You’re running around in your mind like its riverview hospital and as you run into a room, the lights come on and maybe music is playing and there might be people telling stories or there might be objets … but then you turn a corner and enter a room, and the dark stays dark. And there are echoey water sounds. And a chill draught of air. And maybe a pit. Maybe horses. Crash through my window. I ‘cared at night. Maybe horses come.
Last week Peter Grace called to tell me that Mike Grace died. Can this be true? I am at the airport thinking. He who has stepped out in front of the beast so many times before, waving a red scrap? His famous garage collapse and coma that made us all quit smoking? Then next time I see him is at a hoopla and a celebration in his honour in Vancouver and it is a Holy Cross Grade Twelve basement party, crowded and loud and all the same people are there, I had not thought life had done so many, and it’s like Mike Grace has spun some kind of Spanish alchemy to halt and reverse the relentless, snorting charge of time itself. I had styled him so adept at dodging the bull it seemed impossible now to believe him gone. To accept his departure as I walk onto a plane to Paris.
A rival poet, some better poet than I, says that we never mourn the dead; they have no use for our tears and agitation...
the bbc
hey, where ya headed? where’re ya headed? hey, comet-hopping robot, clear-headed? not-wrong-headed? you’ll take us along? for a ride? right? if we promise to wear the dominatrix-coloured shirt? and armed by tattoos? surely you would never? ever leave us behind? our black convertible limousine assassinations and our isis beheadings not with standing? but kneeling? victims, well-behaved on valium and valour? our much-vaunted compassion? love of music? surely you would want to bring along the potential of another j.s.bach as you cross the universe? or are we talking too much? we can shut up? you will take us with you? won’t you? surely you will
Or is it all there, and more? you, heading out that door with all human knowledge and cultural artifacts, records, documentation, books, poems, cartoons and comics, discussions, debates political and hypothetical, accounts receivable...
When Heidegger takes Hölderlin to task,
Ready to hand, Ready to hand
And lets his little lady wear a mask
Ready to hand, Ready to hand
He puts his hammer on the shelf
Present to hand, Present to hand
She takes the rope and ties herself
Present to hand, Present to hand
The constant source of ontic strife
In the world, In the world
Who’s to be the well-whipped wife?
-from notebooks of Scardanelli, 1930
to para phrase debord
there is no ex ism
but there are ex ist s
in the re point ing of
the brick front build ing
by the stage s of the moon
in the folio paper s
by the men tion of her name
stak ing their claim on love
at the table of sanc tity
as if they had never for saken same
for the boil ing
for the rod
as if they would never con fess
for the rule s
or simply for the tell ing
for there are ex ist s
but there is no ex ism
