Fragment #177

"We thought it was over. We should have known better. We were tossed right inside the eye. The horizon had sunk behind billowing walls of grumbling wrath. The ship headwayed towards the edge, unseen in the growing darkness. Our sails, destroyed. The anchor line, snapped. Drifting inside the spiralling tower, electric arcs clawmarking the masts. Praying proved futile, Nature was stronger than any god."

 

Once heart

I know all too damn well
that I have a heart —
it’s pumping searing sadness
in my veins as I feel
the cold, unused space
on the other side of my bed

Fragment #54

a year ago

we didn't know

the other existed

today it's as if

he had always been there

Fragment #129

I wish she hadn't let her silences

stroke my soul and my eyes

I wish she hadn't looked at me

as if she kissed my whole body

I wish she hadn't written those words

which now echo in my house of cards

I wish she hadn't brushed her fingertips

over my chin, my cheeks, my lips.

But she did. And now that she's gone

I wish I had been heartspoken.

 

Fragment #111

hearts ago I was a mountain

my summit so far up in the clouds

nobody would dare climb it

in fact covering an equally deep abyss

so nobody would see how empty I felt

a sigh from now I'll be an ocean

 

Fragment #80

The ground smell, raw and pungent, snaps him back to the now. He suddenly remembers his father saying: “If you fall, son, don't cry, and get up.”

So he dontcrys and getups. Unsure of what next, he thanks everyone around and runs. Runs till the streetlines blur.

He smells metal, earth, his own fear. He stops at the deli, panting; leans on the window but bangs his back, then folds on the floor like a rag doll.

Wipe nose, check clothes – tear on the front, mom will go bananas – bananas! He feels like crying, he does when he's bored, or when he's scared. He feels like peeing, again.

The deli man walks out, takes the boy's hand, pulls him up. Takes his chin, between thumb and index, turns his head left, then right.

Makes a face like Doctor Sullivan. “Come, sonny, we'll clean that up. Your mom's heart won't take it.” Mom's heart is big as a balloon in the sky – balloon! The deli man speaks funny. The deli wife takes his hand. Sits him on a stool in the bathroom.

The mirror shows a boy he doesn't recognise. There's blood trickling down his nose. Tufts of grass sticking out of his hair. And mud all over his face.

Poor boy. He cried too. Not a good day for anyone. Deli wife smells of soap, and lavender – lavender! Her hands are soft and busy. Mom's hands are rough like a brush.

“Why did they do this to you, mh? Can't they see you are what you are. Your mom is a good woman, but she can only do so much, on her own like that.”

Her voice is like a flute, it gets stuck in her apron, in her shoes, in her grey moustache. She brushes his hair, takes a washcloth, she lets her finger under the running water so the washcloth is warm. He likes it – warm!

Clothes will be mended. Stains will be washed off. Bruises will go away, and wounds will heal. But what about her son. He'll always be the special kid that end up beaten up. That's no life for a kid.

He likes her. The lightbulb makes his skin yellow – yellow! – like hers. She could be his second mom. He feels like hugging her, but mom said “No, you can't hug everyone like this.” He feels like crying.

“Does it hurt?” The boy shakes his head. She thinks he's trying to be brave but she can tell he's about to burst into tears. That's no life for a kid. She feels like crying herself.

Always feels like sleeping when his mom washes his face, and the washcloth roughing his face. Eyes closed. Water gurgle. Splash splash. More washcloth. Head bobbing. Whispers. Hands. Lifted, and eyes open light, light too bright. Light!

Hand the boy to the officer, he thought, it's none of your business. Nothing you can do about it. She was a decent woman his mother was, shame. Shame for the poor kid too. Like his life wasn't hellish enough already. “Did they catch the driver?”

Lots of words he doesn't understand. Never needed to understand them, really. His face is still rough from the cleaning. Rough like the policeman's hands. Rough the light he's brought in. It's a policeman's car. Car! And the flute voice says goodbye son. On! On!

“Take care of that little boy, will you, he has no notion of what's going on. Find him a good home. God knows what's going to happen to him.”

