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| ANATOMY LESSONS LOUIS ARMAND new york: x-poezie, 1999 (poetry) |
| from ANATOMY LESSONS I it was an anti-climax "in no uncertain terms" the strange light of ending, "strange" (they), like a memory of x�flickering in & out of sight, between frames & parentheses ... the pronominal romance a little further along a dreary road�that channel (or door, or issue, or borehole)�thrusting towards it� speed & no afterthought�motionless ... the sudden equivalence of all the co-ordinates waning in febrile constellation, in their pale sheep�s clothing, too far short of a miracle� only conditionally, finitude, to kill & to eat: a vaguely sinister intent all but naked now� in the placenta, locked-up, something, born at last II finger-like rectangularities prolong but displace the downward thrust of a straight vertebral gesture�lungs fill under siege� the dark & larval mysterium, the water, the ship & the dock & the parting which made you appear so small, to my eyes, framed in that round porthole�all those contortions without ... the tongue ... a moment�s lapse, then the whole machine�coarse cells of ... fractional inhumation�vectors, calibrating the strangeness ("points define a periphery"), con- stellated in the subject�verb�predicate: things only half-named filling that space in silent iconography, immobilised, uncomprehending III a subtle play of light produced the spectre during intermissions�from aurora to crepusculum, in fifteen minutes, more or less an inner spiral of molecules descending the sex & its bodies�larva to chrysalis to obsidian�a polished invention of successive densities, beating at the core though not yet the life that will flow out from you, the blood that comes in through the mouth, the ink, the stain too late for retribution ... "i ask only for violence, consequence" ... outside the dangerous symbols are gathering, arcane, cold, & solitary�an intolerable love IV i arrive knowing nothing about you�appropriate your anonymity, dispassionate as the weather ... so many possible scenarios & then everything seems to be exhausted, already�stumbling towards resolution (it�s not there, though, in that place, anywhere�obsessed with the usual symmetries ... a tear in the curtain, a nail sticking out from the wall�which we end up not realising is virginal, is always virginal, insisting instead that there have been & will be other lives but as for putting them into words ...) fading in & out till we�re short of breath� & the memory it leaves with us, in its image scarcely conscious of having nothing to belong to V does the in(ter)vention take place? here ... experienced in all the minutes of the non-clocks & the non-calendars & the empty non-glances ... the rain on the water�almost human murmur� "dark at its full," deep, unyielding ... behind the door the tall papier-mach� judas figures wait without hope (you say that you are killing yourself with the knife of those who are always watching) ... all the bells, the rules, clamouring invisibly, portentous ... & der haifisch er hat z�hne & die trangt er ihm gesicht VI not now, but when? the difficult silence of a hotel room far up in the north, in winter�in black ... & white�the dis- continuities signal no reprieve, & somewhere in the morass of incident, assumption� when it speaks�tells us merely that we end up not knowing (yes, it�s better to dissolve in carefully staged digressions & then use needle-films to sew together the scattered shreds)�a dark vaudeville full of tautologies ... & after, when it was over, didn�t you open your mouth to laugh at the blank screen? tears in your eyes� & that gulf taking precedence over everything VII all of that was true�the eyes staring out from cups of black coffee, the radio voices & headlights at five a.m., & unsteady steps retraced, in a city with lost memory of itself & lost addresses ... it could have been a postcard from anywhere but here (descriptions of the weather, a deceit or two, love x)�trying to decipher the scene so mysteriously rendered, a glance back to the familiar (points of reference), looking out over the park & the trees� "woodwordings," blank yellow con- sonants in seasonal camouflage�their meanings lie flagrantly in the weak sunlight, & at that moment perhaps a waiter appeared beside you, to take an order or clear the table, & what did you have to say for yourself? too late� the sinister meal is poised, & misadventure a certainty VIII that the dream uses words makes no difference ... trains shunting endlessly during the night�but it never arrived that moment beyond "the verisimilitude of everyday appearance" ... its mythopoeic remoteness�"a mirror is a way out of solipsism," you said ... but years had passed then & the strangeness seemed almost palpable, resemblant�as "monstrous" as a body, wracked to the end of its nakedness ... a leering paradox�waiting for the last