sure if she did it on purpose. She had long, long legs. She was a goddess of vision, and she was easy to love.
::::::::::::::::::::
I went to a poetry reading and met revelation there. I’ve never been fond of personification, but sometimes poetry personifies itself. Sometimes personality itself is impersonal. Transformation is pointless without mediums.
I met a kid named Jacob there. That’s not true. I’d met him before, but seeing him made me remember. I didn’t like him immediately, or remembered immediately, that I didn’t like him. He had a sallow face and rotten teeth. He was hateful, spite and wrongness, casting no shadow. The light didn’t touch him well. He took up too much space. But at the same time, too little.
The world doesn’t drink poetry. There were maybe four of us. We didn’t even get free coffee. I tried. They said they’d give me ten percent free, and they didn’t even give me that. But at least they had something like a stage. If you spoke loud enough, maybe you might be heard.
None of the poetry was any good. It didn’t have any personality, flair, verbosity. It was just stuff about leaves and bristles, May mornings in young homes where the sun beats shining through the window huge yellow fire: you look out smiling think (maybe) this might be something akin to peace. They made frequent, failing use of the alphabet, rhyming poorly like old, dead men, and painfully, like children telling lies. No real poet invents truth. The truth, unfolding, reinvents itself.
::::::::::::::::::::
At times, I can be wildly, wildly opinionated.
::::::::::::::::::::
Markus was right. Ashley couldn’t have been more attractive. The invisible centered on her, and she captured attention without knowing. They all knew her, and I did too, possibly as much as they did, by looking at her, contemplating fantasy. She was an endlessness of fantasy, unknowable. The unrecognized, the petty.
Markus told me he liked her. He like her then, and he would always like her. She was a motif of the oblivious, a grandiose messenger of the painful. Markus didn’t understand what I meant. No one seemed to. I thought of saying more, but I didn’t know either, any more than he did. She was illusive, invisible, a savior. No, she wasn’t, would never, and had never been a savior, but she looked like one, and she
saved. "I hope you’re less intimidating than you look," I said.
She shrugged and said maybe she was. She said it intimidatingly. Liar.
::::::::::::::::::::
It wasn’t fun to write poetry in the park- there where wind blew, where the flowers bloomed, nature’s artifice in the city. There wasn’t enough energy: too many people, barking dogs, drops of rain. Grass fell over, beaten unreal. Maybe a long time ago there might have been water in the fountain. There still was, but you never know.
All my life, never wanting to feed the birds. I’m no thrower of bread, not a shower of manna. I threw anyway. I wrote poetry no one understood. People came here to reclaim the old life. Old.
"Hey."
I looked up. Someone’s figure
blocked out
the sun. They were new. They were some fabulous, foreign
presence, blocking
(out)
the sun.
"Hey," as though I could speak, more than a sound, a syllable, an artifice. I wondered if this mystery understood language (and through it, if they understood the world). They weren’t gender, they weren’t memory and a cognoscente kind of feeling. I wondered how soon
that would change.
"What’s your name?"
"I’m not sure."
And there I was with a laughing mystery. Time and place, setting, flow and a direction in the light. Fine. I looked down, my shoe, I saw it, cracks in the pathway, trees in the distance, ants and anthills, bicycles- the bars still on them- taxi(the blinking lights!)’s, little kids and their parents, blankets, bedlam, fried chicken and a handsomely carved ham sandwich.
"Do you remember me?"
"Not really."
Good. You probably shouldn’t. We’ve never met.
I figured.
Good. "So what’s your name?"
I already told you.
Right.
He stepped out of the light. Already
he’d become less of a mystery. I wasn’t sure what that meant: graduation, accumulation, percolation of beating message; iron, iron, iron. I kicked over a cardboard box. A dog rolled over. Something moved in the trees.
You
want a camera? he asked.
If you offered me one, I’d take it.
I’m
offering. Then
I’ll
take it.
(something splintered in the backings.)…
I’ve