Jean Vengua/ The Aching Vicinities / 3


The Problems

1) Let us return to the problem of the missing. In every case and for every individual it is different. For example, there are the missing sequences. A series of steps on the road to life that are somehow bypassed. We may replace them with markers called "demons" or "space." It was soon after breakfast and the light was failing; I remember that. The computer provides a convenient container for such signs. In the absence of stimuli the screen seems luminous and sexy. It may also be that the brain cells have given in to previous remembrances, nostalgia, madness. Or, simply, it followed a set of tracks into the distance. It seems perfectly logical on the one hand, but there is the one who watches it all slip by without comment.

2) I barely know what I'm writing; it's true. Something comes out of "reality." Some letters; something is missing, and we know it. The sound of that engine is indifferent to humans, like a dog nosing garbage. Aching for some taste of something. Fat and the heat it generates. Beuys understood this. Or the assemblage and movement of parts. What might be fashioned from it? Still the old bird keeps trilling. Mimicking the bird next door. Mimicking, in fact, the door. Something opening and closing on squeaky hinges. Nothing is new, or should be.

3) I am with you, uncertainty, or walking beside you. Or walking a few yards ahead. I don't even want to know how the air feels. And then I do. There is the understanding of horror, while above a few clouds barely move. Down below there's a chill wind, and I think it predicts my downfall; I think it's all about me. We don't give up winter easily. Today there were four or five hummingbirds in the nectar patch. Some sweetness to gather to a ruby throat. This is uncertain too. You are thrumming, playing the air. It might be spring. I lag behind; you can lead the way. I wish you would lead the way.

 
 
 
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