He turns her on her back, his face in the wool of her breast …
The Wounded Breakfast
A huge shoe mounts up from the horizon, squealing and grinding forward on small wheels, even as a man sitting to breakfast on his veranda is suddenly engulfed in a great shadow, almost the size of the night …
He looks up and sees a huge shoe ponderously mounting out of the earth.
Up in the unlaced ankle-part an old woman stands at a helm behind the great tongue curled forward; the thick laces dragging like ships’ rope on the ground as the huge thing squeals and grinds forward; children everywhere, they look from the shoelace holes, they crowd about the old woman, even as she pilots this huge shoe over the earth …
Soon the huge shoe is descending the opposite horizon, a monstrous snail squealing and grinding into the earth …
The man turns to his breakfast again, but sees it’s been wounded, the yolk of one of his eggs is bleeding …
The Doorway Trap
A man came to a full-length mirror, which he took to be a doorway, and saw another man about to enter out from the other side. And as he tried to avoid the other man the other man tried to avoid him, allowing neither of the men to pass.
The first man said, I’m afraid we’ve been caught in the doorway trap; just as I think to move to the left you move to your right. Right from your point of view is left in my point of view; so is left from your intimacy right in my personalized understanding of the universe. If we would both move to our respective rights then we would both be moved to the respective left of the other, and thus be able to pass out of the doorway trap. But no, our reflexes are too slow, just as you correct the vector of your advance I am correcting mine; we end up face to face and have to start again …
All this because we don’t want any contact with the other, which is the secret of our imprisonment. We imprison each other paradoxically by trying to avoid the other. I lunge left, you lunge right, we meet face to face, embarrassed. We try again, trying to outguess the other, and again meet face to face; neither giving way to let the other pass, nor taking a chance and pushing through … But no, darting and lunging like a man and his reflection, coordinated in endless coincidence …
My Head
This is the street where my head lives, smoking cigarettes. I pass here and see it lying half asleep on a windowsill on my way to school where I study microbiology, which I finally give up because it all seems too small to have very much meaning in a world which I attempt to live in.
Then I begin my studies in advanced physics, which entails trying to understand atoms and subatomic particles. I give this up too when I finally realize that I have entered a world even smaller than microbiology
I think then that I should become an astronomer and open myself to the largest view, but see only dots, which the professor says any one of which might have taken millions, or perhaps billions, of years to reach only recently evolved optic nerves; and that in fact any star whose light we accept might be long perished, leaving only a long wistful string of light. And I wonder what this has to do with me or the world I attempt to live in. So I give up astronomy.
I come here now, into this street, looking up at my head lying half asleep on a windowsill, smoking cigarettes, blinking, and otherwise totally relaxed in the way men become when they have lost all hope …
A Zoography
A man had a herd of miniature elephants. They were like wads of gray bubble gum; their trumpeting like the whistling of teakettles …
Also, he had a box of miniature cattle. When they lowed at sunset it was like the mewing of kittens …
He liked to stampede them on his bed …
In his closet a gigantic moth the size of a dwarf …
Of This World
The old man definitely has wings. You see them when the light is right. They are attached to his faded overcoat, which once blue is turning brown.
The wings are so delicate, so transparent, they don’t seem the kind of wings an old man would have. One would expect thick, woody feathers.
Yet, still he wants his hot soup, and wants to sit near the fire and rub the hands, grown thick and stiff, of this life together, to feel the blood of this life in them.
When he takes off his overcoat to sit by the fire I look to see if the wings are still attached to it. And of course they’re not. Now the wings are attached to the old sweater he wears. When the fire blazes up the wings are suddenly there. They droop from his sweater and hang down from his chair, the ends lightly crumpled on the floor.
He rubs his hands together gazing into the fire. How he enjoys the fire of this world …
The Paddlers’ Song
… Paddling for twenty years against the current. We haven’t moved. If anything, we’ve lost.
But the river closes the wounds of our displacements with neither scar nor pit.
The shore was always there. We could have tied our boat and come as far.
We might even have landed and put leaves together and had a roof, and watched the river with a pleasure grown aesthetic; the river that closes the wounds of our displacements with neither scar nor pit.
We might have traveled inland to great cities to sit in drawing rooms; and against the mild baritone of cellos heard clever persons so describe the human condition as a place on a river, where men drown in the soft sounds of rushing water; the river that closes the wounds of our displacements with neither scar nor pit.
We might even have flown (in the Twentieth Century men flew), to see the river of our struggle as one more thread from the great head of oceans … River that closes the wounds of our displacements with neither scar nor pit …
Charity
An old woman was burying a dead mop …
You were a good mop; but you died. And now I have only a broom, my false teeth, a couple of bunions and, if the sun shines, a shadow. All else have died …
But then she discovered that her mop was not dead, just unconscious. Smelling salts, and her mop was as good as ever …
Meanwhile, she had developed a toothache in one of her false teeth.
