This is an archive, new texts at my BLOG
| SUBSCRIBE
RSS
Dear
Sir
At this point I cannot help but imagine your head skewered on
the garden fence. All flattery aside I find you a bloated vile
politician, manipulating the children, giving flowers to my
wife. Shame! I ought to thread the stem through all the holes
in your skull. Men tearing down a bridge with negative compassion.
Euthanased buildings and that guy running from a burning truck.
The hollow of your eyes like divers floating bodies of plane
wreck victims still strapped in seats. Cat fights across thatched
rooves late at night.
I disagree with your
policies. My little sister in a cage somewhere in the Australian
desert went crazy and chewed off the fingers from her left hand.
All of this while on the tram I see women reading magazines
about actress's bathing their dogs in evian.
Sir, where does one
turn? This system is broken up against the wall a pathetic chair
in a bar fight, irreparable. All the horoscopes in this mornings
paper foretell misery. You probably won’t get your pay
check. The boss will be inflexible.
There are crows chasing
swans across old parliament lawn this morning, mist from the
river pixelating the edges.
Kulturkampf
Succumbing
up against the curb the photographer
with a silent suitcase open and explicit as a
forensic close-up of a gynaecological malfunction.
The halogen glow overhead glistens on his tongue.
Portraits of a crucifix leaning to the left resting
up against an old rotten door spilling out onto the
sidewalk.
There are men in suits loitering under
bridges, teenaged girls at the intersection, amputees
on trams and
laughing café partners in the alley ways.
But none come to his aid. We drive on past abandoned
picnic rest
stops where ageing yellow umbrellas have
blown off the tables, a decrepit fastfood restaurant
whose giant
gaudy hamburger has sprouted reeds, a thousand
flattened bottlecaps flashing in the neon of the carpark.
The radio
is broken. We muse that there would be news
if we could hear it. We laugh, it’s a long cold winter.
What was forbidden
is now permitted, describing your
sympathies for those murdered during the drive, waving
your arms
both to emphasise and ash your cigarette,
explaining as you inhaled that you wished we had a map
to infiltrate
the Ministry of Public Worship, to slap the
King of priests and give grief to the legion of decency.
As we expected
there is the head of a scapegoat on the gate.
Always prepared we have the apparatus lubricated for action.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABSTRACT
BUILDING (HANDS)
Translated from English to French by Robert M. Smith
BÂTIMENT ABSTRAIT (MAINS)
Qu’est-ce
que ça fait après tout, vous avez dit, en promenant
la main le long du bord du piano cassé. Je vous ai entendu
le dire nettement, bien que votre voix soit camouflée
par le bruit d’une auto qui passait. Vous vous êtes
ensuite tournée, avec une espèce de regard lointain
distant perdu quelque part dans les yeux, et vous l’avez
dit de nouveau. Cette fois-ci je ne vous ai pas entendue j’ai
seulement vu votre bouche former les mots qui tombaient comme
des vers de terre cassés sur le tapis. Nos jours ensemble
se sont étirés dans les corridors de mille hôtels,
sont devenus désespérés et humides comme
la main d’un enfant épeuré.
L’homme
souriant à l’écran de la télé
pointa du doigt encore un autre tableau de statistiques.2 Sous
l’emprise de quelle illusion ou métaphore un auteur
pourrait-il construire une scène aussi élaborée.
Après tout, l’homme à la prunelle bizarre
sur l’escalier, en remontant riait, derrière lui
de nouveau. Il calculerait peut-être, dans quelques thèses
abstraites de fin de nuit le rôle que jouent les chats
sur le treillis. Mais maintenant les bâtisseurs qu’on
ne voit pas le distrayeront de son jeu. Il trébuchera,
le ballon tombera, mais ce n’est que la peur qui le traque.
Nous avons tous la technologie, l’accès aux symboles
le parfum pour tout rendre beau, le vernis requis pour le vendre.
