I don’t care if you are a liquid, you just better stop splashing on things, cried the man.
Do I look fluid to you? Take a good look, hooted the ape.
If you don’t stop I’ll put you in a cup, screamed the man.
I’m not a fluid, screeched the ape.
Stop it, stop it, screamed the man, you are frightening me.
The Blank Book
The book was blank, all the words had fallen out.
Her husband said, the book is blank.
His wife said, a funny thing happened to me on my way to the present moment. I was shaking the book, to get all the typos out, and all of a sudden all the words and punctuation fell out too. Maybe the whole book was a typo?
And what did you do with the words? said her husband.
I made a package and mailed it to a fictitious address, she said.
But no one lives there. Don’t you know, hardly anyone lives at fictitious addresses. There’s barely enough reality there to provide even a mailing address, he said.
That’s why I sent them there. Words all mixed up can suddenly coalesce into rumors and malicious gossip, she said.
But don’t these blank pages also present a dangerous invitation to rumors and malicious gossip? Who knows what anyone might write in his absent-mindedness? Who knows what chance might do with such a dangerous invitation? he said.
Perhaps we shall have to send ourselves away to some fictitious address, she said.
Is it because words keep falling out of our mouths, words that could easily start rumors and malicious gossip? he said.
It is because, somehow, we keep falling out of ourselves, like detached shadows; shaking as if we could get all the typos out of our lives, she said.
Well, at least, if this doesn’t hurt reality, it does, in fact, give reality a well earned rest.
The Case
Your case … ?
Mine, which is the only excuse I give for opening it.
You are opening it.
Yes, it is opened by me, which is the only excuse I give for opening it.
And it has things inside of it …
Yes, things are inside because I have put them there, each in its own recess.
Instruments?
Yes, an old shoe which people will say is simply an old shoe. It is in my case to associate its presence with this gingerbread man … Then too, this rock, which is also to be noticed … And this toy sailboat …
These are things in your case.
These are things in my case. When I close my case they are still there. When I open my case I can see that. Because they are there they have probably been there all the time the case was closed … I guess at this. I am confident that I shall not reverse my opinion. I am very well satisfied that what I have believed is so. I have made no contingency plans.
Then you are sure?
I am filled with confidence. I am closing my case because I have finished having it open. I am relatching its latch because I have concluded its excuse for being open by closing it.
Then it’s closed … ?
Yes, because I have done that to it.
The Changeling
A man had a son who was an anvil. And then sometimes he was an automobile tire.
I do wish you would sit still, said the father.
Sometimes his son was a rock.
I realize that you have quite lost boundary, where no excess seems excessive, nor to where poverty roots hunger to need. But should you allow time to embrace you to its bosom of dust, that velvet sleep, then were you served even beyond your need; and desire in sate was properly spilling from its borders, said the father.
Then his son became the corner of a room.
Don’t don’t, cried the father.
And then his son became a floorboard.
Don’t don’t, the moon falls there and curdles your wits into the grain of the wood, cried the father.
What shall I do? screamed his son.
Sit until time embraces you into the bosom of its velvet quiet, cried the father.
Like this? cried his son as his son became dust.
Ah, that is more pleasant, and speaks well of him, who having required much in his neglect of proper choice, turns now, on good advice, to a more advantageous social stance, said the father.
But then his son became his father.
Behold, the son is become as one of us, said the father.
His son said, behold, the son is become as one of us.
Will you stop repeating me, screamed the father.
Will you stop repeating me, screamed his son.
Oh well, I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, sighed the father.
Oh well, I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, sighed his son.
The Clam Theater
They had started a hat factory … Basically in a dream … Entirely so when you think that the very foundation begins somewhere in the brain, when the brain is unlaced like a shoe, and like a shoe free of the conscious foot with its corns and calls.
An old brick factory full of men mad for making hats rises in the head like Atlantis once more above the waters … It is remarkable how like a foot the head really is; I mean the toes, perhaps ornaments of hair; the hollow of the arch must certainly find its mouth, the heel is already a jaw …
This is my theater. I sit in my head asleep. Theater in a clam …
Amidst the wet flesh of the head madmen build hats; perhaps to lay cover over the broken mind; or to say the head is gone, and all it is is hat … Only hats hung on the hooks of our necks …
The Death of Dentistry
For some reason there was a vein of teeth that had developed without jaw or appetite in the earth, like precious stones or metals.
The toothless came here to bite the earth and to come away with teeth stabbed into their gums.
