The Ghosts of Jay MillAr

by Jay Millar

  poetry waiting patiently to be discovered.

  Then imagine not waking up.

  Perfectly Ordinary Dream #1979 (May 4, 1996)

  We could be as content as they. After several days of failed sexual intimacy they decided to throw a party. For fun they traded gender before the guests arrived, in order to explore one another’s energy, and to learn a little more about themselves. Everyone was in attendance that evening, from the most famous of pop stars to the lowliest of poets, ghouls, and the like. They chose only to kill those of the literary genre. The first had been a harmless accident. The young woman had been dancing spasmodically to the sound of harps and razor-sharp violins, dubbed over by crickets, junebugs and something else (was it a solo praying mantis?) when she embraced William Blake so violently she snapped his neck. (For years to come the memory of the gentle pop that came to her ears in what seemed an eternity of silence followed by the folding of the man himself like a swan’s last breath into her neck was enough to move her to orgasm.) After that it became more of an act of amusement to pick them off one by one during the course of the evening, then make up excuses as to their whereabouts. It was, after all, a rather boring party. (’Purdy? Why he’s outside chopping wood again‘Christina Rosetti? Oh, she’s in the can. Been in there a while too. I don’t know what she’s doing in there.’ ‘Tom Pynchon has been dead for years you fool!’ and so on…) Of course the party had been days ago, and the bodies they had hung like silk garments on plastic coat hangers in the closet behind the bed were beginning to smell. The young man fretted. He had been in trouble with the local authorities before, and wanted not to repeat his mistakes. ‘Fucking writers’, he said one day, ‘why do they have to stink so much? Can’t they stay pure like glass at the bottom of the sea the way we’ve always been led to believe?’ She would just giggle innocently and blow him a kiss. Every day he insisted they meet after work to discuss what to do. After all, what does one do with a bunch of literary corpses? But they were getting nowhere with these meetings, for each time their lovemaking became more and more intense. And the smell was getting worse. Finally, after a few weeks of mounting passion, they were surprised to discover that the young woman was pregnant (there was a certain look in her eyes), and they opened the closet to discover that nothing was left of the great writers. All that remained was this overpowering stench.

  Perfectly Ordinary Dream #2000 (November 21, 1998)

  Walter found that it was perfectly logical, actually, that she should appear on the other side of the counter today, so many years in the future, demanding his services in such a quiet voice she could barely be heard. Little Emily Dickinson. So far it had been an extremely dull week, so it was nice to see her again. He had not seen or heard of her since grade eleven. When they were children he had been quite smitten by her childish features. From what he remembered of his feelings towards her, they appeared to be born out of a grade 4 class photo-graph. (O, how many hours of longing grief had that picture caused! He smiled at the thought. She was seated only three heads away.) Why exactly he had been so attracted to her he had no idea, but it was there, and it had been something to believe in throughout his young days. Emily had never been able to show any interest in him at all, never able to comprehend his obsessions, Walter’s sworn religion to her and her alone. Forever did Emily cast him from her sight with her vicious remarks, with the whips and the chains only she could cast from her beautiful poisonless mouth, the power she alone had to ignore him completely. And he would never forget the moment he suddenly knew that she had absolutely no interest in him at all. ‘You just go on and on and on and on!’ she had said. ‘It’s exasperatingly dull!’ By high-school, Walter had given up believing in the power of his heart. Knowing that she would never be able to forget his youthful longings while in her presence, he discovered to his surprise that this gave him supernatural powers over her. Sitting across from her in chemistry class, he simply had to observe her reaction to the fact that they were together in the same room to know it was true. Using his voice to poke and prod, he found that he could shape her emotions into several unusual contortions they couldn’t possibly have hoped to create without contact with an outside force. Especially a force that had already had a hand in their creation. It had been an interesting year for him, and he would not easily forget the lessons he had learned about the possibilities of love, of mind, and of grief. And today, years later, after no contact whatso-ever, Emily had returned, to ask something of him. Walter could not make out a single thing she was saying, only that there was a lovely music to her voice. It was the music he was presently conducting with his mind. WHAT IS IT EXACTLY THAT YOU WANT OF ME!! he knew he would yell at her as loud as he could over the noise of the radio, shouting directly into her eyes. Then he would refuse to serve her and send her away. But not just yet, he thought, asking her politely once again if she would mind repeating her request. For the sound of her voice was lovely, and he was enjoying themself, carefully playing her as though they were about to break.

  Perfectly Ordinary Dream #2198 (August 29, 1997)

  ‘I know you were late for work this morning/he exclaimed as John entered the photocopy shop. He took a huge bite of a hamburger. ‘You must now fill out this form, so that I may attempt to have you fired‘His employer chomped again, though it didn’t seem possible that he had finished the previous bite. John looked down at the fat and grease that was collecting on the front of his silk pink blouse. ‘If you would like to appeal my decision’, he said, biting at the same time, ‘you may of course fill out the form on the reverse and submit it as well, but such an appeal can take up to a year to process ‘He took another bite and John looked deep into the gaping hole. ‘During this time you shall work here in this shop at no cost to me, your wages supplied by the taxpayers through the new welfare system‘Ah, fuck it, thought John, tearing up the silver piece of paper and placing it like a bib beneath the gaping hole as it continued to chew its most recent section of hamburger, for the rest of the summer I thinke I’ll take my chances and meditate peacefully upon the state of poverty that is most common in this part of the world.

