by Steve Finbow
into dark desert
more night things
cats & owls
coyotes wolves where
there was desert,
now there is snow where once were dunes,
now there are mountains
come to,
wipe saliva from face,
meaty reek of spit
where?
where is Z?
stand head throbs mouth parched
walk into kitchen,
drink deeply from cold tap,
cordial of rust & iron
fill basin plunge face under water open eyes,
see swimming cockroaches,
ants, pull out,
shake head,
run fingers over head,
feel small bumps,
trace of names,
scarred past
think
maybe that’s it maybe Z wants another third
suicide
look in mirror tic-tac-toe of Xs over heart…
XXX
XXX
XXX
blanking it out cross-hatched once was lonely hunter marks spot barefoot, look thru papers scattered around room blank blank blank
no clues no cues
why & how here? phone rings
ring-ring ring-ring ring-ring
trip over upturned furniture, bark shins, stub toes, graze knuckles
ring-ring ring-ring ring-ring
where is the fucking thing? stop still steady
ring-ring ring-ring ring-ring
shake head thinking it is coming from within
ring-ring ring-ring ring-ring
follow sound out into hallway dark
ring-ring ring-ring ring-ring
there stand over, watching old-fashioned rotary cream-colored ring-ring ring-ring ring-
pick it up, say,
“yes…”
Dog Eats Dog
…I hold the handset.
Open my mouth. No words.
Close my eyes. Think—
“Put it down. Leave it. Know I can’t. Know I won’t.” Say,
“I need you. Tell me a story.”
Turn off the phone, knowing he knows.
Things fly by unbidden. Buzzing.
The sound of memory speeded up
until near impossible to recall, to sieve.
It is not easy to tell stories.
Some of us have it.
Others do not.
The chase is simple.
It has a beginning and an end.
A finding or and escaping.
A discovery or a disappointment.
El Dorado, Oz, Jean Valjean, Richard Hannay.
It is whether or not you care about the chase.
The quarry. The chaser. Who chases whom?
Catch me if you can.
Kiss chase.
Kiss of death
chase.
Even surrounded by mirrors
he will never be able to read them all.
This is why I have left him the ledgers.
The lists.
Only in knowing them all can he have real closure.
Peace.
If that’s what he wants.
They all followed.
They all faltered.
They all failed.
I take down my Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English from the shelf,
open it, lift out the Ruger, heavy, dense.
Press the barrel against my teeth, lick the sight,
tongue the length, tease the muzzle.
Hold it to my right eye,
imagine the mass and speed of the bullet.
Would I know?
Would there be an instance,
an intense fraction of time that I would feel?
Instant.
Maybe that’s what it is.
When X tortured those men,
maybe I was reliving the minuscule moments of non-existence,
the flash of not being.
Sex, likewise, the more extreme,
the less one is like oneself.
That escape.
We are all escaping something.
Some
thing.
You, me, X, the President of the United States,
the gurgling moron pumping his cock in a padded room in Siberia.
If I remember, that’s how it begins—with an escape.
Drugs, drink, violence, sex—means of escape.
Memories, photographs, diaries, words—means of containment.
If we did not have memory
would we have freedom?
It is only the memory of me that keeps X alive,
keeps him who he is.
What if we changed our names
and lives
after each parting of the ways?
I am never the same I as I am when with an other.
They exist
in me
like a small
tumor,
benign
sometimes—
like X
—malign.
Which?
Maybe that’s what I am—
my body only staying together as a series of networked tumors—
my father, Raoul, the politician, the stalker,
the hundreds and hundreds of others—
and X is the surgeon excising them,
slipping them into stainless steel bowls for further analysis,
to know of them and whence they came, slicing them
ever thinner, placing them
under a microscope, tracing their
motives and passions.
I never really cared.
Where am I?
I am in a cabin in the mountains. The cabin
looks out on a theme park. The theme park,
built by who knows, who cares, who gives a shit,
in the seventies, sprawls
across rail tracks and sidings,
low wooden buildings ranged in rows, strangely painted
in various pastel shades, each assigned a number.
