As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking,- John, I
sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what
can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,
drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.
ygUDuh
ydoan
yunnuhstan
ydoan o
yunnuhstan dem
yguduh ged
yunnuhstan dem doidee
yguduhged riduh
ydoan o nudn
LISN bud LISN
dem
gud
am
lidl yelluh bas
tuds weer goin
duhSIVILEYEzum
I don't operate often. When I do
persons take note.
Nurses look amazed. They pale.
The patient is brought back to life, or so.
The reason I don't do this more (I quote)
is: I have a living to fail-
because of my wife and son- to keep from earning.
- Mr. Bones, I sees that.
They for these operations thanks you, what?
not pays you. -Right.
You have seldom been so understanding.
Now there is further difficulty with the light:
I am obliged to perform in complete darkness
operations of great delicacy
on my self.
- Mr. Bones, you terrifies me.
No wonder they don't pay you. Will you die?
- My
friend, I succeeded. Later.
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter,
but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
'Sit down and
have a drink', he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. 'You have SARDINES in
it.'
'Yes, it needed something there.'
'Oh.' I go and the days go by
and I drop
in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in.
The painting
is finished. 'Where's SARDINES?'
All that's left is just
letters,
'It was too much,' Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange.
Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There
should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and
life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished
and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And
one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.
It will not resemble the sea.
It will not have dirt on its thick hands.
It will not be part of the weather.
It will not reveal its name.
It will not have dreams you can count on.
It will not be photogenic.
It will not attend our sorrow.
It will not console our children.
It will not be able to help us.
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.