No one else in the world was breathing and there was no light
and only the sound of a second-hand window air conditioner
or the clang of a furnace turning on or off.
Depersonalization is one of the benefits of solitude as you approach sleep.
Only in the darkness can you forget who you are
and pretend that you will not wake the next day to the tedium of life.
almost you disappear but there is still something left,
the taste of a cigarette
the sound a hat did not make as it fell to the ground
skipping a day like a rock on a lake in the rain
but you will always wake up
and you will never be free
________________________
The hickory nut fell down as green as the wind isn’t,
taking four dried leaves and another nut (entirely closed) down to closely cut grass.
The leaves fluttered slowly in the air
as if they were dancing
and knew they would never dance again.
The two fallen seeds began a conversation.
The younger was livid and screaming “My mother loves me and you took me from her!”
The other smiled where his skin was beginning to split and said
“My brother, she was always going to drop you.
Perhaps you are too young to fall. Maybe you will rot here on the ground,
Maybe the monsters with long teeth and thick tails will spirit you away
and bury you in a secret place, only to eat you when the world is cold.
But this is how we become a tree someday and many of us die,
and maybe it will be you because I made you fall too early
and for that I am sorry
although you would probably have died anyway.”
The younger thought about this for a moment and suddenly a wizened old man
raked them both up and the four leaves too and put them all on the burnpile.
___________________________________________
Her hair was black and her lips were red
and she drank a different beer than I was drinking.
We were at the Mexican restaurant close to my apartment
where Happy Hour started at about one in the afternoon,
and at the table she sat across from me and I looked at her
and she was beautiful
and her boyfriend was there too and he was loudly talking
about something but I was not listening
because I had a tall beer the color of amber, without an orange,
and I could pay for it.
After a little while I had to take a piss so I wordlessly stood
and walked toward the bathroom.
Before you walked right or left for a door they had these miniature saloon doors,
slatted like window shutters, and I opened them and heard footsteps
so I stood to the side
and then her tongue was in my mouth and she was pushing me against the wall
and before I knew it I could breathe.
I said “Are you trying to get me killed?” and she kissed me again
and my desire was careless so I lifted her off the ground
and her arms were around my neck and she was a flood I could not stop
and I tasted the light beer she was drinking and her lips were red
and then there was a sound
so I put her down and quickly went into the bathroom and locked the door
and said “Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ”
although I never believed in Him
and took a piss and washed my hands and by the time I got to the table
she was sitting there by her boyfriend
so I looked over at Mariano and raised my finger so he would know
that I needed another beer.
_______________________________________
I could hear the wine pouring through the phone into her glass
and she said
“I want a baby. Did you know babies can learn in the womb?
Isn’t that beautiful? They would learn so much from me
and if it didn’t turn out well
I could just give it up for adoption.”
And I laughed in the terrible way that I know and later
she said “I don’t even think you can be sweet to a woman,”
and I said “I can be,”
and she asked me how, so I told her
that I am half-decent at giving massages
and don’t mind giving my money away
and that I know how to brush hair and make breakfast and get water
and hold someone when their cramps start up
and I told her I wasn’t really such a bad guy as I pretended to be
and then I started crying or maybe I was crying all along.
Later she explained to me that she did not want to date me or fuck me
and all I could think to say was “Man, I never asked you.”
________________________________________________
A History of Madness 5 is spurious.
_____________________________________
The present controls the accuracy of memory
more than the past ever could.
Often, in some shitty sports bar or cup of coffee
I have tried to summon the ghosts that kiss me to sleep at night.
Who knows what lies I have whispered to those shadows and plumes of steam?
I find that I feel guilty for any injustice that could be imagined,
even if it existed in fiction. The mere names of countries can fill me with dread,
knowing that at any moment my brain will begin a demonic litany:
Years, numbers of the slain, names of villages that are no longer villages.
And why should I bear the hate of mankind
upon my shoulders as if they were broad enough to hold it all?
I do not mean to suggest that I identify with the victims or their families.
I do not believe that I am capable of any such emotions,
but many times I have worn the bloody boots of monsters as I drift through sleep.
When I created the world I never meant for any of this to happen.
________________________________________
I stood on a slab of concrete
killing ants.
When I was a younger man I knew their Latin name,
I could define their mandibles and thoraxes
but now I crush them
by the hundred beneath my heel.
I believe, though I do not know why,
that their dying sends a chemical signal to the others.
I see them shy away from a fallen friend,
but what does an ant know of death
and why should it be feared?
There were two carrying a corpse larger than they were,
the others scurried past them but they walked crab-legged
across the concrete slab without getting anywhere.
I chose one and smashed him right through the brain.
The other struggled, unaware that his comrade had died—
he carried the worm first one way and then the other,
he tangled it in the fallen leaves, he abandoned it
but none of the other hundreds took up that burden.
He waited for about fourteen seconds then walked along the line the other ants had made.
I watched him, my eyes focused on his black armor,
and I thought of her
so small against my chest,
her black hair flowing all around
while the devil told me his daughter’s name.
I let the ant go into the hive after he tore up a piece of a butterfly
and placed it in his jaws before beginning the long walk home.