flesh to dis-assemble, in the formless mute, for the schism of cells: the vectors continue in their original direction�nothing stops them�forever con- verging in the ceaseless labour of return, in the pale effigy of spermatozoa ... & oviducts, almost-human hands, that are open & outstretched towards the world IX & somehow the words kept forming: acute circumlocutions, dilated & contracting around a knot of pain that slowly unravels itself ... the white fracture of the rain passes, outside (it is always there, on the outside, that things pass)�a piece of time broken off & hanging from the sky like a pale carcass, the bride-doll ... i mean, it is you, & that dress is the same one she wouldn�t take off, on the day of the wedding, for any-one ... afraid of looking, where night flexes its mandibles, deliberate, cunning ... & the sound of breathing that persists, even when there is nobody, in the room you thought was safe, could never be penetrated X in the too-solemn dawn "we arrive at our disappointed hunger" ... clay & soil & nightsoil, like a barren village stooped among all those fields in which dark birds menace the peace of the scene ... the film runs on� a grey structure of lucidity projected in the void ... chance & repetition�struggling to make it to the end even, with senses & memories intact (you read about others�do they exist? who are they? figments� why do you suffer for them?) ... figures in outline & silhouette, shifting across the screen, restless, false identities against winter ... the priority of any given moment becomes apparent�through the long wait, to disappear or die between places, nowhere, barely stiff before the corpse, in slow motion, frame by frame XI to have given up without a struggle, in the vague dis- passionate cramp ... the scene passing, unremarkably, from the mind even of the witness�a pair of shoes, & clothes folded across the back of a chair, beside the bed in which he will have lain down with such meagre expectations ... rumours of new life, circulating in the coughed-up morning blood�the dog-mouth licking at the stain ... & now & then a voice enters with "well-intended advice" or subtle reprimands, stage-directions�though nobody seems to know anything about it (out there, where it�s april already ... half-light stirring from the gloom) ... even the crows look doubtingly in through the cracked window with the nailed-down window-frame�& what do they see? XII like glass, ready to shatter at any indefinite touch�the un- intention intrudes, rushing up to mar the scene, so arbitrary in the green light ... it was a late winter that left the script with so many irresolutions�things of unstable menace lurking in the margin, the movement of attention through an eye, jealous & unslept, the dissonant mocking applause, the pathology awake in the guilt-plagued stage-phantom ... without a breath of separation the monologue resumes (though the blood is fake, & only there for the sake of appearance, not speaking in the present but as a deus ex machina recalling lost life & longed-for resurrection)� objects mutely differentiated: somebody switches on a light & everything goes numb�the intervention without ever seeming to begin is over, the ushers gone, the theatre empty XIII the rain has stopped for several days�everything hangs in suspense of the resumption ... has anything changed, being away? what does not take place today may happen tomorrow or the next day�some certainty, assurance ... the sad pierrots of convention loitering in their absurd disguise, "au calme clair de lune triste & beau" ... sounds, words, corresponding foreignly�& what do they contain? the moon lies low in the water, trailing its ghost like a semi-colon, in the river indistinctly visible; an obscure doppelg�nger, lost in morbid contemplation ... "i am writing to you out of sympathy," she said, repeating a banal expression, conjured from literature, awkwardly ... not a life at all, merely a statement of intention: "to adduce the experience of an adverb" ... cynically, other echoes XIV under cover of darkness, ending like that, the body & all the cold departing flesh that had ever touched it ... (recording events after the fact the writing turns away from "the living & the dead," the only survival ...) what do you want me to say? that the form gave itself unanimously to pathos�laid-out like a schematic dia- gram? it�s no use agonising over details, the obvious, in a syntax of reproach, from the fertilised egg to first cell division to improbable outgrowth: points on a curve arching ever over to the relentless median ... the realism is oppressive & too artificial, a trompe-l�oeil in which all the elements are calculated to heighten the sense of impenetrability�though everything is "in the mind," the illusion is concrete, the architecture solid ANATOMY LESSONS (c) LOUIS ARMAND, 2000 |
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