23 Jan 2013

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.


22 Jan 2013

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."

 

21 Jan 2013

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.

19 Jan 2013

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


17 Jan 2013

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.


7 Jan 2013

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


1 Jan 2013

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