I will kill him tomorrow.
_____________________________
Once I was proud of the things I had learned.
Any moment could remind me of another—
Ivan Grozny murdering his son could be evoked
by drinking vodka on a cold and rainy day,
the phantasms of summer evening were more terrible still
and arose of their own accord,
and any woman could be brought to life
through the touch of a different woman.
Memory is not an insurmountable thing,
but most times we are not willing
to make enough fire to entirely burn our library.
We are left with husks:
proper nouns
the shading of green in a lover’s eyes
the words she says when she is asleep.
Nearly everything is dying again.
I have been waiting for winter all year
but it does not satisfy me.
I loved a woman once and she lives on
like the pine trees that are planted
to hide a forest that has just been cut down.
______________________________________
The actions of man are as easily explained as the vagaries of the weather.
Any account of a moment or a life is necessarily colored
by the one who is aching out their remembrance so that we may understand.
Who benefits from these exchanges?
People are either capable of telling the truth or they are not.
We must believe that all the souls of humanity are not base liars,
But who among us has not recalled in detail a conversation that never took place
or a childhood summer spent on the shores of a lake that cannot be found on a map?
It may be that time is changing behind us, and that all our stories were once true.
_________________________________________
I said,
“I went looking for you in the winesinks and in the bars with sawdust floors—
You were not there.”
I said,
“I went looking for you in the whorehouses,
where the women have the names of gemstones
but their eyes are dull and dead—
You were not there.”
I said,
“I went looking for you in the jailhouse and the gutters,
where I kicked over a hundred bums looking for a tattoo as evil as yours,
a blade carved deep with runes that told of devouring hate and desire—
You were not there.”
When I found you floating by the river
your lips were purple like the toga of a god
and the back of your head where the bullet made its exit
dripped slow crimson tears into the water
and you told me many things and afterward I let you drift away.
___________________________________________
After sleeping on the floor for three months
I realized that I had not learned a thing.
I slept or did not sleep. Women arrived
Or they did not, it was the same to me.
I did not understand then that a man lost in a forest is lost in the past, although a forest was outside my window. Even now I do not understand.
__________________________________________
Like any other god I am sustained by belief.
For many years I have labored to reduce the faith of my cult,
but they stubbornly persist.
Always I long for death but their prayers keep me here.
I am cruel to them, inconsiderate beyond reproach,
but they insist on forgiving me.
Though I have never told them,
I feel they are aware that their love keeps me alive
and so nothing I do can dissuade them.
They do not even know that when I die I will destroy the universe.
They are doing it just for me.
finis
and only the sound of a second-hand window air conditioner
or the clang of a furnace turning on or off.
Depersonalization is one of the benefits of solitude as you approach sleep.
Only in the darkness can you forget who you are
and pretend that you will not wake the next day to the tedium of life.
almost you disappear but there is still something left,
the taste of a cigarette
the sound a hat did not make as it fell to the ground
skipping a day like a rock on a lake in the rain
but you will always wake up
and you will never be free
________________________
The hickory nut fell down as green as the wind isn’t,
taking four dried leaves and another nut (entirely closed) down to closely cut grass.
The leaves fluttered slowly in the air
as if they were dancing
and knew they would never dance again.
The two fallen seeds began a conversation.
The younger was livid and screaming “My mother loves me and you took me from her!”
The other smiled where his skin was beginning to split and said
“My brother, she was always going to drop you.
Perhaps you are too young to fall. Maybe you will rot here on the ground,
Maybe the monsters with long teeth and thick tails will spirit you away
and bury you in a secret place, only to eat you when the world is cold.
But this is how we become a tree someday and many of us die,
and maybe it will be you because I made you fall too early
and for that I am sorry
although you would probably have died anyway.”
The younger thought about this for a moment and suddenly a wizened old man
raked them both up and the four leaves too and put them all on the burnpile.
___________________________________________
Her hair was black and her lips were red
and she drank a different beer than I was drinking.
We were at the Mexican restaurant close to my apartment
where Happy Hour started at about one in the afternoon,
and at the table she sat across from me and I looked at her
and she was beautiful
and her boyfriend was there too and he was loudly talking
about something but I was not listening
because I had a tall beer the color of amber, without an orange,
and I could pay for it.
After a little while I had to take a piss so I wordlessly stood
and walked toward the bathroom.
Before you walked right or left for a door they had these miniature saloon doors,
slatted like window shutters, and I opened them and heard footsteps
so I stood to the side
and then her tongue was in my mouth and she was pushing me against the wall
and before I knew it I could breathe.
I said “Are you trying to get me killed?” and she kissed me again
and my desire was careless so I lifted her off the ground
and her arms were around my neck and she was a flood I could not stop
and I tasted the light beer she was drinking and her lips were red
and then there was a sound
so I put her down and quickly went into the bathroom and locked the door
and said “Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ”
although I never believed in Him
and took a piss and washed my hands and by the time I got to the table
she was sitting there by her boyfriend
so I looked over at Mariano and raised my finger so he would know
that I needed another beer.
