First Person Singular Tense
I’ve seen the low sun, fearful w/mystic signs. The erect posture, the dangling arms, the slender throat, the bend in the knees. Seen from the back had the appearance of a noble chain of mountains, from the front a clear-cut forest. Genial, avuncular, more than slightly histrionic. Vague thought of having seen something real in the description of a landscape. ‘Love tableau vivant in Spring’ or some such nonsense, the sort one finds on picture postcards or Hallmark collectibles. Weak tempo, little blood. That face that breaks into geometric fragments that seeks something what? Leaves cautiously leaves w/shoes on sh-sh-shoes on. An image of white legs disappearing into blue water. [I mean, what is a lake except a noun that shimmers that weeps]. The mechanics of dispossession, a rhapsodic swerve towards disintegration, the paratactic qualities of the modernist lyric slightly filthy with erotic mystery. Eleven black marks that whisper nightingale. What comes of wind, say, in window or wind chime. Music, perhaps. Perhaps an apprehension. [Speaking of which, I am supposed to pose nude for the artist J Jacobs as a model for an(other) St. Sebastian]. Already trembling w/eagerness can hardly keep my mouth shut. In the background leafy trees, threat of rain, shadows of birds. A pure state of glimmers & hunches. What boils down to one inside another inside a room. Electricity fills the walls. The glass in the window begins to hum.
(Woke to six inches of quiet snow. The windows mantled in ice. Listened to a concert on the radio. Saxophone playing a whole solo on “Take the ‘A’ Train” composed of tiny quotes from other tunes. Framing a message thru the static. The batteries dying. Died. There was no wood. No water in the pail. No moon in the water. We burned the books & watched the beans bubble on the stove. Snow climbed the sides of the cabin. The wind shivered thru cracks. The fire sucked oxygen & sent its heat gurgling up the pipe. We huddled. Didn’t speak. Felt our bodies devilled by the flames. Then came the visions: Sh! Tom sees moths).