The tumble-down bricks of the mock crematoriums
covered in a light dusting of snow.
The railway cars disgorging the shadows from within.
The mounds of glasses,
of shoes.
The burned remains of tallits and tefillins,
Torahs scrolls and blackened menorahs.
Abandoned thirty years ago,
the theme park slowly fades, the buildings tilt,
the wood and brick crumble.
I discovered the place by chance one night.
A long drive through the desert,
I took a left turn to escape pursuing headlights,
stopped the car, fell asleep,
woke to see the buildings and the fake railway system,
the blocks, the blackened chimneys.
I explored,
thinking it to be an abandoned mine.
Then I saw the piles,
the striped uniforms,
the insignia.
In a building that must have served as an office,
I found empty journals.
I took out my pen, filled in the names,
the dates of my lovers, my haters, my lords of indifference.
These are the lost.
And I imagined X working here,
a death’s head insignia tattooed on his forehead,
a third eye, a third I,
the straightening jacket, the leather boots, the jodhpurs, the riding crop—
the orders for mass annihilation.
Wouldn’t that be a thing?
The end of the persistence of memory.
No more names. No more dates.
Nothing but ink.
He wouldn’t even have to see them.
Open the doors,
in they’d walk.
Close the doors,
press the button.
The shadow of a giant tail darken
ing the already darkened windows.
We’re reaching the end of the journey.
I am tired.
I have nothing left to give.
I am tired of the chase,
the games.
Tired of the sex,
the violence.
I need something to take me away.
I will not contact you again.
I step out into the desert cold,
look up at the clear blue sky.
A Thunderbird parked by the main office building,
smoke curving up out of the ruined chimney.
Then a shadow slips fast over the hillsides—
a condor? A buzzard?
No, much larger.
Maybe a man in a micro-light or a hang-glider.
The snow on the hills ripples
white. I walk past the wooden huts, the blocks,
the crematoria, the empty railway cars,
to the abandoned station, the clock long since obscured.
I look at my watch,
know X is near.
Hold my hand up to my eyes,
squint and read the sign at the entrance to the theme park
Gewalt Macht Frei—Violence Sets You Free
I squint again and look at the sign,
it shimmies in the frigid air, slips, I read
Sex Macht Frei—Sex Sets You Free
I raise my head,
drink in the cold air,
force out a scream that becomes laughter, ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
becomes tears.
There—coming out of the sky,
swooping over the buildings, primeval, primordial,
a chittering of keratin and chitin,
a long tail, spinal, hanging down,
a rending of claws, a gnashing of teeth,
a low slurry of saliva,
splashes of dark red urine.
Through the frosted windows of the office,
I see X surrounded by ledgers,
standing by a squat rusted stove…
Theme Park
…warming hands,
looking out of window frosted with ice,
abandoned mine buildings slung low & pastel
smoke drifts across hills
world outside is black & white
shadow & light
inverted cross lies tangled on table
from shelf above desk,
take down ledger,
open it,
run fingers down column of numbers,
run fingers across row of letters
take down another ledger,
look at lists of supplies—
food,
fuel,
water,
clothing
scar running above right eye pulses & shines
run finger along it,
feel taut & smooth skin,
remember swish & pain of scalpel in babylon hotel room
reopen first ledger,
thumb thru pages,
ink a blue black,
names slant right as if about to tumble onto next line,
the next open grave
look for names know they are not there
look again & again,
until fingers sore & eyes begin to water
walk to window, look out
snow on mountains thickens,
carpeting rocks,
hiding desert beneath,
scarred earth
above
flash of black tail over tumble-down guard towers
wait but Z does not come Z does not come because
on our way,
the road changed,
& we found ourselves moving away from each other
more
look
further away Z gets
Z has a picture but every time Z looks at it it fades
& Z looks at it a lot because Z has to remember face before it fades
have a recording of Z’s voice play it endlessly
hear movement in air above office
sure Z is saying Z is on the way
play recording again thinking Z is nearer
go out into snow & listen to opening of carapace,
beating of wings,
strain to hear Z’s voice amongst them
further awayZ gets the nearer Z gets to being who Z is alone
fuck that further away Z gets, more unsure
fuck Z
Z moves into body now palpable in lessening memory of past,
flee in chase,
swooping over mountains in search of Z’s presence
fuck it
years ago, before the fear, before the quick glances
of blackened vertebrae,
I read that in plato’s symposium, aristophanes describes how males & females were once one being; possessed of great strength
they threatened the gods,
& the gods tore them asunder,
now each part constantly seeks
its twin—this is the origin of love
shingleback skinks, golden eagles,
whooping cranes, grey wolves,
gibbon apes, bald eagles,
french angel fish, red-tailed hawks,
prairie voles, black vultures,
& anglerfish
dark,
illuminated intermittently by creatures down there,
down there in deep, cold;
male anglerfish (linophryne arborifera—
toad that fishes with net), tiny compared to female, follows her scent trail
finds her amidst vampire squid & long-nosed chimaeras,
bites her,
hangs on
their skins fuse,
their bodies merge
they mate for life
he dies first
of course
Z first reached the place
reached the place where Z will never be
we stop we linger long Z will not returnwill not forget
photograph is blank delete Z’s voice
Z remembers—just
as a mark once had a bold tattoo
there is no returning
there is always memory
what is memory?
