Poetic Pantograph Side B

There Would Be Drama Here

What does one do with a life wrapped round of silence,
With an Act I, scene i
Within whose folds,
Within whose folding folds,
Within whose folding folds folding,
That first act has grown fragmentary--
Breakage multiplying into some ten thousands, half-said,
Kaleidoscopic, spilling,
Drifting beyond capture,
Far beyond the of
Of any speech,
Of any meaning,
Of any turning,
Of any shoring,
Of any....
Of....

And Who's there?

The miracle is that Act I can function this way.
It can go about one's business--
The business of one
Of sadness, of happiness, of elation, of defeat, of....
And who would know the difference?
Who would be put off by so much being put off?
Who would be put off if one were to find drama
in some word of convenience?
And only then by way of one's own,
A one populated by the floating chorus of
What would be, half-recognized as half-said:
I. wants....
I. wishes....
I. thinks....
I. sees....
I. is....
I. seems to one....

But if one seems to one what one is,
What is that want, that wish, that thought,
That see that saw what seems?

Seeming?

This, which would be
A confession, a pronouncement, an accounting of,
A moment different from any other,
Is--
Is turning out into some child's amusement,
Some play by an over-educated man,
Who's trying hard to be simple in his own way,
Lest...lest...lest...One doesn't know.

seesawscene Fire in crowded theater can't be arrayed on shelves,
seesawscene But constitutes a permanence after its own,
seesawscene Which is always another's,
seesawscene In the act of finding the fuel that will suffice.

Up and down. Up and down.
So far the giddy pleasure returns,
Each time with a new fulcrum;
The very pace puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain.
For here there's no weight of another,
No return of the said, half-said, and unsaid of before--
Never a thud...a thud...a thud...a thud...

And Being?

It seems to one that this is
The playground of the park of the whisper Of....
Where grow the bits that no one can admire.

Meanwhile, a crack in the silence,
Something said too directly--
Half-assembled, but half-sensible--
And this world, this park, rushes inward:
A vortex of terror.
Mangled bodies, parts, fly bloody in all directions,
Sinews and vessels wriggling and spurting now,
As if never connected to anything from the start.
Act I. becomes a moment of the writing of the said,
And of a moment when terror begins
With pleasure
With momentum
Within sight of
Hershey's chocolate kisses
Yes, yes, yes....
It's always kisses in the end....

The drift turns, gathers
And organizes itself in movement,
In the rush of terror. Mainline terror.
Only drugs are adequate to this.
A false statement, a metaphor to stay
The movement, the pull, the vortex outward,
Unfolding in every direction at once,
A flowering, an exploding,
The last day of spring dying.
And one is already too old for this child's play.
It seems
To me,
Yes it does,
Yes it does,
Yes it does,
And now I know it.

rri (May '04)


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