alors, viens!

among the exoplanets

The fade-out is not impossible.
You take the Acela
while I take the downtown B.
The stations will be packed.
This story has grown old.
Still I will close gently,
and let the credits scroll.
It will be torrid in the 80s.
The cold hearts glisten
in the waiting room.

The instructions will be simple.
On a clear night
in La Silla, Chile,
a goatherd looking for a lost kid
will look up to find
a mirror of the earth,
twice as big, double
all the sorrow,
all the epiphany.

I cannot hurt you any more
than I can hurt you.
There are secret wars
that need to be investigated.
You were never
here, you were the space
I was lost in, the light years
spun from a web between now
between then.
You were my nowhere.

The fade-out will not kill me
or you. We will remember
all or nothing.
Someone’s bound to discover 

life as we want it,
and for a moment
hope will return,
and longing. If I knew
what I really wanted,
I would let you know.

If I knew what to search for
here, all the wrong moves,
all the enigmas. Or there, among
the exoplanets.
Maybe we can count on it,
a better world,
bigger, faster, double
all the promise. If I knew
it would make a difference,
I would let you know.

books found in thrift stores (and elsewhere) in the last 30 days

1. Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities, Volume 1

2. Albert Camus, The Rebel

3. Jean-Paul Sartre, The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre

4. Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars

5. Harold Pinter, The Birthday Party & The Room

6. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Gambler

7. Machado de Asis, Dom Casmurro

8. Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea

my secret agenda

I have a secret agenda.
I am building a rampart around you.
You have no idea this is happening.
All the world’s unhappiness
pools in the souls of people around you.
They don’t know what’s going on.
Their frazzled bodies corrode
from the inside out. They douse themselves
with cologne. I can tell who’s who.
I can tell the ones whose words
are toxic waste, whose eyes shine
with hate. I have brought the mortar
and the ammunition.
I have rolled out all the trebuchets.
This will be a battle between them
and me. I am your superhero,
secret, full of love so general
and abstract you don’t see it
in the frame. I am flying over you.
My shadow falls on your face.
The city is a dark place to live in.
All this is alien to me.
I don’t understand the cruelty.
The snide remarks. The false pity.
The walls are invisible now.
The rocket will barely miss you.
You will not be hurt.
Your heart will never be broken.
This is not a vow. This is a matter
of fact, because I will not fail.
The bullet will rip
into the very nucleus of me.
I will let it smash
all my atoms, crash into my heaven,
shatter the imperceptible jewels.
No one will defeat you.
I will lay down the earth
and all its imperfection
beneath you. And I will watch you
in your sleep. As though
you were not yet born.
As though the earth were still
open and forgiving,
and ready to receive you.

sono stanco

Sono stanco morto. 

Pero cosa posso fare? 

La vita e molto fastidioso. 

Anche la gente. 

kit smart on the VOICE

For SOUND is propagated in the spirit and in all directions.

For the VOICE of a figure is compleat in all its parts.

For a man speaks HIMSELF from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet.

For ECHO is the soul of the voice exerting itself in hollow places.

For the VOICE is from the body and the spirit--and is a body and a spirit.

--Christopher Smart, 1722-1771

dante's tomb, ravenna

I was here in the summer of 2007.

today is the day dante enters hell

Nessun maggior dolore 

che ricordarsi del tempo felice

ne la miseria.

1-minute question to the G20 leaders

Have you included any provision on accountability for the $1 trillion you intend to dispense?

where i was today (california time)

Change of plan: had to forego Land's End for lack of time; cruised by the Palace of Fine Arts instead. Then sumptuous HK-style dimsum at Great Oriental on Washington Street, and off to SFO. Watched Part 1 and half of Part 2 of Fassbinder's Berlin Alexaderplatz at the departure lounge and the (nearly empty) plane before my Macbook went prima donna on me again.