POETRYLITICS
society crumbles
because it runs out of
imagination
and it gapes
and it yawns
and falls silent
They’ll love you. You won’t earn it, since it is not a thing of commerce. This is not a thing. This is a fact. They’ll love you. And they don’t want it to be a punishment for you. If I undress –
so be it, I’m going to undress, make myself naked
– you’re going to have to cover your eyes. I don’t have anything beautiful to offer you. Long lines of scars. My skin has gone into art and even beyond. Children have tugged at it, but not from within. A long line of angry women, furious women, have tugged at it. They gave birth so we could tear ourselves in half. If they’d known, they would have plucked us out and flung us into the pigswill. They knew, but they didn’t do that. Processions of beloved women. A necklace of orgasms dangles above your head. Close your eyes and imagine it for yourself. I know it’s tasteless, but after about four orgasms you’re so far back in time you can look clinically at the sex from which you emerged. The cooing of hairy bachelors stretching way back to a time before this continent, so they say, even existed. You had sixty-four greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgrandfathers and sixty-four greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgrandmothers. That’s an entire village of people. A village. Can you imagine such an orgy? They didn’t know how to read, they didn’t know how to write, but they knew where and how to kiss. Now they could fill an entire cemetery. When’s the last time you lit a candle for them? Every time you unwillingly figured out that someone loves you. It happens to every one of us. Do not be afraid, do not doubt it, you can’t escape it. They’ll love you.
A shooting star, sunk into the orange sky. The stars are knocking on clouds of smog but nobody comes to the door. Under the cloud cover people are deprived of light that’s been around since the time of the dinosaurs. Somebody honks somewhere. The scream of a lonely, mechanical beast. Dust pours down from the rooftops. The wind with its broom of salt. Off in the distance, the sea turning lazily onto its side. The low tide has stripped the beaches, but they are not ashamed. The skyscraper windows steal the light for themselves. You know how many people are yawning now? At this very moment. Their mouths are wide open and they’re sucking in so much oxygen that the windmills spin empty. Many are already sleeping and some are snoring. Their partners place comfortable devices over their faces in order to choke out the sound and convert it into energy. The city’s batteries fill themselves through the vibrations of tracheas and gullets. All cables have been cut. A magnet has brought all the power stations to a halt. The world suddenly turns strange.
Where there are people, there are their faults. A blind man could calculate their number as about ten thousand. Nobody counted them, and they did not count themselves. There are nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine and a half of them. Someone is losing his soul.
Marjorie’s young lover is strolling past the stalls that are scattered around the crowd without order or sense. It doesn’t look as if there is much selling going on; people have mostly come to flaunt their wares. Someone is there with a record collection that, placed in a straight line, would reach to the moon, but here it’s stowed into the walls of rectangular boxes. The shaded frames of his retro glasses float above those walls. The last record player died in 2027 right in the middle of The Dark Side of the Moon (3’37” into ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’), a fact many people find amazing. Someone in this crowd was there at the time it happened and all of his friends have had just about enough of his story. Nobody repairs record players any more, on account of a conspiracy of engineers who wanted to draw attention to indispensability of their livelihood. The people can count themselves lucky that a more radical faction of precision engineers did not prevail. The owner of the records is wearing a hearing aid that emits a low whistle. He is outmoded, written off. He doesn’t mind. He’s in love with those records, even if they are mute.
‘What are you looking for, pal?’
‘Does it make a difference? It’s not like we can listen to these things.’
The owner smiles and walks his fingers over the edges of the records. The people notice his unusually long fingernails. He chooses by feel, eyes closed. He extracts a reddish square, takes the record out and, by handling it carefully and with utter confidence, makes it clear he’s been doing this his whole life. He balances the record on a single finger, spins it like a basketball player spinning a ball, and places his sharpened fingernail against it.
the deaf are alive with the sound of music
‘Entirely too much effort for something so fleeting, don’t you think?’
