i want to be lost (from THE PRECIPICE)

I want to be lost—

sitting as a bus takes me where it goes, through fields and valleys and snow-covered streets, through beautiful midwest sunrises--I want to be lost and alone, to rest my head on the window and cry, to be part of this music, the road and the country--I want to get off in the middle of nowhere, spin around and have no idea where I am, I want to walk the road, meet another traveler, hop a train, ride where it will--to live the sadness inside of me. This isn’t "On the Road", running to parties and cities and being wild—this is being the road, losing everything, being lost. I want to find myself in Des Moines, sitting in a diner, getting cheap eggs and black coffee for breakfast, I want to sing the song of this life, have no idea where I am or where I'm going, I want each day to blend into the next, never special but never the same, I want to lose myself between the mountain ranges, empty everything inside me, to be where I am and what I'm doing, become the wasteland. I want no one to know who I am or what I'm from or where I'm going, what I'm doing, what the goal of this odyssey is, to let the wind blow through me and be that transparency, to follow the path of nothing at all—

let me show you:

here this time inside the space of the mind the story becomes what we imagined it wouldn't ever be: the opening of ourselves into the moment of weakness, the feeling of becoming the very image of transparency that doomed us before-–where is the feeling going that controls our understanding of the skies and the goodbyes and the weekend’s melancholy aloneness? what if the moment of becoming wasn't a moment at all but a process, a lifetime, a spectrum, then what am I doing? I'm trying so hard to become, but all I can do is watch, pretending to live inside the moment of our awakening selves. What if we went away, if we walked and disappeared, if we were well and truly lost, with only the emptiness of the road to take us where it cannot go, to take us into nothingness and being, to walk and lose and be loved and realize nothing but just to be the sadness instead of hiding it here the whole time? the king of the hilltops has spoken--you have a quest to embark upon, my son--go forth into the land of the people and forget we ever spoke, stop questing and start being, breathe the time but never know it, hide your mind for a moment and sleep in the daylight, each time the morning comes but we've never felt beyond the waking hour. to where does this departure take us? to the land of no departure at all

I want you to get lost with me,

to sit beside my side and walk with me, to scrape together all we have and be the “other's world entire”--exchange few words and retain the sense of loss, hold each other in the night, maybe, or just rest your head on my shoulder--feel more than what it takes to become ourselves, instead be the time and the weakness that we always knew was there, despite the wandering and the closeness to be alone and know the other, to let the outpouring of our softness dam the measure of our thoughts--the very likeness of our souls is beyond the sense of each other, please come with me?

this is what it means to jump.

The Executioner's Nightmare

i remember not remembering,

being caught up in it,

dreaming and not catching myself doing so

i remember once, dreaming that an executioner had a nightmare,

but when i stood in the shower that morning, trying to remember his story, i could only remember the fear

i remembered the execution-- crowds bustling together to witness some blood and circuses, the executioner parading about (he's a performer, just doing his job), the man in chains approaching the wooden frame, given up on fighting it anymore

afterwards, the crowd disappearing, pretending to have enjoyed it with some mixed-up sense of civic pride and primitive acquiescence to each other and the axe

but i want to tell you the story of the night before, if i can remember it:

once, i dreamt that an executioner had a nightmare,

in which he saw not his own head on the chopping block, not his own fearful face reflected in the glint of the axe--but instead saw no one at all. Not a surreal loss of humanity or individuality, either, a fuzzy blur of a head--instead he saw an axe falling and landing on no one, and then a whole field of people just standing around chopping nothing but blocks designed to be chopped, the block just doing its job, the executioners doing theirs--no one punished for not doing any chopping, just chopping at nothing chopping at never stopping, blocking out memories and dreams and accomplishing

or maybe the executioner said he dreamt of seeing no one, but actually saw Someone, a real person, not a block to be chopped with someone's neck in the way, but a pair of eyes that said to him "are you sure?"

or maybe he did see his own head, but he saw it and it looked just as guilty as the rest of them

see, this is how memory works and doesnt work, now i’ve got a whole rye field full of executioners running around chopping each other up in their dreams and it was supposed to be a metaphor and there was something about individuality and people not being individual, or maybe they were, but now i’m here and i just watched a head fall and it could have been you or me or anyone—----------

now that i’m stuck in it,

i've found that knowing my own life while it’s happening is the best way to be tripped up by it,

like a person forced to listen to their own voice recorded while they speak

but not remembering my dreams, my nightmares, my moments of unaware imagination or action, my crimes against time--this is just as bad as the executioner not paying attention to who's on the chopping block, to letting it be anyone, to forgetting to remember, to killing my old thoughts, my old selves

if dreams only come from forgetting to be awake, if life only comes from forgetting to watch for it,

how can i both dream and know my life?

how can i execute my will and save myself?

Places we're Not Supposed to Go

life is full of holes and I think I've found a new one:

imagine you're sitting on the tip edge of a crane, legs dangling, swirling, singing

most everything that surrounds you is inky grey

life scenes play out far away below--

there's so much air

your knees are wet

quiet,

then at first one shoe slips off, falls, lands, lightly tapping,

and an out-of-nowhere bird calls closer:

"this place is not yours!"

talons on the adjacent rod--/plunge/--

and snap out of it on a bus on a bridge in the middle of the fog,

road in front of you and behind you and a great breathing on either side,

shadow seagulls tumble in the haze:

imagine this was forever

this sound, that rumble, these people--

imagine days and mornings and nights and meals and

long-spaced rest stops to stretch your legs

on the never-ending bridge,

those faces and the intimacy of passengers

in the middle of the fog,

there's a whiteness growing in the middle of your mind:

it's the color of cereal milk

after you've eaten the cereal--

breathe in, "so", and out, "hahm"

you're sitting on a stool in the middle of a large, flat roof on a cloudy winter day:

there's curry in a tupperware, but you're not very hungry.

you've been here before, you think, as you walk

past an old shoe,

and through bird poop

shaped like marks on the ceiling of your apartment

you're lying in bed, staring at marks

on the ceiling of your apartment.

your friends are downstairs, outside, at work,

lined up one after another on a telephone line--

\

\\

\\\\

\

there are places we are told not to go,

places we're told aren't for our limbs or heads,

places outside of productive, of normal,

places we're not to stay in or see,

alone places,

unintentional places,

unsatisfied places,

useless and/or unsuccessful places,

but your bird body finds its way

down a slightly loping hill,

your wings still work, no hole can hold you.

these are places worth seeing, worth being--

places to stay, to watch, to fly from and land.