Write this. We have burned all their villages Write this. We have burned all the villages and the people in them Write this. We have adopted their customs and their manner of dress Write this. A word may be shaped like a bed, a basket of tears or an X In the notebook it says, It is the time of mutations, laughter at jokes, secrets beyond the boundaries of speech I now turn to my use of suffixes and punctuation, closing Mr. Circle with a single stroke, tearing the canvas from its wall, joined to her, experiencing the same thoughts at the same moment, inscribing them on a loquat leaf Write this. We have begun to have bodies, a now here and a now gone, a past long ago and one still to come Let go of me for I have died and am in a novel and was a lyric poet, certainly, who attracted crowds to mountaintops. For a nickel I will appear from this box. For a dollar I will have text with you and answer three questions First question. We entered the forest, followed its winding paths, and emerged blind Second question. My townhouse, of the Jugendstil, lies by Darmstadt Third question. He knows he will wake from this dream, conducted in the mother-tongue Third question. He knows his breathing organs are manipulated by God, so that he is compelled to scream Third question. I will converse with no one on those days of the week which end in y Write this. There is pleasure and pain and there are marks and signs. A word may be shaped like a fig or a pig, an effigy or an egg but there is only time for fasting and desire, device and design, there is only time to swerve without limbs, organs or face into a scientific silence, pinhole of light Say this. I was born on an island among the dead. I learned language on this island but did not speak on this island. I am writing to you from this island. I am writing to the dancers from this island. The writers do not dance on this island Say this. There is a sentence in my mouth, there is a chariot in my mouth. There is a ladder. There is a lamp whose light fills empty space and a space which swallows light A word is beside itself. Here the poem is called What Speaking Means to Say though I have no memory of my name Here the poem is called Theory of the Real, its name is Let's Call This, and its name is called A Wooden Stick. It goes yes-yes, no- no. It goes one and one I have been writing a book, not in my native language, about violins and smoke, lines and dots, free to speak and become the things we speak, pages which sit up, look around and row resolutely toward the setting sun Pages torn from their spines and added to the pyre, so that they will resemble thought Pages which accept no ink Pages we've never seen-first called Narrow Street, then Half a Fragment, Plain of Jars or Plain of Reeds, taking each syllable in her mouth, shifting position and passing it to him Let me say this. Neak Luong is a blur. It is Tuesday in the hardwood forest. I am a visitor here, with a notebook The notebook lists My New Words and Flag above White. It claims to have no inside only characters like A-against-Herself, B, C, L and N, Sam, Hans Magnus, T. Sphere, all speaking in the dark with their hands G for Gramsci or Goebbels, blue hills, cities, cities with hills, modern and at the edge of time F for alphabet, Z for A, an H in an arbor, shadow, silent wreckage, W or M among stars What last. Lapwing. Tesseract. X perhaps for X. The villages are known as These Letters -- humid, sunless. The writing occus on their walls |
© 1987 Michael Palmer