  ‘I quit’, he said. ‘Suit yrself, loser’, grunted his employer between bites. John Keats then left the photocopy shop. Perhaps some daye he shall finde happiness. But I suppose by that time he will have reached the ende of his life, and the experience shall only be another waste of our most precious resource. He wondered if he was really referring to all that paper he wasted on useless photocopies. ‘A little of each’, he said aloud as he opened the door and stepped outside into the sunshine as an unemployed bum for the first time in years, ‘though I suspect that the waste of paper will have more of an effect upon the entire species’ He stretched as high as he could and breathed deeply. Forget this gamey leg, he thought, I shalle walk all night if it is necessary. And he started off down the street with a happy limp. ‘It is nigh time I departed this place of back-stabbing pirates and greed? The sun was beginning to set. The streets were deserted except for the most valiant of hot dog vendors. Flashy, meaningless posters were plastered everywhere, each one advertising the most recent corporate scam. The maze had been maddening, but here it was only a sunset. What a ridiculous place in which to find our hero, the poet, John Keats, surrounded by emblems of a world gone mad with forgetting. Rotten Fuckers, he decided, looking around, poor frightened twisted fiends… The souls of poets dead and gone… His limp grew worse. And he made his way home upon it. When he arrived hediscovered his old employer waiting for him in the back yard. He was down on his hands and knees and appeared to be praying, but he was only planting a small garden of paperclips for him, a whole nest of them, little silver creatures shining and squeaking. When he looked up John could tell he had been crying, saddened by something, but he wasn’t sure if it was just the labour involved in planting the little shoots. ‘It has been so difficult without you’, the man bubbled softly from behind his soapy eyes, everything suddenly becoming lit by a glow that arose from the paper-clips.
‘Won’t you please come back and write us a poem? I beg of you, please’ And he grasped his own hands before him in a prayer. ‘No way’, answered Keats, rising to the greatest height his gamey leg would permit. ‘For thou hast maketh me to hayte the wordes that poureth from mye inky whole. I giveth up all words from this daye forward to become insteade a saylor of the waters of the whorle.’ And he left the pleasant garden scene and mayde his waye, lymping downe to the sea.

  Perfectly Ordinary Dream #2748 (August 6, 1988)

  Regarding the calligraphy of this parchment

  she knew she was looking at the work of a true artist.

  It’s always nice to receive a letter from the heaven, isn’t it?

  The flowing lines were so precise, and the ink blots

  connecting each moment had been placed an interval

  that gave the overall piece a perfect balance.

  Nothing of it could possibly be interpreted in any way

  (’Dear Death, hello’). The occasional ‘h’ found along

  the margin of the work seemed to have a specific

  reference to the past, to a lost culture, one splattered

  against the new language that had been emerging

  from the hills, and during a particularly interesting reading

  she realized that each of these symbols appeared in lower case.

  While thinking the capital suggested a crossing

  over (having the physical appearance of a bridge), along

  a beam stretching between two states of being, now joined,

  (these poles who remain apart are separated only by death)

  the lower case could only suggest an attempt that failed

  miserably in any way to communicate

  beginning from the left and falling short

  of any connection with the right

  left to decipher all the

  beautiful unreadable calligraphy

  Perfectly Ordinary Dream # 3097 (June 30, 1973)

  They all found it wonderful, living in an attic by the seaside,

  rearranging the furniture. His wife was there, as was God,

  (of course) and several friends who would sometimes pose

  nude near the window while he painted, their forms becoming

  more and more like shapes in the yellow of the sun. Van Gogh

  himself had recently taken to wearing leather biker jackets and

  smoking American filterless cigarettes. It was 1977, the summer

  almost over, lazy, lost, turning golden and slightly mad with hope.

  Everyone content to live by the sea breathing deep lungfulls of

  saltwater air from dawn till dusk. And on weekends they could go

  to the fair! God had designed the attic, since Her room was just

  off to one side, and She acted as an omnipotent landlord of sorts.

  In the evenings, after sunset, the entire group would gather here

  to watch Van’s latest television like a painting. (He insisted we all

  call him Van, as though he wanted to become a parody of his younger

  self, grown hip in the August of life.) It was the only way they knew

  how to do it. No one was aware of it, but he was painting secret rooms

  for them, places where everyone could live and where nothing made

  sense. How often had we all dreamed of those rooms! Everyone was

  finally becoming comfortable, able to ease into their own skin. The

  breezy days of summer had come to realize that a red stroke was

  perhaps a fine toenail. Or a brown one an eyeball, looking at your

  tits or cock as you lazed in the golden window. Or this blue smudge

  was the sky covered with flecks of small green birds over the ocean.

