blue tarps as the fingerprints of god
the hot pain of loneliness
talk about color
as if it were a cure
through the window
I watch a blue tarp on the roof across the way
flap in the wind
in the case of color
unlike in other cases
false consciousness
should be a cause for celebration
the whole shimmering mess
it is the business of the eye
to make colored forms
out of what is essentially shimmering
a visual fire burns between our eyes
and what they behold
I will not choose between the blue things of the world
and the words that say them
I have been trying for some time now
to find dignity in my loneliness
I have been finding this
hard to do
nothing but blue flowers = a pack of lies
when a woman drinks
it's as if an animal were drinking
or a child - duras
agnosia
what one achieves
in divine darkness
unknowing, not ignorance
but an undoing
as if one knew once
then forgot
blue has no mind
it is not wise
nor does it promise any wisdom
it is beautiful
I think beauty neither obscures truth nor reveals it
likewise it leads neither towards justice nor away from it
it is pharmakon
it radiates
the forest was translucent
pharmakon means drug
whether poison or cure
an illness, its cause, its cure,
a recipe, a charm
a substance, a spell,
artificial color, and paint
writing is in fact
an astonishing equalizer
I could have written half of these propositions
drunk or high for instance
and half sober
I could have written half in agonized tears
and half in a state of clinical detachment
now that they have been made to appear
at long last
running forward as one river
how could either of us
tell the difference
is it a related form of aggrandizement
to inflate a heartbreak into a sort of allegory?
losing what one loves is simpler
more common than that
more precise
one could leave it too
as it is
I can hardly remember what you look like
I can hardly see your face
what's past is past
one could leave it
as it is too
the afterimage
writing does something to memory
the image replaces the memory
it attempts to preserve
for to wish to forget how much you loved someone
and then, to actually forget
can feel, at times, like the slaughter of a beautiful bird
who chose, by nothing short of grace
to make a habitat of your heart
I have heard that this pain can be converted
by accepting "the fundamental impermanence of all things"
this acceptance bewilders me
sometimes it seems an act of will
at others, of surrender
often I feel myself to be rocking between them
(seasickness)
you cannot step into the same river twice
it seems that something
is staying the same here
but what?
a fresh self
stepping into ever fresh waters
a rainbow boa named Buttercup
a rope of incandescence
alcohol doesn't console
all it replaces is the lack of god
ask not what has been real
and what has been false
but what has been bitter
and what has been sweet
looking for blue
for any blue thing
I found only tarps
always tarps
this time I learned my lesson
this time
I stopped hoping
the difficulty is that our moods
do not believe in each other
love is not consolation
it is light
when I was alive
I aimed to be a student
not of longing
but of light - weil
