epitaph / vignette
what more can be said of a singular life
no more consequential after death than a broken
mechanism too complex to reassemble.
stilled-blood looks dark-red, cadmium red
with a Prussian blue chaser; darker than red,
darker than blue, a stage-set built within an empty,
perpetual space.
what more can be said of a singular life, born
on the year of the invention of synthetic rubber.
where somebody lives
not someone known.
just somebody.
no name no face no
obligations or criminal
record.
the somebody who is no one
in particular. to call him stranger
is too closely affiliated with somebody
who has weight and occupies space.
just “somebody”
who lives someplace.
a pinprick of a living
person living someplace
on this Earth.
never to be known
but for the few who do.
a whole life will be there.
an unknown life to most.
fulfilled, maybe. who knows.
a wretched old geezer.
who knows.
an ordinary person who
went to school
learned his lessons.
worked hard at his job.
but hasn’t died yet.
I’m thinking of that guy.
my friend in the ozone
in the clouds, the marrow
in the clutches of sweet
anonymity.
that’s the somebody.
the real, tactile everybody
who is not seen nor heard.
but it’s not me.
it’s, well, you don’t know who.
202 / during the young days of true romance
the door marked 202 was locked, a last stand
against entry unless one had tools
like a sledge hammer, a key, or plastic explosives.
I had one of those: a key because I lived inside.
I knew where the couch was and the sinks (there were two)
and where we used to leave the cat’s plates for food and water.
treats were given by hand for the simple joy it gave to us..
one day the plates were gone and the treats were tossed
because the cat died. I know this first hand.
I remember wrapping the cat in a bath towel
and driving her to the A.R.L. on the other side of town.
she had a name because we named her while she was living.
one late afternoon after notating certain images around town,
I found taped to the door of 202 a note scribbled in my young love's hand,
a living woman, brilliant, impossible and warm to the touch.
this is the note she wrote:
“I was here
you were not
then I left
then you came”.
much of what a love poem might be is there;
life, love, happiness, fulfillment and planetary destination.
"Gracie" is what we named our cat.
I was never accused of being
“too big for his britches”.
makes sense.
I’m like Rilke said of Rilke,
small.
small of stature, stature
meaning body
meaning torso then legs
then neck holding on
to the head for dear life.
don’t know how the feet
fit into the equation but
neither did Rilke on Rilke who
said small.
where do “britches” come in?
well, on the up and down
of every day I suppose.
the middle between the ups and downs
of cloth is reserved for drapery
which we learned about in art school.
the early German engravers were too
sharp-cornered when it came to drapery
which we would come to define as angular.
too angular.
that’s in art school where we learned
about the quiet pleasantry of the Florentines
and the colorful yelling of the Venetians.
all that red.
inside the gallery the bulls would attack
the Venetians while ignoring the Florentines
makes sense.
better to be on the side of the Florentines.
better safe than sorry.
better not to be hooked by the horns of bulls.
there will come a time / vignette
when telephone books
will change their appearance.
they’ll exist in the aether
with the ghosts of our grandfathers
and with the way we cultivate our personalities.
there will come a time
when we grow old
and personal items are ordered through third-
parties delivered in secret packages.
there will come a time
when leggy Yuja Wang becomes discrete
and lowers her hemlines and that’s not something
I’m looking forward to.
there will come a time / vignette
when telephone books
will change their appearance.
they’ll exist in the aether
with the ghosts of our grandfathers
and with the way we cultivate our personalities.
there will come a time
when we grow old
when we order personal items
through third parties delivered
in secret packages.
there will come a time
when leggy Yuja Wang
becomes discrete and
lowers her hemlines
and that’s not something
I’m looking forward to.
a dinner party / the soup course
there's something which seems foreign
to the soup, mingling in the thick minestrone
so I refuse to eat the soup.
the server wears white gloves
and proceeds to the meat course.
the interior light is smeared in dark amber.
my thoughts turn to Nazi lampshades.
the doors have sunk into the walls.
then darkness. I mean real darkness.
not the kind of slick showbiz darkness where
prancing starlets make appearances
on the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy telethons.
this is baseball played in reverse.
the Earth is flat as a manhole cover.
the planets are laid squashed underneath it.
in the morning as I wake from this nightmare,
a mid-sized carnivore has my throat in its jaws
and I exclaim: “ah.. so this is how it is”!