 

Fragment #43

Where the ferruginous waterway spilt

the algae coloured it vividly

cascaded to the rusty wheel

grinding the foam without pause

from daybreak to daybreak

The breeze catspaws on the lake

the sunrays play with the hills

dragonflies almost too bright

hesitant over the warmed surfaces

seem to reflect time in their wings

Fragment #60

Back to being alone

imperfect teeth and random thoughts

the routine anger and habitual sadness

logic stumped

life seen from a distance

at times brushing the fingertips

tingling the blood

but the darkness

the darkness always wins

leaves panting on the wayside

a small chip of the heart

surgically chiselled off

never to grow back – 

Fragment #68

She appeared out of nowhere on that street

She was like a cornered deer

-- Listening to music, her hair slightly messy --

Darting defiant looks from under her brow

Her face closed -- if a little tense --

Her lips pursed with no apparent emotion

Staying her restless feet

-- She came forward packing up her earplugs

said her name a little too loud

And shook my hand firmly

Her profile had shown no picture

Her messages were to the bullet-point

Yet she was here now, larger than life

And smaller than her voice suggested

In a black mousseline dress

With red embroidered flowers 

Bright red lipstick and deep mascara

She looked hunted nonetheless

Her hazelnut eyes flitting about

And past my left shoulder

Everything about her said:

"Come and get me, I dare you"

I knew it wasn't my battlefield

Yet I answered the call to arms

And all of a sudden I realised

That I probably had the same sort of face, every once in a while,

That hunted expression

She was going to a ballet, she said

To justify her smart outfit and make-up

She sported a tote bag with spare clothes

And a smile to damn yourself for

I clearly damned myself the second I saw her

To recognise a hunted look means

you must have hunted something, once

And gorged on the fear before the kill

We had both hunted and been hunted

We had killed and spared

It was time to joust

Now the memory of her is tainted

The plain mockery of the finger

Finding the flaw and rummaging

Through the wound

She was hunting

Now she appears as in a haze

Distant and aloof

Condescending even as I messed up

Me wishing I hadn't said anything I said

The coup de grace was coming

I pity her, in a way,

For having to endure this ordeal

Yet she had the art to be hunted

-- To keep the hunt going I mean --

To worm herself into my waking dreams

Her perfume is now fading away

Her embrace yet remains intact

Her last lie a stone in the edifice

That will crumble and fall

Her last words already echoes

Everything is trite now and useless

The longing so damn strong yet gradually fading

Eventually falling apart, amid sighs and

Shoulders shrugging into the darkness

Fragment #15

Same old, same old.

Love not coming,

stalled, incomprehensible

present, there.

Not out-of-reach, but.

That which I know already,

unsatisfying.

How did I come to this?

Like a magnet set exactly

the opposite polarity.

A note of anger,

unsettled. Unnerved.

Why do I bring this out

in people?

I must have let myself become

the wrong type of guy.

Perhaps I engage too much

in solitary activities.

Perhaps I have lost touch

with whatever life is about.

06/07/12, Tours, L'Adresse

 

Intertexts

“ “ “ “ “ “What?” he exclaimed, as the turtle tipped the truck over, as his friend asked him something he didn't quite catch,” she narrated, and continued narrating her story to her voice-recorder, pacing to and fro in her sweltering flat, stark naked,” he told to an assembly of drooling, drunk spies,” he finished, concluding a night of heavy story-telling,” she said, not sure where she had lead her audience...”

 

Fragment #98

Serenity in impending doom

quietude in the hurricane

light in the darkest gloom

hope in the harshest bane –

thus are the dragons

that in here loom.

Fragment #13

Drip-dripping under the elm trees

after the storm

lashed words scattered

amid the branches

tip-toeing deer

amidst the wreakage

what can be salvaged

and the silence

the silence after the fury

its echo wreaking havoc

the forest not unscathed

to be healed someday

to be whole again

yet different

such was the force of the storm

such is the rage of the silence

which will last

subdued, hidden

behind what the content traveller

expects to hear.

Fragment #12

Last night, I went down in history

as the first man to go down in history for

nothing more than going down in history

just as history had just stopped.

Fragment #11

Your smile, in the half-light of the drowsy bedroom,

discernible in the thin shaft slanting through the louver,

is like a sleeping dragon,

breathing slowly through a century-long sleep,

never has sun shone through jalousies with such passion.

Fragment #22

Things need to come to an end

-- however ugly it may be --

for as things now stand,

my life goes by horribly.

Fragment #14

Word of God
Searching through
Stumbling on nuclei
Of neutronoms 

 

Fragment #10

Equally tempted by hell and heaven, both ways paved with good intentions.

 

