Jean Vengua/ The Aching Vicinities / 2


Superstition

only because i said it / note the surface, the clingy type
face gathering together stiff wages, a variable of angst

imprints fastenings and glue / wouldn't you rather stay
the night's half hidden forest, cool fingering aloft?

fantasms clasp mirror margins / the dry tongue, bitte
maybe in winter a bee in the zone, costs a red ticket

moscow, dresden, hanoi / orchestration of flight patterns
screen of thickets dissolve, brush bottles scour the hat

empty hat on the table, a black hat, a superstitious hat



On Work

I am Henry Miller. What a relief. I go walking naked down to the mailbox with my pushcart. No money for me, not today. The ocean below Partington Ridge tips over like a bowl of light to kiss my bald pate, and all my still-functioning parts. Valentine is sleeping, and the Astrologer is babysitting. She—I won't say her name now—the goddess of darkness, SHE, left me a month ago, and I am free! Except for my responsibilities, for which I must always labor, must get to work. So be it. In the afternoon, when the Astrologer is snoring (damn him) I'll gather up my babies, and trundle up the road to visit Emil. We'll drink some wine, and paint for awhile. The babies will paint too! We'll get to the heart of that ochre, the cobalt that's been giving me so much trouble. Jaime de Angulo, where are you now? Up there plowing the heavens, dressed in your ballgown? Salting the alphabet with your curses? Let me join you awhile. I don't feel like a man anymore; I am my mother, and my father's lost lover. I am you. Let's stumble down the hillside, then, and I'll wake the Astrologer. Free of the babies for a few hours, let us get back to the work. Work, work work! Do you hear me, Jaime?

A Black Spring


what determines a state of openness or

an onset of opaque weather, indelible and

lightfast? the mountains across the bay

disappear and your resistant surfaces

become reflective in a way embarassing

as they say, embarazada: you give birth

to anything because there is nothing.


 
 
 
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