No telling what one would come up with, tusks, tiny mouse teeth … A toothless man no longer toothless cried through hippopotamus teeth, I have got myself handsome with a smile full of hippopotamus teeth!
Ah, but teeth are designed to a diet. He with cows’ teeth ate grass saying, I do not like grass, but I eat grass because it fits my teeth. A cripple who must wear an ugly shoe; never mind the glass slipper. If the shoe fits, wear it.
And so they wore their teeth like shoes. Many allowing this wisdom walked on their teeth. Others, moving one more step in logic, kicked their feet into the earth, driving teeth into their feet.
These are funny shoes, said some, but if the shoe fits …
Others began to chew their food by stamping on it.
And so they came one more step in logic, and stuffed shoes in their mouths, crying, we have got leather teeth.
It was terrible that dentistry had come so far only to die at the foot of human logic.
The Difficulty With a Tree
A woman was fighting a tree. The tree had come to rage at the woman’s attack, breaking free from its earth it waddled at her with its great root feet.
Goddamn these sentiencies, roared the tree with birds shrieking in its branches.
Look out, you’ll fall on me, you bastard, screamed the woman as she hit at the tree.
The tree whisked and whisked with its leafy branches.
The woman kicked and bit screaming, kill me kill me or I’ll kill you!
Her husband seeing the commotion came running crying, what tree has lost patience?
The ax the ax, damnfool, the ax, she screamed.
Oh no, roared the tree dragging its long roots rhythmically limping like a sea lion towards her husband.
But oughtn’t we to talk about this? cried her husband.
But oughtn’t we to talk about this, mimicked his wife.
But what is this all about? he cried.
When you see me killing something you should reason that it will want to kill me back, she screamed.
But before her husband could decide what next action to perform the tree had killed both
the wife and her husband.
Before the woman died she screamed, now do you see?
He said, what … ? And then he died.
The Dog’s Music
The rich hire orchestras, and have the musicians climb into trees to sit in the branches among the leaves, playing Happy Birthday to their dogs.
When the manservants come with birthday cakes, they are told, not now, do not dare disturb me when I am listening to my dog’s music.
I was just wondering, sir, if I should light the candles?
I said not now. Do you want to distract me from my dog’s music? Don’t you realize that this is his birthday, and that it’s been a whole year since his last birthday?
Shall I just put the cake in his feeding bowl, sir?
You are still distracting me from my dog’s music. I wonder why you do it. This is not your birthday. Why are you trying to attract my attention?
But, sir, the cake …
But do you think I want my dog to see me talking to you while his music is being played? How would it seem to you if I talked to the dog while your music was being played?
So sorry, sir. I’ll take the cake back to the house …
Oh no, it’s gone too far for that — Sic’em, sic’em, cry the rich to their dogs.
And so the dogs of the rich leap on the serving men, who cry, help help, to the rich, who reply, not now, not now, the dog’s birthday is passing into history with all its marvelous music!
The Epic
They have lost their baby down a sewer. They might run to the sea where the sewer empties. Or they might wait where they have lost him; perhaps he returns out of the future, having found his manhood under the city.
Surely they risk his having turned to garbage, an orange peel with a bag of chicken guts.
She is not sure she could love an orange peel with a bag of chicken guts.
It’s okay, honey, because everything happens under the smile of God.
But why, in heaven’s name, is He smiling?
Because He knows the end.
But aren’t we still getting there?
Yes; but He’s seen it several times.
Seen what several times?
This movie, the one He produced and directed. The one He starred in … You know, the one where He plays all the parts in a cast of billions … The story of a husband and wife losing their baby down a sewer …
Oh that movie; I cried through the whole thing.
The Family Monkey
We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather recklessly with funds carefully gathered since grandfather’s time for the purchase of a steam monkey.
We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric or gas monkey
The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey merchant.
But the family always planned on a steam monkey.
Well, said the monkey merchant, just as the wind-up monkey gave way to the steam monkey, the steam monkey has given way to the gas and electric monkeys.
Is that like the grandfather clock being replaced by the grandchild clock?
Sort of, said the monkey merchant.
So we bought the electric monkey, and plugged its umbilical cord into the wall.
The smoke coming out of its fur told us something was wrong.
We had electrocuted the family monkey.
The Floor
FOR CHARLES SIMIC
The floor is something we must fight against. Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human stance, it is that place that men fall to.
I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse; the pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face.
