Inspired by Ben Shahn

Inspired by Ben Shahn:

"I'd forgotten by then. Even their names. I was about 7 I guess. Lived round the corner from them. They'd play each day after school. No matter what happened at school too: a whipping or whooping or an ever-what, they never didn't stop to play on that swing. They'd scream like they was running out of fun; like they was squeezing the last drop outta fun before the night came and put the lights out. But like I say, by that time I'd forgot - I was long gone. Some man from the city gave me the address of his friend and says, "He'll see you right kid". Said I'll make all the money I need and never have to worry again. I'm about 15 now, and I'm still looking for him. Even in the trash where I sometimes get food. But I remember those girls, on that swing, and how they twirl".

Inspired by Samuel Beckett

"Wait until you hear it: just sit there, put your things straight, sit and just wait". This is what they say. This is what they say every time. To anyone. To anyone, day or night; night or day. No matter where or when they come from.... The same thing. The same thing every time.... You can see for yourself: here, sit here; no, perhaps over here, and listen: take note of the one on the right: that one is always loud, the easiest to hear.... See - was I right? They can't help themselves! And it matters not whether you're from here, from there, from anywhere, it's always the same thing, every single time. Sometimes they speak as they look at you; sometimes as they walk by. And sometimes, you can hear them shout through that wall, from God knows where: I don't know if you noticed the script? Look along to the left - you might need to move a bit - over there, there on the wall. Go passed the clock: that untidy bit of writing? On that scrawny bit of paper - from a photo-copier I don't doubt - stuck on with a bit of masking tape? From here it's just illegible, four or is it five lines, in some black marker ink? I don't know what it reads, never wanted to get close enough. But I know what it is - it's a script. It's their guide. Watch: see the one near the phone? Hear it ring? Watch: he'll turn his head. Yes: he's turning now, and watch: he's regarding the script: checking it quickly as he picks up the phone.... And now - as he's talking: notice the continual turn around to look? I've seen this happen a thousand times before. Like one of those old fairground clowns, his head moving quickly left, right, left, right.... And now - see the other ones over there? See them stop as they come near to it, and look at it - that one's pointing at it! And see in their bodies now, how they're looking towards it, and then looking back to one another, and then they kind of combine it seems, in some shared shape of agreement, before they carry on? It's like they've just consulted God! Got a dose of knowledge! So now they can go on with their going on! I see this every day. Every day - a thousand times before. Sit here and watch it, for as long as...:- you'll see it yourself: each of them walking, pointing, talking, conversing, shouting, looking, the whole round parade, all in the shadow of that single old sheet. And it seems these days all I do is notice: watch them move about, then stop, sometimes a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes, to look up - then carry on. They don't seem to know they're doing it, or even what they're doing. And whenever you ask what they're doing; whenever you say anything they say, "Wait until you hear it; just sit there, put your things straight, sit and just wait". Every time. Every single time. And I've been waiting 14 years. And I've never heard it - ever. And neither have they.

This Multitude of Call

them that are, already. standing there, in their shape. in rows, in various shades, of black, white grey. all surrounded by black - not darkness, but black. deep black; black of depth and sustenance. and there you are too, riding them, walking them, striding them, almost one of them, as they rise to meet you doing so. the black is steady - it agrees, it doesn't ask or answer, but steadies and sustains all of this, as you go on. not a part, but what is here accepts the differences, and in doing so, nullifies it. as you walk on, guaranteed amongst the shaping, the shading, this multitude of call

not a word

this is what occurs before writing kicks in. these are marks on a screen like tiny whispers riggling out to be seen, just to be seen. Perhaps heard, like a whisper is heard. But not to be read - not converted and translated by all our prose systems of the mind, needing each riggle to make some sense; to be a certain word; to form a sentence then a chain of meaning.... nope. this isn't writing. these are not words. these are riggles, this is riggling

Through the That. To This

This moment barely shields me. I strengthen it with words and thoughts, with what I conjurously imagine. This defends me against all that - the barking; the long predicatble black lines; the droning of machines and mouths; the glassy-eyed yesses of course... I defend these moments, triggering off words; shooting out thoughts; walking like battalions my imaginary way. Through the That. To This.

this was right here

then there's the risk of writing this. then this itself: the risk of writing simply this, utterly neglectfully perseveringly on and on and on into and even going passed it to go directly into it: to this. soon to find only another one waiting right here next to it. until realizing blazingly suddenly, and right here, that right here is this now; right here has taken this's place. and so right here is this now. even though, this was right here.

Pilgrim's Progress - Wicket Gate

even the glare here is organized

Pilgrim's Progress - Day Wait

For you these walls are tightened air. Are chairs of solid water. And those houses, elements shaped. And for you the same, but various airs - winds in clot; breezes boxed; gusts that are unsure. But for me: - all this is time coming through. Halted. Moving. Waiting. Delayed. At a peak. In a fall. This photograph is a catch of it passing through. See how that chair is a sturdy pause of it? See the table, a hoping wait? But the wall surrounding the window is a gone of it; and those blinds, a reluctance of it to stay - a want of it to go. While the houses roofed in the distance - can there be distance when all is time? - are the mutes of it entombing. And through it all these words are spray; a fingered wisp; an issue.