_______________________________________
I could hear the wine pouring through the phone into her glass
and she said
“I want a baby. Did you know babies can learn in the womb?
Isn’t that beautiful? They would learn so much from me
and if it didn’t turn out well
I could just give it up for adoption.”
And I laughed in the terrible way that I know and later
she said “I don’t even think you can be sweet to a woman,”
and I said “I can be,”
and she asked me how, so I told her
that I am half-decent at giving massages
and don’t mind giving my money away
and that I know how to brush hair and make breakfast and get water
and hold someone when their cramps start up
and I told her I wasn’t really such a bad guy as I pretended to be
and then I started crying or maybe I was crying all along.
Later she explained to me that she did not want to date me or fuck me
and all I could think to say was “Man, I never asked you.”
________________________________________________
A History of Madness 5 is spurious.
_____________________________________
The present controls the accuracy of memory
more than the past ever could.
Often, in some shitty sports bar or cup of coffee
I have tried to summon the ghosts that kiss me to sleep at night.
Who knows what lies I have whispered to those shadows and plumes of steam?
I find that I feel guilty for any injustice that could be imagined,
even if it existed in fiction. The mere names of countries can fill me with dread,
knowing that at any moment my brain will begin a demonic litany:
Years, numbers of the slain, names of villages that are no longer villages.
And why should I bear the hate of mankind
upon my shoulders as if they were broad enough to hold it all?
I do not mean to suggest that I identify with the victims or their families.
I do not believe that I am capable of any such emotions,
but many times I have worn the bloody boots of monsters as I drift through sleep.
When I created the world I never meant for any of this to happen.
________________________________________
I stood on a slab of concrete
killing ants.
When I was a younger man I knew their Latin name,
I could define their mandibles and thoraxes
but now I crush them
by the hundred beneath my heel.
I believe, though I do not know why,
that their dying sends a chemical signal to the others.
I see them shy away from a fallen friend,
but what does an ant know of death
and why should it be feared?
There were two carrying a corpse larger than they were,
the others scurried past them but they walked crab-legged
across the concrete slab without getting anywhere.
I chose one and smashed him right through the brain.
The other struggled, unaware that his comrade had died—
he carried the worm first one way and then the other,
he tangled it in the fallen leaves, he abandoned it
but none of the other hundreds took up that burden.
He waited for about fourteen seconds then walked along the line the other ants had made.
I watched him, my eyes focused on his black armor,
and I thought of her
so small against my chest,
her black hair flowing all around
while the devil told me his daughter’s name.
I let the ant go into the hive after he tore up a piece of a butterfly
and placed it in his jaws before beginning the long walk home.
I will kill him tomorrow.
_____________________________
Once I was proud of the things I had learned.
Any moment could remind me of another—
Ivan Grozny murdering his son could be evoked
by drinking vodka on a cold and rainy day,
the phantasms of summer evening were more terrible still
and arose of their own accord,
and any woman could be brought to life
through the touch of a different woman.
Memory is not an insurmountable thing,
but most times we are not willing
to make enough fire to entirely burn our library.
We are left with husks:
proper nouns
the shading of green in a lover’s eyes
the words she says when she is asleep.
Nearly everything is dying again.
I have been waiting for winter all year
but it does not satisfy me.
I loved a woman once and she lives on
like the pine trees that are planted
to hide a forest that has just been cut down.
______________________________________
The actions of man are as easily explained as the vagaries of the weather.
Any account of a moment or a life is necessarily colored
by the one who is aching out their remembrance so that we may understand.
Who benefits from these exchanges?
People are either capable of telling the truth or they are not.
We must believe that all the souls of humanity are not base liars,
But who among us has not recalled in detail a conversation that never took place
or a childhood summer spent on the shores of a lake that cannot be found on a map?
It may be that time is changing behind us, and that all our stories were once true.
_________________________________________
I said,
“I went looking for you in the winesinks and in the bars with sawdust floors—
You were not there.”
I said,
“I went looking for you in the whorehouses,
where the women have the names of gemstones
but their eyes are dull and dead—
You were not there.”
I said,
“I went looking for you in the jailhouse and the gutters,
where I kicked over a hundred bums looking for a tattoo as evil as yours,
a blade carved deep with runes that told of devouring hate and desire—
You were not there.”
When I found you floating by the river
your lips were purple like the toga of a god
and the back of your head where the bullet made its exit
dripped slow crimson tears into the water
and you told me many things and afterward I let you drift away.
___________________________________________
After sleeping on the floor for three months
I realized that I had not learned a thing.
I slept or did not sleep. Women arrived
Or they did not, it was the same to me.
I did not understand then that a man lost in a forest is lost in the past, although a forest was outside my window. Even now I do not understand.
__________________________________________
Like any other god I am sustained by belief.
For many years I have labored to reduce the faith of my cult,
but they stubbornly persist.
Always I long for death but their prayers keep me here.
I am cruel to them, inconsiderate beyond reproach,
but they insist on forgiving me.
Though I have never told them,
I feel they are aware that their love keeps me alive
and so nothing I do can dissuade them.
They do not even know that when I die I will destroy the universe.
They are doing it just for me.
finis
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