Alphabet of Days (12)

12.

Late-night ramblings – rants from underground – appear to imply that the words, if spelled correctly, are dead, or at best, meaningless – wounded, mortally. If you could hear their silences after the still-point of their glottal ravings into the air that no one hears, you would agree. Their dialect is on the lamb, hiding, while searchlights sweep a black, empty sky.

Ice has melted in my glass. Yes.

All I know could be written in one sentence – maybe add an ellipsis for good measure.

The Brownsville tape is water damaged.

A History of Western Philosophy, volume IV, is missing.

What I have to say about modern music could find itself lost on the head of a pin. What I have to say about the head of a pin should not be heard by children. What I’ve learned of children, I’ve forgotten. What I’ve forgotten…



Sylvia Plath is dead. Paul Celan, dead. Jesus, dead. David Cronenberg is alive, I think. He breaks the pattern. What does that mean? What does he mean, rethinking William S. Burroughs? What does he know about Blondie that I don’t know. And spider webs? What can I say?

I’m not who I say I am. But you haven’t said. Then what you’ve heard is true.

What I write is false.

Franz Kafka is not dead. I spoke to him on the phone. He was a bit surprised, I’m sure. Said he couldn’t speak long. Had to go for smokes. Such is greatness.

These words have nothing to say. These words refuse to leave, refuse to go away. They stay. They listen for a comrade, listen for an opening. In the morning they will have all been turned to beetles, on their backs, legs in the air, unsure of any present they can breathe into. And from their beds, worst of all, when the paragraph is done, they’ll remember nothing.

Well, then, everything is stolen isn’t it. [And this is where I’m speaking directly to you… Write it! Elizabeth would say, if she were here.]

So, if this came to you in tomorrow’s mail – a chain for luck – would you send it to three of your closest friends?