But should I go dizzy I crash down into the floor; my face into the floor, my attention bleeding into the cracks of the floor.
Dear horizontal place, I do not wish to be a rug. Do not pull at the difficult head, this teetering bulb of dread and dream …
Killing the Ape
They were killing the ape with infinite care; not too much or it runs past dying and is born again.
Too little delivers a sick old man covered with fur.
… Gently gently out of hell, the ape climbing out of the ape.
The Kingdom
… That’s funny, my watch is melting on my wrist.
I wonder if it’s painful?
I have been living in my mind.
Out in the provinces of my extremities, where any event seems central, a simple folk of fingers, yoked in habits, are beginning to find evidence that nature is at last changing its mind.
Out in the province of my left wrist, my watch is melting — hands reaching out, curl back to their breast of numbers in the sudden heat. An old man’s supplication.
Time the bringer, finally ruins everything.
I have been living in my mind. Pain rides in. I no longer care; the king is sick with doubt.
A Love Letter
Dear Miss,
First of all I want to say that I have enjoyed the imaginary possibility, built of course on the fact that such possibility does exist in nature: I have seen the birds and other forms of nonhumanity occur in such postures that must be with men and women … I have imagined myself in such postures with you, where flight was discouraged only by the inherent possibility of the firm horizontal …
As men give vast lands to little papers with line and color, I have imagined more on the surface of your body, giving all the universe in this model …
Yet, I must be curious about your breasts … curious … hungry is the word, to see, to touch, to taste … I am curious as to how your hands undress your body.
I am interested in your mind: will you undress in front of me? Will you permit me the unparalleled pleasure of taking your clothes off?
I feel that if I should have my penis in your vagina I should have your love; for you do not receive the wretched hardness of my desire into the sweet body of yourself without that you have not come to love me for reasons, if love has reasons, I cannot tell …
Your admirer
The Mental Desert
The mind is mostly desert. The moon is lovely there, and almost turns the sands to water, save for one’s natural logic.
At the paper-doll factory we are issued scissors, and warned not to monkey with our wrists.
I am an extremely serious person, needing no lectures on the care and maintenance of my tools.
I let the wrist business go unchallenged. Why should I invite discourse about monkeys with inferiors who, though in executive station, are nevertheless inferiors in the art of the scissors.
One’s work involves the folding of paper, snipping here and there, and finally unfolding a self-portrait of insomniacs in a line of beds, each a night, arranged end to end.
Another ingenious design is a traffic of cars joined bumper to bumper, and so on, depending on how many folds one has made.
One dependable old woman with a rather unlovely stare, creates a masturbator pattern: a chain of lonely men holding their penises, ingeniously attached penis by penis; one long spit through all their groins.
There is the morning-bus motif, the public-toilet motif, any number of old favorites … Yet, I thought to give the factory a motif closer to the popular taste; and by this means prove myself worthy of executive station. I created a suicide motif: a chain of paper-doll factory workers attached elbow to elbow, cutting their wrists.
An inferior foreman merely said, you are well on your way to the misuse of your tools, which may well involve your monkey.
… My monkey? I screamed.
… Of course the mind is a desert; one grows used to the simplicity of thirst.
Movements
In the wheel is the round shape.
The road is calling only that it is open; and you flow naturally into it; closing something behind you as you fall from the foreground.
You fall from a door. You fall down a road.
You can get nothing, can hold nothing; your finger bones fall away like cigarette butts.<
br />
But, in the wheel forever, see it, the shape moving through its own shape like a stillness.
… Falling through your whole life, you are breaking apart …
But in the round shape of the wheel is the idea which is the bone upon which the flesh of the wheel is fixed …
Oh My God, I’ll Never Get Home
A piece of a man had broken off in a road. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.
As he stooped to pick up another piece he came apart at the waist.
His bottom half was still standing. He walked over on his elbows and grabbed the seat of his pants and said, legs go home.
But as they were going along his head fell off. His head yelled, legs stop.
And then one of his knees came apart. But meanwhile his heart had dropped out of his trunk.
As his head screamed, legs turn around, his tongue fell out.
Oh my God, he thought, I’ll never get home.
The Press of Night
At night when the strings are cut; the only string is an electric cord feeding an electric light.
… No, there is no other place.
The electric light presses on the window to keep out the night.
Memory is a string caught in some dark place, beyond even memory; a tangled kite string that will not let the kite rise, even as the metamorphic winds of life will not let it fall.
The Tunnel Page 4