Fragment #8

“Now, how do you tie together the pieces of your life that were torn up from the canvas? You can't. Thing is, as hard as you wish that to happen, your life, once fucked up, is fucked up until the very end, until God comes to clear the mess you've made shooting right in your face. Truth is, you've really messed things up, son. You had everything a man could ask for. But you lied and you threw everything to the devil who welcomed such impetuous acts, such blind rashness with open arms. Your lies more than anything brought misery down upon you. You were trying to flee, to get away from the consequences of your lies, but you were the source, giving birth to ever more lies, and in the end you had to live all by yourself, for within a prison of lies you had carefully woven you found yourself trapped. Like a spider. You yarned it up all around you. And when I say 'in the end', you're what now? 35? This is the end, son. This is the end. You'll have none other than the self-hatred, the regrets and the solitude, the interminable waiting for a message which will never come, and you know it will never come. You'll have your books, which you'll grow slowly to despise, the writing which you will learn to detest and day after day you won't do anything else but this, read and write, read and write. And what you will write will be good, but compared to what it could have been, well, that's the thing: they're incomparable. The mediocrity you've always tried to shun and ward off, you'll end up to your neck in it. This is where your intelligence is leading you. I don't deny you're an intelligent person, but you're socially awkward, have always been awkward. Pretended to be ok and smart, but the ill-at-easeness was gnawing at your guts each time you met someone nice. You'll never be the one you're pretending to be. And none of your friends should, upon your death, judge you for the lies and the pretence, for you never really got to know yourself. Deep down, you were fucked up from the very beginning. You had no chance. Also, your friends asked way too much from you, but they knew where you'd been, and back. You're good enough to empathise, to put yourself into people's shoes, yet and because you can't be in your own shoes, you can't know what you feel because you've never been shown how to listen, how to look, how to love. In essence you pay a total attention to the rest of the world, and keep none for yourself. The first one who dropped down on you is yourself. Your averageness couldn't save you: you had to be mediocre in order to survive, but now the mediocrity has caught up with you, and you're dying. Miserably, at that. Your hands hurt so bad you won't tell anyone. Your teeth are all crooked because you haven't got any money to fix them. You can barely pay off your debts. Your family hardly ever calls you. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying you're a failure. Some of what you wrote, and all of what you will pen in the few months before your death are going to mark this century. But you will leave your imprint as an inadequate, uncomfortable-in-his-own-skin man whose ambitions were always foiled, who always failed to make an impression deep enough to have someone stay by his side. A second-order mind in a third-rate world. You will be the last Romantic ever to roam this earth, with a splendid posthumous career. [...] Look at all those lies you said meaning to embellish your quotidian in people's eyes! Let me tell you: people are no fools. You're a see-through. Your life was sad enough as it was, there was no need to pour more syrupy schmaltz on top of it. But you didn't want to settle for anything less than pure, antique tragic. And some of the things that happened are nothing short of that – tragic – but the tinnitus rings on, son. You can pretend not to hear it, yet it echoes and vibrates and destroys. There, some unseen-before chaos inside of you, and I can tell, I've seen a few of those myself, within and without. There is no other way this can end up. You know it, son, I can see it in your eyes that you've known all along how it would end up. I'm not saying you won't need a great dose of liquid courage to achieve that, but it's all for the best. As much for you as for us. We can't spend whatever time we spend worrying about you, we have families to take care of, occupations to pursue, destinies to fulfil. Yours was a done deal a long, long time ago. You were not born to last. You've just kept on postponing it, even avoiding it, by some strange tweak of fate. But in the meantime you've written for the generations to come a simple message: don't waste your time on earth, just abre los ojos, hermanos, hermanas, and let the convoluted pseudo-Romantics perish in the flame of forgery, for there never was another Romantic after Keats but you. You know the world will be a better place without a tortured poet to heal and nurture. You're broken past mending, and we can't afford your breaking anyone else...you've already done enough damage as it is, haven't you. You know she could have remained at your side, she could have endured your whimpering had you not cast her away for the third time. You knew that, but you couldn't help, could you. You saw she suffered staying with you, and you couldn't stand it. Ultimately, you were right to break up, for she had had time to renew herself, to rebuild what you had unwittingly and unwillingly torn down. You're like a wrecking ball, son, like an asteroid. Poor girl. But you had the sense not to inflict your self upon anyone else, and you'll pull ourself out of harm's way. Hell is paved with good intentions, you'll soon realise that. Your pacing to and fro will cease, your whiling away the time will also come to an end, much to our benefit. Your watching other people having fun, moving on in their life, wondering when it'll happen to you, all this will stop. The questioning will stop. The longing, the pain too. And you know you'd make a bad monk, probably not the worst, for some have set precedents unlikely to be matched, but as you've been averagely bad at almost anything you've ever done...it stands to reason that you won't stand out being a bad monk. I wish you the best, son. This is going to be hard, let's face it, but you have the guts, you've always had the guts. You've shilly-shallied in your time, but not this once, and we both know you'll be brave facing the black one, and I don't know why, but you've never feared her, like you had come to terms with her before the terms were even defined. Perhaps that makes you the bravest of us, perhaps. Now come, it is time.”

 

Fragment #7

J'ai souvent du mal à viser aux toilettes

surtout quand, après quelques verres,

je suis un peu pompette.

Alors je pose mon derrière

au centre de la lunette

et fais ma petite affaire

en laissant place nette.