Seuls quelques uns dans le troupeau ont entendu la parole, un
certain tour de passe-passe parmi les syllabes. Et en supposant
que leur plus grande force réside au centre des terres,
nous avons donc marché par en avant, leur accordant pas
le temps de s’assembler. Les foules ont hurlé et
ont brandi leurs doigts devant eux.
2-
Ha – dit-il, ne se tenant le menton comme ça, comme
à tous les matins, en dépouillant les journaux.
J’ai toujours prétendu qu’un jour on utiliserait
la loi des moyennes pour nous transformer en esclaves. Et, conformément
à l’habitude, ce n’est pas chose facile de
suivre son argument, extrapolé comme il l’est d’une
tranche de recherches aussi épaisse que n’importe
quelle thèse. Mais j’écoute à peu
près, puisque je le crois, même si ses propos paraissent
absurdes.
ABSTRACT
BUILDING (HANDS)
And
deep within it all the embryonic "wanderer of the ways
of all the world" Odes + Days VII Bruce Beaver
What does it matter anyway, you said, running your hand along
the edge of the broken piano. I heard you say it clearly though
your voice was muffled by the motor of a passing car. You turned
then, with this far off distant lost somewhere look in your
eyes and said it fresh. This time I didn't hear you only saw
your mouth shape the words falling as though broken worms onto
the carpet. Our days together stretched out in the hallways
of a thousand hotels, became desperate and wet like the hand
of a frightened child.
The
smiling man on the tv set pointed at yet another large chart
of statistics. Under what illusion or metaphor could an author
construct such an intricate scene. After all the man with the
odd eyeball on the staircase on the way up laughed from behind
him again. He would figure out perhaps, in some late night abstract
theses the part that cats play on the trellis. But now for sure
the unseen builders will distract him from the game. He will
stumble, the ball will fall, but it is only fear that stalks
him. We all have the technology, access to the symbols the perfume
to make it pretty, the gloss to make it sell. Only a few in
the herd hear the word, a particular sleight of syllable. And
supposing that their greatest strength was in the centre of
the land, therefore we marched forth, giving them no time to
assemble themselves.
Crowds howled and wagged fingers at them.
2
Ha - he said, chin in hand on this, like any other morning,
poring over the papers. I always said one day they would use
the law of averages to turn us into slaves. And, as per usual
it’s not an easy thing to follow his argument, protracted
as it is from a slab of research as thick as any thesis. But
I kind of listen, like I believe him, as foolish as it sounds.
John
Wayne Gacy in Parliament
You
could see the Clowns penis as he approached.
He wasn’t one of those funny clowns either.
He was educational, with only the occassional
sleight of hand and fit of giggles with emphasis
on loaded words in scripted sentences designed
to entrain the childish mind. And he had us all
believing in elves and things, the infallibility
of the system, that the head man in the office
was put there by the people; we even agreed
to let him take our photograph, all laughed
and contorted in our poses. He was our torture
architect, a caring horticulturist tending to
our pain flowers. We loved him, beyond decay,
looked past his torments in the woods, allowed
him to play his fiddle by the fire.
To
The Director of Public Affairs
First
let me explain. My art is meant to be anti tyrannical, it is
the intention of many men of letters to fly their kites in storms.
Whether or not it was you I meant to offend is another thing
again. Do you pride yourself in sticking to the book, were you
the boy who threw away the paper if the pencil left the rule?
If so then I repeat: We have abandoned the dead capital of the
streets, the new networks are virtual, we are marching as I
speak.
We
laugh at Marx, have buried the hatchet in his head, we sent
some blueprints through the post to that effect. Set out to
that city with no pavements from the tourism catalog. Upon arrival
we raced breathless to the cinema, caught a matinee session
of The Man called Horse. It was part of a festival screening;
Richard Harris with those claws in his chest, the Sun Vow Initiation,
could you imagine such a test, to prove your worthiness, your
dedication to the interests of this mass of men you rule with
pen? Didn’t think so Sir. What is the virtual comparison
of dragging you screaming from your desk, tearing the emperor
from his chair, the board of directors in a faulty lift, plunging
to their death.