Ow ow, she cried, pain is too painful. She wished her false teeth would die.
Suddenly her shadow went into an epileptic fit …
My God, she cried, nothing keeps.
And again her mop fainted.
Her bunions began to sing hymns in her shoes.
Her knees began to accuse each other of having switched places …
And at last only her broom remained true to the idea of charity …
The Human Condition
Can we depend on human intelligence to save itself? said Dr. Gas as he began pushing the horns of his mustache into his nostrils.
From what, Dr. Gas?
From itself, said Dr. Gas as he blew his mustache out into a handkerchief.
But, Dr. Gas, how can an intelligence, not intelligent enough not to be a danger to itself, be intelligent enough to save itself?
Simply by stopping being so darn silly; human intelligence is just too darn silly, said Dr. Gas as he began once more stuffing his mustache into his nose.
But, Dr. Gas, how do you see the human intelligence as dangerous to itself?
By being so darn silly, said Dr. Gas as he once more blew his mustache into his handkerchief.
And as Dr. Gas started to comment further on the condition of the human condition he was interrupted by someone saying, no matter, Dr. Gas, your mustache trick is just too silly, even as Dr. Gas was again pushing the cusps of his mustache into his nose …
The Father Who Bowed
A father presented himself. He said, ladies and gentlemen, your father …
His family applauded.
He bowed …
Ladies and gentlemen, he began, it has come to my attention over the last few decades that we are run up against a biological barrier …
His family began to applaud …
No, he began again, do not say that age is beauty, that the white-h
aired old woman trying to see the sock she darns through cataracts is worth the droppings of a rat.
No, I should say more service to the healthy microbe in the rat’s droppings than the poor darning that comes of arthritic hands and eyes in cataract …
No, indeed, more to be said for lesser forms than men astride their graves!
… We weary the promise unfulfilled, the downward repetition that ends in utter, utter death …
His family applauded …
Ladies and gentlemen, he began again, let us end this terrible business: stuffing brother George into the toilet like a turd; Mother into the garden like a potato; sister Ann up under the roof like an old cobweb; for me, the garbage can …
His family began to cheer; they were on their feet crying, bravo bravo, encore encore.
You do me too much honor, he sighed as he bowed; the curtain slowly coming down …
Darwin Descending
Do you believe in evolution, oh, thing of easy answers?
Do you believe Darwin was descended from a thing more jaw than head?
… Imagine an early Darwin roving the trees, nostalgic for the future …
A female Darwin slaps him on the back of his small, but promising head; whatcha thinking about, ya brainless brute? she peeps.
I was just wondering about the origin of species, he twitters.
You haven’t the brains of a modern chimpanzee, she screeches.
Yeah, but I think that’s where I’m evolving; a large-brained primate with an opposable thumb, with which I shall oppose all of nature, twitters Darwin.
Oh, stop it, you’re hardly on to tools; why, you haven’t even fooled with fire yet, she hoots.
Yeah, but one day, Darwinette, I’m gonna talk good, and even learn how to write talking with a fountain pen …
Promises, promises …
But, as we all know, Darwin did descend.
It was at a cocktail party, and he had been roving the upstairs halls looking for the indoor plumbing.
And now he was returning via the carpeted stairway.
Everyone turned and applauded: look, the descent of Darwin!
On the Eating of Mice
A woman was roasting a mouse for her husband’s dinner; then to serve it with a blueberry in its mouth.
At table he uses a dentist’s pick and a surgeon’s scalpel, bending over the tiny roastling with a jeweler’s loupe …
Twenty years of this: curried mouse; garlic and butter mouse; mouse sauteed in its own fur; Salisbury mouse; mouse-in-the-trap, baked in the very trap that killed it; mouse tartare; mouse poached in menstrual blood at the full of the moon …
Twenty years of this, eating their way through the mice … And yet, not to forget, each night one less vermin in the world …
The Head Bumping in the Dark
My parents always kept an old man in the rafters of the house. It brings good luck that an old man is perched in the dark against the roof.
If you can hear his bald head bumping the roof as he shifts in the dark you may have one wish …
Now it was that I had married a wedding cake. And it was that we took luck to live in the rafters of our house, and listened for his bald head against the roof to begin our conjugal delights …
I took my bowl of oatmeal to the bedroom. I put my chicken salad on the bed. I said to my barrel of beer, did you ever see a man in full extension?
My bag of feathers giggled.
Did you ever see a long thing like this? I said to my pot of cornmeal.