Pilgrim's Progress - Day When

The new and thick shag-carpet won't hold me - is it quicksand; flood perhaps? And these walls: - you might convince the picture-frames, but might I wander your milky depth? As fridge appears all steady act, but I know you're halted water, convention-encased; boxed by name, as infinite depths swim at the granite kitchen top; as the bedroom doors thin skin.

I won't use you - I can't name you. But I will walk through our listening views: you're a flood in stall; you are breezes boxed. This giddy we we are.

Life in a Suburb: Day When.

Into the 1

10 things that happen after you say goodbye:

The conversation shifts

The conversation refines

As the place of conversation also shifts and refines

The conversation shapes the 2 who talk

Their bodies create a 3rd - the body between them

This body takes shape

This body shifts and refines

Then all 3 overlap

Into the 1

Typing this message

there are places in Australia unfit for music

certain walls. certain walls with certain doors. pale color texture surround that becomes forgettable - lived among so many times. and the conditions - the noise out there; the noise, in here: the street and neighbor echoes the mute harangues of mind. under a celcius high from those nimbus lots, tufts that metal blue, filling these shadows here with weight. under the grey tv. across the couch too hot. under the doors tight shut. yes: there are places in Australia unfit for music. where a breathless air won't get

the coat

Inside pocket. Put it there. (He puts it there.) Make sure it stays. (He makes sure.) Push it all the way in - we've a long way to go. (He's doing this now, but with some difficulty. The coat is someone else's and old.) Now walk with me, here, she says.

He's walking now and thinking about what's happening. About what he's involved in. About wearing the stranger's coat that's old, carrying something hidden she thinks important, about which he knows nothing, while walking with this woman who keeps on walking and whose name she won't tell.

You don't need to know it. That's what I tell him. He doesn't need it anyway. This isn't personal. Anyway, the way he asks it makes me feel odd. He doesn't look when he asks: he stares into distance, right out there - like this: - and then mumbles it. I don't know his name either, and that's fine.

They walk for 3 days. They keep getting lost. Keep taking wrong roads. As he keeps mumbling, and she keeps her name. But they don't stop. Only to eat or sleep. You'll cop it if you stop she says. Just as he wonders how she'll take it when she finds out it's gone. Through the hole in the coat I found this morning. Not my fault he says to no-one. It's getting colder now he thinks.

It's your fault, she says. You're wearing the coat. It's your pocket. You're here to carry it and now it's gone. All this time: and now it's cold: and I don't know where we are or how we got here.

He takes off the stranger's coat and folds it. Dusts it clean and places it slowly in her hand. Asks What's your name? And she speaks. And he walks away. And he returns with what she needs and takes his coat.

Because I'm you.

Words that wore out he used most. Without even a feel for the time he used hours of them, in train terminals, in lectures, over dinner, over the phone - no matter what the situation called for, he'd just pour in an hour or two of these words that wore out. Long ones, uneven ones, ones that would easily offend or be misunderstood, or ones he knew would repeat well. Words that moved easy across a page or through a conversation, no matter what the meaning attached.
"Why'd he do that?"
I don't know - whose asking?
"I am."
You are?
"I'm the guy you're writing about."
Oh - so, but why ask then?
"I want to know."
But you already do know - don't you?
"That's just it - I don't. Not until you write it."
OK. Well he, er, that is you, did it because, because, well, because words just don't stick with you.
"Oh."
Yes. They don't stick. You find they, er, slip around a lot; you find they slip around and slide like streaks of an oily mist.
"Yes. I do."
And you - even a writer like you - you can't actually speak them. Yes: you write them down - that is you type them down, all day long, every day, every week, at your smoky old desk, in that crippled chair, but you can't speak a word of what you write. The reams and books and all the countless publications. All of them, you cannot speak.
"I know."
You, do?
"Yes. Because I'm you."
You are?
"I am you: I write, and I write, I never stop, all I do is write about you, and what I write, becomes you; it speaks you. I have no need to speak therefore you see; have no need to be a speaker or one who speaks. Because you are what I am."
Yes. Yes. Right. It is me. Him in the terminal, at the lectern, always on the phone. I remember now, it is me. But - all of this - I was writing about you.
"No: Not quite: It is I writing you."