The record owner, an old, thin man with the odd bruise here and there, with sunken eyes and an almost complete row of teeth spoilt by one completely wonky tooth, puts the record back in its place in three smooth movements. His hair bristles. He clutches at his heart. He no longer wants to acknowledge the young man’s existence in any way, so he looks at the ground, or through him, and the young man moves on. This gives rise to a visible expression of relief (evident in the combination of the movements of his hands, jaw and eyebrows).
Someone else has albums full of pinned butterflies on display and is growing more disappointed by the minute because everybody just flips through to Acherontia styx (a moth with a skull on its thorax, the same moth that Jame Gumb aka Buffalo Bill stuffed down his victims’ fictitious throats), before their interest in the world of butterflies fades, even though this miserable moth doesn’t even come close to the red lacewing (Cethosia biblis), the peacock butterfly (Inachis io) or the blue morpho (Morpho menelaus), which he has placed towards the end as a delectable reward for the patient and sincere enthusiast, though not at the very end because this world has too many of those annoying types who, rather than starting from the beginning, skip straight to the last page.
I’m waiting for it to go in
Marjorie screamed and ran away when she saw the butterflies. They seemed too fragile for her and the bones in her body rattled as if made of porcelain. She didn’t come here to confront death. She’s done that often enough already. Fun and diversion and amusement. Even if none of the three could be felt in the air. There is a tension, like a string starting to fray at one end. She immediately got lost. Zoja and Anwar were swallowed up by the crowd, and her I-only-just-met-him-this-morning new boyfriend has also gone astray, no doubt on purpose. With all these young people around he probably didn’t want to be seen strolling hand in hand with someone old enough to be his mother. Zoja once said Marjorie was at her most imaginative when seeking out reasons why someone wouldn’t like her. Maybe he just headed off to the toilet. That’s it. That’s better.
A stranger is tossing photographs with white borders into the air, and when she notices Marjorie watching her she explains that she’s been collecting these Polaroids all her life, that neither she nor her family nor her friends are in them, that they’re all of complete strangers whose souls she sometimes imagines possessing, and that’s why she came here, because the souls of strangers must surely feel best when in the company of the souls of other strangers. The picture the woman offers her is of three dogs – two black German shepherds and a golden retriever – sitting in the orange afternoon light in front of a trailer, nothing else.
‘Do you know how a person becomes happy?’ she asks. ‘How?’ Marjorie asks back.
‘First of all, you have to become happy, that’s understood, but then – and this is the essential part – you have to remain quiet.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Every single word undercuts you.’
Silence. Lying on the ground is a photograph of someone in bed, naked, half-covered with a sheet and grinning, shaving cream smeared over his neck.
Anwar’s a bit late, but here he comes, smiling and aglow. A burden has dropped from his shoulders now that he has irreversibly set in motion something that nobody would have occasion to regret. The crowd
fills him with energy, his feet dance and it’s all he can do not to hug people at random. The other people see the mood he’s in. They wink at him, their eyes follow him, they touch him as he passes, and they nod their heads as if they knew… He stops at a stall with heaps of identical clothes. Beside it sits someone in a wheelchair. No legs. Probably a veteran of the Inter-American war, perhaps the victim of a train crash. Anwar is brimming with pity, but he tries not to let his behaviour come across as insulting.
‘What do you have here?’
‘I’m selling uniforms.’
‘Uniforms?’
‘Yes.’
‘What kind of uniforms?’
The veteran extracts a slip of paper from his pocket and offers it to Anwar:
It reads:
MONOKULT – there is only one culture, the human culture. When you put on the monokult uniform, you are saying nothing except that you are a human. You are not an instrument of the textile industry, you are not a slave to fashion. You do not want to say anything when you put something on – for that you have a mouth. You are not a fashion freak, you are not a megaphone for someone else’s imagination. You do not want to spend your whole life in shops, selecting your image – for that you have a body. There’s nothing there that distinguishes you, nothing that sets you apart. You do not want to put your lacks or excesses on display – for that you have a heart. You are not a colour scheme, you are not an advertisement for a tradition belonging to your parents. You create with your hands, not by taking something out of your wardrobe. When you put on the monokult uniform, you are aligning yourself with humanity. Because you are a human.
