Permanence—by now it seems like such an antiquated notion. To them, the future is located in the antithesis of that: in them, in the exact imprecision of geographic specificity. Viva Las Vegas, New York, New York, London Calling— once upon a time these places recalled romance, novelty, fascination. As they summon these old nostalgic odes in exaggerated, high-pitched trilling, they smirk. They are all deliriously and deliciously high off of each other—they feel that the innovation they are presenting to the world is revolutionary, and begin to chime…’First, we take Manhattan…’
Puzzles, motion, fictitious force, heuristics, chambres, a perte de vue, lost item, incoherency, the dead end. In one of the alleyways I found a man resting on a bed-sheet. He was surveying the universe with a planisphere. He told me he got there via an air balloon in order to produce a shroud, that this shroud was an embodiment of all of us. A fiction of the strangest kind that can’t be materialized in any known form of art including classical conceptualism. He held an invisibility cloak that somehow protected him from the world of visible matter. It was sure to give him good fortune.
This is the world we wanted.
All who would have seen us dead
are dead. I hear the witch’s cry
break in the moonlight through a sheet
of sugar: God rewards. Her tongue shrivels into gas… .
Now, far from women’s arms
and memory of women, in our father’s hut
we sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget? My father bars the door, bars harm
from this house, and it is years.
No one remembers. Even you, my brother,
summer afternoons you look at me as though
you meant to leave,
as though it never happened.
But I killed for you. I see armed firs,
the spires of that gleaming kiln—
Nights I turn to you to hold me
but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
hiss in the stillness, Hansel,
we are there still and it is real, real,
that black forest and the fire in earnest.
Clacking, huffing, almost snarling
With anticipation we raced
Through our haphazard preparations
Using speed and carelessness
To ease the magnitude, the reality
Of what we were actually embarking on
Sure, we were influenced
By the standard
And didn’t strive too much
To diverge from that
As we thundered out
Our hearts beating like
Animal cries in the jungle
Whisps, lines, dew
To give us the courage
To fulfill this enormous task
Of an adventure
We had self-prescribed
The crowds were
the same as always
Though tonight they
Appeared just a touch more vile
We had everything
We needed
In our hands
The glance we were allowed
Had us mesmerized
And we knew
We just couldn’t
Do that.
