Posted by marko on 12/20/2006, 8:46 am the bare bones of a christmas tree are soaked with bad bargain i can’t give you a good reason why i insist on waiting for i’m walking away. if it appears i’m getting closer, that’s your scene 17 i think i’ve found the stories that were left out. even though scene 18 there’s nothing here worth focusing on. objects drift, then scene 19 a requiem is defined as a mass for a dead person, or a
65.167.39.234
scene 14
whiskey & torched where the concrete ends abruptly, & turns
into wooded hillside. a now obsolete dead end since a four lane
highway has taken its place. they dynamited huge chunks of
steep stone with old houses so close to the edge i don’t know
how they kept from tumbling down also. crushed brick &
mortar, splintered wood & pieces of furniture flying as far
as the railroad tracks, only thirty yards from the river. maybe
some blasted so high they plummeted into the water like
northern geese shot out of the sky. caught in a hard current,
headed for the stratton dam where they might get hung up,
but maybe jumping over & heading further south. & i want
to head south myself instead of standing here shivering, trying
to keep warm with hits of off brand whiskey straight up, &
not exactly a blazing fire that was somebody’s joy a week ago,
& now is useless, forgotten. they litter every curb & no one
cares if we drag them away. the fire is beginning to grow brighter
& warmer now since the trunk caught. i break into a chistmas
song in a sarcastic tone & everybody laughs. though there’s
nothing sadder than christmas music when it’s all over.
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sunrise. it was once a rite of passage. but that was thirty
years ago. i’m always trying to come up with reasons.
they don’t necessarily have to be good ones. even when
i know the answer but won’t admit it. even when i’m afraid
of what i’ll find, & would be better off not knowing.
besides, there’s usually a replica that can pass for the real
thing. & it’s cheaper & takes a hell of a lot less out of us.
the air is crisp & frost is forming on the plants that still
cling to life & the grass & the rooftops. it feels like i could
break a piece off. whatever size i want. i feel larger than life
studying the stars. i remember how i used to watch them
on my back as a boy, & feel so insignificant. so things
have obviously happened psychologically in the last thirty
years. i’ve probably changed drastically. but i can’t give
you any details. well, i suppose i could talk all night, but
it would be fragmented, scatological. it would be impossible
to find a thread to connect that rambling stream of words.
but you’d give me a solemn look, or at least what you
thought of as a solemn face, & tell me you understood. of
course you wouldn’t have understood. but i’d let it slide.
i’d feel fortunate that you would even listen.
scene 16
eyes playing tricks on you. or your mind circling who you
think i am. or your heart beating faster giving you the feeling
you’re moving too, & pumping blood to parts of you that need
loved, that sing desire even as your intellect is swearing me
off as possibly dangerous to your fragile psyche, as a liability
to your way of living, your social standing. i’m moving
away. i’m headed in another direction. i didn’t put much
thought into which direction. i’m filled with something other
than thoughts of you. this makes it easier to do. but i feel i
should tell you i’m going, as a common courtesy at least.
i can feel you watching me. it used to feel so wonderful.
now it’s like one ghost watching another. it feels almost
impossible. i thought of leaving more than this note. a
handful of ashes that you could keep in your favorite coffee
cup. something you’d catch immediately. that was my ego
holding on to a dead thing. i thought that maybe if you saw
i was really leaving this time, you’d come rushing after me.
though we’d be going in completely opposite directions.
getting further & further away.
i don’t believe god ever told them in order of importance. at
least not to my knowledge. or for dramatic purposes, to build
the suspense. i wonder why he didn’t lay them down in his
own handwriting, so there would be no mistake about the
author, as he did with stoned commandments. i don’t know
if he purposely left so much open-ended. i certainly can’t
understand why he’d trust in us to interpret his words in any
way other than to serve our own purpose, to build ourselves
up, to bring the world to us rather than having to find a place
in the world on our own. & if there’s an easier to way to do it,
then chances are we’ll find it. it could be a test. isn’t that where
heaven & hell lie—at the bottom of the page. it’s become a
trillion dollar industry among christians, jews & muslims. if
anyone knew out about theses stories i stumbled on i’m be
dead meat. but if i fail to mention them i could be struck down
like a sparrow. i’m not sure if i’m now a prophet or just in a
predicament.
slowly find their way back without my help. words fall
right off the page. i try closing one eye, then the other. i
lay my hands on it as if i’m holding it in place. i see no
rationale in this. but what else is there? i take a piece off
the mantle. behind the mantle is a large mirror. so you see
two of everything. this changes nothing. other than the fact
there are two objects moving away instead of one. i put the
piece in a paper bag. i lay the paper bag in the middle of
the living room floor. i declare it the sun. i circle it slowly,
deliberately. i give it more credit than it deserves. i wait
for the bag to ignite—for the star to burn its way out, as
would transpire. but this doesn’t happen. the fact i’m
moving around the bag with the object inside has no
effect on the results. because there are no results. i’ve
been trying to find some meaning in my life. i have to
start somewhere.
musical service or hymn to honor the dead. i just looked
it up in my merriam-webster dictionary. but this definition
won’t stick. it already means something different to me.
actually it leaves several tastes on my tongue. i like the
way it looks on the page, & the sound it makes when
spoken. this is an aesthetic experience as opposed to a clear,
precise definition. i don’t deny that they both have their
place. i’m not about to argue the importance of one over
the other. contemplating order is letting the mind drift into
fascist territory. there are ten different definitions for the
word order in the same dictionary. i don’t like the sound
of any of them. i find a skeleton of a fish fascinating.
every bone seems to have a reason. some might define
this as order. but i can’t
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