Waking in the Dark
1.
The thing that arrests me is
how we are composed of molecules
(he showed me the figure in the paving stones)
arranged without our knowledge and consent
like the wirephoto composed
of millions of dots
in which the man from Bangladesh
walks starving
on the front page
knowing nothing about it
which is his presence for the world
2.
We are standing in line outside of something
two by two, or alone in pairs, or simply
alone
looking into windows full of scissors,
windows full of shoes. The street was closing,
the city was closing, would we be the lucky ones
to make it? They were showing
in a glass case, the Man Without a Country.
We held up our passports in his face, we
wept for him.
They are dumping animal blood into the sea
to bring up the sharks. Sometimes every
aperture of my body
leaks
blood. I don’t know whether
to pretend that this is natural.
Is
there a law about this, a law of nature?
You worship the blood
you
call it hysterical bleeding
you want to drink it like milk
you dip
your finger into it and you write
you faint at the smell of it
you
dream of dumping me into the sea.
3.
The tragedy of sex
lies around us, a woodlot
the axes are sharpened
for.
The old shelters and huts
stare through the clearing with a certain resolution
–
the hermit’s cabin, the hunters’ shack –
scenes of masturbation
and dirty jokes.
A man’s world. But finished.
They themselves
have sold it to the machines.
I walk the unconscious forest,
A woman
dressed in old army fatigues
that have shrunk to fit her, I am lost
at
moments, I feel dazed
by the sun pawing between the trees,
cold
in the bog and lichen of the ticket.
Nothing will save this. I am alone,
kicking the last totting logs
with their strange smell of life, not death,
wondering what on earth it all might have become.
4.
Clarity,
spray
blinding and purging
spears of sun striking the water
the bodies riding the air
like gliders
the bodies in slow motion
falling
into
the pool
at the Berlin Olympics
control; loss of control
the bodies rising
arching back to the tower
time reeling backward
clarity of open air
before the dark chambers
with the shower-heads
the bodies falling again
freely
faster than light
the water opening
like air
like realization
A woman made this film
against
the law
of gravity
5.
All night dreaming of a body
space weighs on differently from mine
We
are making love in the street
the traffic flows off from us
pouring
back like a sheet
the asphalt stirs with tenderness
there is
no dismay
we move together like underwater plants
Over and over, starting
to wake
I dive back to discover you
still whispering, touch me, we go on
streaming through
the slow
citylight forest ocean
stirring our body hair
But this is the saying of a dream
on waking
I wish there were somewhere
actual we could stand
handing the power-glasses back and
forth
looking at the earth, the wildwood
where the split began.
-from Diving into the Wreck