 

being watched by that man he thinks

looks at the watch. could be his watch. sees the numbers in an elegant sequence, black and white. sees a circle round them too - chocolate wood color metal. and 2 sharp lines, held at the circle's center, scanning the circle's interior, one and then the other. listens to the muffled ticking sound. he's at a train station. the one he remembers most. he's wearing his Monday suit. the one his tailor worked on. he's sat on a bench that concerns him, unsure if it's creasing his pants, waiting for a train. the 6.49 to work. the women he remembers arrive, all take-away coffee and reek of cheap deodorant. he feels it paste the top of his tongue. looks at his watch. hears the 6.49. watches himself stand in the windows of the doors as they arrive. sees through them a man facing him too. checking his watch. 6.48. must be his watch. doesn't remember another one. remembers his Tuesday suit though. the one he'll be wearing at this time tomorrow. the one his tailor worked on. the one that goes with his watch. it must be his watch. and tomorrow if he remembers, he'll stand.

 

he is in the middle of a train going to work - the 6.49 to work. the doors closed shut as he checked his watch - 6.51, and the man he saw took his seat three people down to the left. he's wearing my Thursday jacket, with his Armani jeans, in the window reflection. I see tall cypress trees tall and green as the summer.... it must be time to get off he thinks as he finds himself walking amongst the coffee-and-deodorant girls, and I'm being watched by that man he thinks too. checks his watch - 6.55. It's Monday so I'll use a lift - all day yesterday on the beach in the sun, and the tide, and the waves, and the time - so exhausting taking it all in, so tomorrow I'll take the stair. in my Tuesday suit, the one my tailor worked on. I'll wear this watch too. I know I will.

Notice they are shadowless?

I am, it must be said, dead. Not yet the deep horizontal line, but certainly a horizontal line that walks; that is indeed vertical, but lacks the all important shadow, which all living vertical lines have. And not just have – it is, as is commonly said, necessary proof of being a vertical line. Of being alive. Some say, vertical lines without their shadow are only alive as the deep horizontal line. And as such, they are not to be trusted: even if you wanted to, you could not trust them, for they are without end, untrustable. But I could not say: I am dead.

Then how do you write, I hear you say. How does one that is dead make any claim; make any statement at all? Yes. A problem. Until you note that the mark of the dead; the mark of one who has finally become a deep horizontal line, is writing: see all these lines; see how horizontal they all are, in the orientation of the deep horizontal - the final, deep horizontal. Notice they are shadowless? 

a drag across the island here

this and our eyes give way. no - you tell me. and what, waste my time - no fear. alright, no: I admit, there's fear. yes. always has been - so let's start here. ok - but you know I'll blame you if we don't. yes, this fear...: here we go.... fear. I feel it now. me too. we stand close to each another, inside this, we know each other well, we're standing close, and feeling it. I see you breath too; you can hear me look at you. and we're sharing this feeling. and I don't want to; I don't want it here. me too - I'd rather it leave us both. to what? to this; to us. this? us? there is no this or us. oh no, - I don't see it that way. these years have only been this and us, here. no: these years have been weeks; have been days; are becoming minutes. I look behind me and see where they began - not so far. strange - when I look in that direction I see nothing. I hear the strains of an echo that comes from you; came from you, a decade or so ago. decade; a decade you say. from here it is a week. a drag across the island here, a shadow fall. I don't understand

You mean we

You start, on the next line. OK. Go on then. Er, OK: here I start. With what? With what? Yes - with what are you starting? You tell me! OK: how about, I don't know. Yes; OK; I don't know. Yes, I like that. Me too: I'm warming to it already, and it's only just begun. It is without doubt, your best yet. You think so. I've yet to see you do better; yet to be so quickly and firmly, convinced. Well, yes, but what about yesterday's I won't know - it had a certain swing to it no? Yes, but it lacked the panache of .... The panache?! Yes - the panache. OK, panache. Where was I - yes, the panache of I don't know. You know you're right: there's far too much going on in I won't know: you really know where you are with I don't know. You do? I think so. So, where are we? Well, I don't know, and I won't know until we stop and look at what we've done. You mean we. I do.

across the sea

and he realized the end was no end at all but, well, what was it he said? there is no more, he said. just as there are no more. and as he did, and as the evening waves played at his shins, and as the lapping sound against the darkening beach was the endless sound of the end going on and on, you could hear the lapping, among the sound of the playing, among the sounds you could see his fingers make as they traced themselves across the sea, and as his silent lips moved they traced the words I will not stop across the sea

Life - Never

Life. Or that which is had, or that which has you, or has perhaps us, beyond the quotation mark's reach. That which bumps and repeats beyond the stop of the comma; is unhindered by the period or dot or full stop. That thing that hums about the sofa, around the big chair, around your seat on the train - whether you're there or not, and keeps on even after the train's stopped. Life. That keeps going. Unsullied by the hectoring want of a semi-colon to stagger the beat; a colon to dam it and force explanation: that thing that keeps on and on. Through open speak mouths - centers of the faces of babies or the aged or us. Through open doors, that center us like pages center our writing as we walk on through. Life. A four letter word. That looks like a life itself - start at the top of the grandest looking L, surf on down - as life would have it - till you're just a tittle on your i, and you bounce, and bounce furled by the quiff topped f, before the e curls you in again, embryo. Life. A ride. A long pull through a lettered word. But try as the word might they will catch us - never