  But the yellow was always the sun. Of this we were certain. Deep

  down we all wondered how long would it take us to figure out

  he was so full of shit? Only his wife knew what he was really up to,

  and she wasn’t saying anything, preferring to sit quietly beside him

  holding his frail, bone-like hands. She didn’t mind his recent

  affairs at all, but she would often turn to look for the secret

  doorway in the corner.

  Perfectly Ordinary Dream #3522 (February 14, 2014)

  It was very nice for us to have met Nietzsche’s father at the olde house

  where the philosopher had grown up. And to discover that he was now

  younger than his own sonne despite the diagnosis that had left him

  riddled with a terminal cancer! These days he was aging backward

  through time. This was obviously the only logical solution, and we

  could tell he was happy to oblige. Our friend still seemed in awe of his

  father’s full head of long curly hair after all those years of baldness. It fell

  past his shoulders now, and the white whiteness of his grin, a kind of

  smile really, no, actually it was a smile come to think of it, a real smile,

  one that had seen beyond the picturesque view of his own existence

  now that his sonne had finally come to visit. At any rate, it was nothing

  at all like his sonne’s grimace. The two of them were rapidly moving in

  different directions now, away from each other through the moments

  of their dissent. And this was fine to us, people outside their circle of

  birth and regeneration, a group of onlookers who happened upon the

  two of them when the psychology of our age could no longer apply on

  an individual level. And they were so cute sitting in their chairs, his

  father’s indicated by a sign which read ‘Nietzsche’s Chair’ and the

  following inscription:

  We sat together for hours, sipping lemon lager on the rooftop. Each of us offered an idea in regard to approaching the world in absolutely human terms, one side pushing the against the boundaries of happiness and despair, the other shrinking into the absolute of perseverance. ‘Keep it simple’, said his father, ‘It is the nature of the world to protect all fools’. Each of them went through the family photo album in the sunshine, one page at a time, telling each story in the shade of the trees.

  Perfectly Ordinary Dream #4127 (March 30, 1928)

  The rollerskating was fine, and Ray had the knack, but somehow

  it just felt like running, nothing special. What he expected to happen

  and what was actually happening were two polarized events that

  could occur simultaneously, much like the past and the future,

  being only shadows of the present, could occur

  in a shared moment where neither exists. It was a calculated addiction.

  Tomorrow, in the bar, she became suicidal, turning up the air conditioner

  as high as it would go. Several of the customers became

  white with grief beneath the permafrost, looking like drunken ghosts

  of people he once knew. She insisted that he drink glass after glass of

  fine scotch, even though she knew he would only make himself sick.

  ’I am in the middle of a CRISIS’, she exclaimed, and ordered him

  another drink. Ray wanted to know what was the matter, and in

  response she ordered him another drink. ‘When it comes to poetry’,

  she finally said, ‘there is no such thing as time. It is all of time meeting

  in a bar at the same time’ He decided it was stupid to be there.

  Meanwhile, in another room of the mansion, Sal was discussing his

  upcoming wedding with his fiance Lyllith, his mother-in-law, and Ray.

  ’The Female Spirit shall surely outlive the male spirit’, said Sal. ‘And

  considering how it is that I live, considering how stupid is my life, I don’t

  suppose I can afford this marriage presently. Perhaps at a future time.’

  And he vanish
ed as quickly as Ray had appeared in the room. Outside Ray

  wondered what he had done to deserve this, for it seemed his friend would

  only propose marriage to young beautiful women in order to tell them

  about the female spirit. Was he trying to instruct them? he wondered.

  Was he trying to lure them away from the vacancy of fashion? Ray and

  his wife laughed long and hard over that one, and he took her hand in his.

  ’We should call you Man too’, he said earnestly. They walked through the

  snow to their car, each flake falling into that dream in which he had lost the key.

  Perfectly Ordinary Dream # 4301 (December 31, 1999)

  Kurt’s party was a great success. Everyone he knew was present,

  his wife Gwendolyn, wearing her wedding dress, her family and

  friends arriving via motortrain around the bonfire (thoughtfully prepared

  by the best man). His family and friends were already present,

  seated upon the available cushions, drinking beer, listening to the

  percussionist slapping rhythms upon his thigh. One guy we met

  thought he had an in because we were in the wedding party, but when

  we introduced him he only embarrassed us, telling Kurt he could take

  him places, make him a huge star. He went on and on about a brilliant

  man at the beginning of his career. We actually had to steer him away

  from the guest of honour, explaining to him that our deaths are far more

  important events in our lives than anything leading up to them; how we

  choose to face that frontier is our only reason for living. ‘Now leave Him

  be’, we said in unison, ‘for he is busy living’. It was a great speech, and

  everyone fell silent while Kurt hammed it up with baby Francis. Around

  midnight we heard the clocks banging, and someone threw a half-filled

  beer bottle through the window. As it splattered on the asphalt below,

  a drunken gunman, who had been waiting all night for a chance to