sidebrow

I cried the first time I heard him sing. Very softly it destroyed my reasoning. The pen itself resists writing down such voluptuous nonsense. I become a dull stuttering scholar. Rays of language answer whether I want them to or not. 


I had funky primitive equipment. Everything was mono. All of the birds talking at once. The vacuum cleaner motor had a drone, so I played along with that: 


Dearest __ (a single upper case initial inscribed on page 24 — feathers optional)


We are either going to dissolve as a human race or we are going to break through into a new understanding of what it is to be a human being. 


I can picture a whole opera in my mind. A gentle puppet show traces the origin of a few ideas. While peeping through little holes an audience rids itself of itself. Reflections in bent aluminum foil watching painted replicas enjoy the tactile thing. 


I am indifferent to railways and common noises. Their vibrations create a weapon inside me. I recite by heart the daily headlines to reduce their effectiveness. I can’t determine the points of pressure against my skull. But in the dark I can search a room for a small pair of scissors or even a needle and find them. It was a huge room I remembered from college. People asleep in hammocks who didn’t wake up in time. Lifelong habits. The vividness of a bird about to be eaten by a cat. Large dragon-like shapes that sit beside me when I play the notes. Insects of all sorts come out of the piano bench. They remind me of the old dances. I watch my hands move over a black and white surface in the shape of child. He’s made out of bathroom tiles. His face like slips of paper. He makes me kiss my own arrangements.