As/Is







12.17.2006


The "I" as Text. The "Other" as Contemplation

Grab the gear shift, the wheel that steers us. The night rider, "I," predicts
rain in the mountains, snow on the plains. Car door slammed in the text of night.
The "other" looks back: drive, he sd, for / christ's sake look / out where
yr going!

*****

On the little cabin's porch the quiet, rustic "I" sat whittling its poem
(out of itself) like a woodsman, but no, now like a text appearing out of
the earth's indulgences, a harvesting of "I." Even "other" has its theory:
text within text. Reticent text within reticent text. Aped involved text
within aped involved text. Arduously asserted, fervently wrought text
within arduously asserted, fervently wrought text.

*****

By now it's "I's" sexual identity on dark streets where cities rose,
conquered by "I." Freudian-urban-conjugal-cigar; the self-contemplation of
"I" & of "other" as one being. So emblematic, "other" belongs everywhere
spoken aloud: a howl so imagined as a blink at an atoll (a curse at ourselves).
And "I" lolling about in some loft of inheritance.