memory is trauma
memory is freedom
look at my knuckles
**Z*H***
day after
drive to roadhouse,
day after,
found
ring
beesof
dead
told story of lovers who lost each other,
one for ever gone,
the other for ever needing
but,
if the world is what we proclaim it to be,
there must be a chance that some day, somewhere,
we will find each other again, or maybe not,
maybe the memory of who we were, created in absence,
is all that will remain of a presence
once singular & temporary
open door,
strip to underpants
lie down…
Two Mammals
...on a wire bed frame.
X dressed in white underpants.
He is filthy.
He has no face.
He has a face.
He has no arms.
He has arms.
He has no legs.
He has legs.
He rolls off the bed.
He jumps in the air.
I take out the photograph, look at it.
It could be anyone.
It could be no one.
It fades as I look at it. It fades.
He crosses to the window.
In the room:
a standard lamp, a wardrobe, a chair, a rug, the bed frame.
On the walls:
a round mirror, a painting of a sailboat, a row of coat hooks.
There is a door.
There is
a window.
But we’ve said that.
X lands. Bends his knees. Opens his mouth.
Out flies a small brown bird.
The bird flies into the window.
Falls.
Dies.
X opens the wardrobe.
On hangers in the wardrobe are hundreds of photographs of me.
X takes the bird,
opens the window,
throws it out.
Closes the window. Opens his mouth.
Laughs.
The door opens and in I walk dressed in a fur coat, high heels,
a hat with a feather, a veil.
I lift the veil.
I have no mouth.
I have a mouth.
I have no eyes.
Never.
I have eyes.
Always.
X walks around the room. Runs.
He does not look at me.
He faces the wall, tearing at it with his fingers as he runs.
Says, “I really want to kiss you.”
I say, “That wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
There are two people in this story—let’s call the man X.
To dehumanize a person authorities (authors) designate that person a number—
Number 6. 168904.
But to call a person by a letter, by the initial of their name,
layers on them a form of mystery, of unknowing.
K, O, Mr X.
The secret name of god.
Somewhere in the mountains of Nevada,
high up and nestling in a rocky hollow,
an abandoned theme park—rusting railway lines,
broken-down chimneys, piles of things.
Things that make us who we are.
Who we were.
What is it that drives humanity to record?
To list? To catalogue?
Are there too many things to recall?
Too much information?
Notebooks, cameras, computers, phones—
and the admixture of all—
are appendages to our memory, mnemonic prostheses.
Only death stops this.
Death undoes memory.
Death completes it.
Take X and I (Z).
X loves me.
I love X.
No, I don’t.
In X’s memory I love X.
Loved.
In my memory—well, nothing happened.
Nothing happened between them.
Us.
No us.
Nothing at all.
He asked me.
I told him.
Nothing happened.
From the very first.
“I really want to kiss you.”
“That wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
X’s memory begins in our first meeting.