My peach tree sighed as if the wind were breathing through her peaches. And we heard the old man’s head bumping in the dark against the roof …
The Rat’s Legs
I met a rat under a bridge. And we sat there in the mud discussing the rat’s loveliness.
I asked, what is it about you that has caused men to write odes?
My legs, said the rat, for it has always been that men have liked to run their hands up my legs to my secret parts; it’s nature …
The Dark Side of the Moon
When a man returned he saw that everything had been melted, puddled flat. His fedora looked like a large rare coin. The dead moth on the windowsill looked like a brown cloth draped from the windowsill. The lamp on the night table looked like a fried egg …
He went to ask his landlady about all this melting, but found that even she was melted; on the floor like a wall-to-wall picture of the moon; one breast the Sea of Tranquillity, one eye the Sea of Opticus …
He looked for the vulva, and not finding it, decided it must be on the dark side of the moon …
Good Son Jim
Poor people who do not have the price of a fence ask son Jim to be a fence for the chicken yard, that is, until their ship comes in; which no one believes because they live inland.
But what’s the good of a fence around a chicken yard where there ain’t no chickens?
Did you eat them chickens, Jim?
No, we ain’t never had no chickens.
Then what are you doing fencing what we ain’t got?
I don’t know, I forget …
Maybe you better be a chicken. But don’t wander away, because we ain’t got a fence to keep that stupid bird from wandering into the neighbor’s yard and getting itself killed for Sunday dinner, said his father.
Heck, I’ll just peck around the house; lots of tasty worms under the porch, said son Jim …
How It All Gets Kind of Fluttery
An animal named Archibald was just hanging his pet overcoat in the hallway closet, using his teeth, when a large biped picked Archibald up by Archibald’s tail and said, Archibald, dearest, how would you like a nice sock in the eye, or a star-studded punch in the snoot?
Actually, Archibald doesn’t think he’d like either; anyway, Archibald has to ask his pet overcoat some questions.
Oh, the heck with that overcoat, said the biped, I want to bop you around a little.
Archibald doesn’t like being held by his tail because it makes him feel oh, so … so avuncular.
Oh, don’t be so grouchy, said the biped, you’ll get lipstick on my collar.
No no no! Archibald doesn’t want any more fuss made about his good looks.
Say, let’s play you’re an ape and I’ve just joined the navy and we’re having a scrap over a box of chocolates, said the biped.
Will you let go of my tail, you’re making me feel oh, so … so avuncular; besides, my pet overcoat doesn’t like to see me upside down — whoops! cried Archibald.
Whoops! cried the biped.
Let go of my tail, you fart, the train doesn’t stop here anymore; next town over, yowled Archibald.
… You know, said the biped, you’re beginning to interest me, something about you that’s different …
I know, said Archibald, and that’s how it all gets kind of fluttery …
I love you, too, said the biped …
The Philosophers
I think, therefore I am, said a man whose mother quickly hit him on the head, saying, I hit my son on his head, therefore I am.
No no, you’ve got it all wrong, cried the man.
So she hit him on the head again and cried, therefore I am.
You’re not, not that way; you’re supposed to think, not hit, cried the man.
… I think, therefore I am, said the man.
I hit, therefore we both are, the hitter and the one who gets hit, said the man’s mother.
But at this point the man had ceased to be; unconscious he could not think. But his mother could. So she thought, I am, and so is my unconscious son, even if he doesn’t know it …
Pigeons
If a scientist had bred pigeons the size of horses, they had great masterly breasts with pink pigeon nipples; and they strutted, and cooed with voices as deep as bulls’ …
They were soft, like stuffed furniture designed for huge cripples.
And the scientist would have to think about cutting them open to make sure there wasn’t money hidde
n in their stuffings …
And they would be like the terrible mother when they tilted their heads, staring one-eyed; their great masterly breasts, so soft; their pink pigeon nipples …
And the scientist would really have to think about cutting them open to see if Benjamin Franklin’s kites weren’t trembling in the thunderstorms of their breasts …
The Rat’s Tight Schedule
A man stumbled on some rat droppings.
Hey, who put those there? That’s dangerous, he said.
His wife said, those are pieces of a rat.
Well, he’s coming apart, he’s all over the floor, said the husband.
He can’t help it; you don’t think he wants to drop pieces of himself all over the floor, do you? said the wife.
But I could have flipped and fallen through the floor, said the husband.
Well, he’s been thinking of turning into a marsupial, so try to have a little patience; I’m sure if you were thinking of turning into a marsupial he’d be patient with you. But, on the other hand, don’t embarrass him if he decides to remain placental, he’s on a very tight schedule, said the wife.
The Tunnel Page 10
