Escape
Among the Beasts
Self-Portrait little desert white of a skull hardly sketch where eyes thrust deep into a triangle of flesh geometry of an angular shape which contemplates the inverted image of itself sliding downwards on the slope of its own curves head crushed torn legs & arms remnants waiting while a great hand closes around a body suspended to itself
Me Too I undouble undouble I multiply multiply multiply I play hide-and-seek hide-and-seek with myself I subsubsubdivide I cry and decry in two languages and cry and decry again I disappear disappea disappe disapp disap disa dis di d I me ME ME me ME ME I see me seen see me seen I use the THOU FORM with myself I cut and recut myself I remand myself with red thread I disperse dis-perse dis-per-se I AM MOVED i am moved I AM MOVED I put myself in myself I me WE me WE me WE me I unkont reknot and unknot again I me US me US me US I singularize I pluralize I me too too me I decenter DE-CENT-ER decenter I play ping-pong alone from both sides I schizo-schizo-schizophrenize I split in several I mask my mask and mask my mask and mask my mask I meTOOize I meUSize I decentralize I concentrate towards the open side I add up add up add up and add up again I redouble and redouble and redouble I redouble some more I ME too ME too ME I I demultiply by two and remultiply by four
The Hand
Elsewhere I was told not to go there that it was the wrong time of year that the weather would get to me but if I really insisted on going then I should take precautions especially against insect bites because these are often mortal They said it was irresponsible to even contemplate going there but I replied that one always suffers from not suffering enough
Here on the Balcony [From Berlin, in spite of Cynthia Ozick] He stands on the balcony in a far away place, raises his arm before him in a rigid salute to an absent crowd. We are historical, he thinks, but we don't live in history. Yes, there are records of this, but we are not in the records. Ah such complexity! He thinks this is the defining act, the actualization of a central image: that of a man standing on the edge of an abyss pissing into a hard wind. Not a mistake, not an idle gesture, but the assertion of presence. There is unceasing arbitration at work here, he senses that, for he is always going out, always being more than his circumstance, more than the sum. He knows it is absolutely correct to be here. In fact, it is a necessary act. It seems that when others return to the scene of the crime they are there essentially to lament their losses, then the criminal is the victor. But what is the alternative? To cower in one's righteous place, in one's corner of self-pity? A freeing instance here shouts: I am alive! By character and intuition, by inclination too, he always goes towards, not from and not away, always goes towards it. Here in this he has no choice. He knows that as in the old fable, the hero must confront a series of fearsome obstacles, the last and greatest of which is coming home.
Further Concentration They will come again boots trampling in the mud stars ropes and x's in their pockets and we shall sit in boxes alone or in couples with children dumbfounded unthinking again out of the same crushed skull.
Tattoo
Our Sister
Forgery
In the Place of Ashes
White Last Moon
Duel
Another Fight with Another Angel
Before That
To Do Nothing
Old Skin
The Reverse of Farness
In the End Some die heroically on the battlefield others defiantly by jumping off a cliff but many die unexpectedly in their sleep without knowing it while a great number go in fear and cowardliness in hospital wards very few depart unashamedly without resisting but me I want to die just like that without enthusiasm
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