COMMENTARY – THE ASTHMATIC
Exposure to this page can induce a suffocating attack in those who are prone to express the condition of profound indecision which asthma probably is. These sinister rhythms betray the quack and we behold the subversive and imperial intention of a mind that wishes to enslave existence in the name of sweet salvation. Here is the old weapon disguised as charity; greed disguised as the usual prayer, and his trap of panic as an invitation to self-reform. I have begun to turn against this man and against this book.
A WOMAN’S DECISION
Even though you outwit me, I’m not going back to you. Even though the purity of your love is affirmed by the unanimous quiver of every feather in the celestial host, I am not going back to the axe of your love, O triumphant husbandman and lasso king of the gateless horses, I am not going back to you, even though I squirm in your arms and surrender to your will the total essence of my dusty shell here in this captured sweat-hall, I am never coming back, I swear by the rent curtain of my virginity and the blood-thick silence between the bridgeless worlds, that I will lie to you forever, and I will be never again the cup of your need.
I BURY MY GIRLFRIEND
You ask me how I write. This is how I write. I get rid of the lizard. I eschew the philosopher’s stone. I bury my girlfriend. I remove my personality from the line so that I am permitted to use the first person as often as I wish without offending my appetite for modesty. Then I resign. I do errands for my mother, or someone like her. I eat too much. I blame those closest to me for ruining my talent. Then you come to me. The joyous news is mine.
A DIFFERENT DRUM
When it comes to lamentations
I prefer Aretha Franklin
to, let’s say, Leonard Cohen
Needless to add, he hears a different drum
A WORKING MAN
I had a wife and children
I got drunk on Saturday night
I went to work every day
I hated the rich
I wanted to fuck a college girl
I was proud to be a working man
I hated the assholes
who run the revolution
The ones like me will win
We do not need words
You are all on your knees
looking for the lost nipple
We stand here
We are already above you
Soon the law will be ours
Soon you will experience our mercy
I have no friends
I have no class
There is no we
I had to play on your social illusions
to get you here in the middle of the night
Dip your flags in the blood
light your torches
The women are waiting
in high-buttoned white dresses
Your dignity is restored
COMMENTARY – A WORKING MAN
We don’t give a shit about all this so don’t try to threaten us with hints of a New Order. The beings that hover round this table have already overthrown the World and shoved it back up your asshole exactly the same as it was before.
THE UNCLEAN START
I went down to the port with my wife. On the way down I accused her of continuing her relentless automatic assault on the centre of my being. I knew this was not wise. I only meant to rap her on the knuckles and direct her attention to her habitual drift toward bitchiness but I lost control. There is no control in these realms. I became a thug. I attacked her spirit. Her spirit armed itself and retaliated massively. I think we were talking about valises or which of us travelled the lightest. A truce was investigated briefly by shabby deputies neither of which had the authority to begin the initiative. You always carry something extra, a shopping bag, something of string and paper that can’t be checked. I’m glad you didn’t pack for me. You always slow me down. I can’t be an acrobat when you’re around. You’re sandpaper. I can’t be a dancer. I’m dead when you’re around. You kill. It is your nature. Observe your nature. The shoemaker looked up at us as we passed his open doorway. This humiliation made me furious. I shoved a razor blade into her nerves. Her eyes changed colour. This was done by saying Jesus Christ, quickening my step slightly, minutely moving my jaw, rejecting the essence of her totally and forever. If she went down quickly I would nurse her back to love in time to get her blessings before the boat came in. But why should I, she didn’t rub my back when I threw my shoulder out, even when I asked her three times. And why should she since I had defeated her smile over and over. And why should I since she was the enemy of my freedom and the smiling moon over my gradual death. And why should she since I hated her because her beauty died. Why should I because there must be a woman in Jerusalem or beside me on the airplane. Half asleep Old John saw us but it was no humiliation since he didn’t recognize me any more and I no longer greeted him. Captain Mad Body saw us but it didn’t matter because he was mute and crazy and lived on the port and knew the shames of everyone. We were on the port, in plain sunlight between the masts and the shops. The shit piled up in the One Heart which is the engine of our energy. We are married: there is only one heart. On common ground the armoured spirits tried to embrace but they both fell down paralyzed. Pain removed the world. They felt for the organs of sex but they were gone. There was no war, no peace, no world, the punishment of marriage spoiled. There is no Armageddon here.