‘I know somebody this would be perfect for.’
‘Really?’
‘When I run into him, I’ll tell him to come see you.’
‘And you?’
‘What?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Well, I don’t want to be harsh, but to me it seems kind of, you know, dated.’
‘Dated?’
‘It looks like it was made for back when the market still held us in its grasp.’
‘And it no longer does?’
‘That’s just it. I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe things would be better if it still did. But…nobody knows.’
‘But just look at the people. It’s, well, it’s not that hard to figure it out.’
Anwar looks around. Moustaches are in style. Thick brushes under the nose. The more independent someone looks, the more likely he is to have one. And it’s no longer just for kicks, these aren’t counter-anti-ironical-sarcastic-cynicalit-isn’t-really-but-it-is-mind-your-own-business moustaches. No, they’re worn as fully entitled hairy sources of courage and strength. They’re not there to conceal sins but to deny them. They turn old men back into children. Children into men. And women hang off them like spiders.
But other than that, there are few common denominators. The people are all different, and proud of it. They carefully maintain the façades of their appearance. They paint, sew, tear, hem, colour, masquerade, knit, pluck, iron, and crochet… If two people were to find themselves wearing the same sweater, their worlds would collapse.
A column of soldiers walks by, and the veteran whistles in admiration.
‘You see? They get it.’
Whenever Ludovico Överchild finds himself in a crowd he has no effect on it. This plunges him into a minor despair. Such soil is not fertile for sowing seeds of hysteria. He had expected enraged monkey tribes, a tide of nerves and saliva, clenched, raised fists, and vocal cords that would, in tsunamis of sound, splinter the air with demands. But here everyone is a little timid and absent and hanging back a step. They’re relaxed in their being, but not in their possibilities. They don’t want to transcend, to break on through, to touch. They would just like to be allowed… Their hearts beat with the sound of marbles clattering down a staircase. Their pupils widen and narrow in the strobing of the light. Their thoughts buzz with the static electricity of woollen socks. If you don’t get too close, you won’t get a shock. Is Ludovico disappointed? Hard to say. The Feline Master is hiding among these mounds of meat, he’s certain of it. He can feel it. His erudition, his insight, the traces he has left on the back of the world. He will rent the veil and touch him. From the inside.
‘Hey. Did you hear they sold Hawaii to the Japanese?’ he asks a young man who is balancing himself on the outer edges of his feet, as if the ground were barbed. It’s Richard Hurst. He came to New York a week ago for his grandfather’s funeral. Although they never exchanged a single word (Grandfather had quarrelled with his family about some sort of magnetic fields – a very long and rather uninteresting story), he had nevertheless left Richard, his eldest grandson, a little flat in Bensonhurst. For two weeks now Richard has been mulling over whether to move into it. He’d have to leave his job and his girlfriend, and probably suffer the wrath of the other side of the family but, hey, it’s New York. He eyes Ludovico and shrugs.
‘I heard something about that. But what’s it got to do with me?’
Ludovico is astonished. His bushy eyebrows creep up and almost merge with the wrinkle below his bald head. How can young people remain so uninterested in the matter?
‘Your forefathers spewed blood for those islands.’
‘Um, yeah, you know, um, sorry…’ says Richard, blushing before he disappears into the crowd. Ludovico looks to see if he can catch a more accessible pair of eyes. Everyone else is looking somewhere else, at the ground, at the sky, at each other. He may be an anomaly but he doesn’t attract any attention. His camouflage is too good. He’ll have to take his mask off. Slowly, deliberately. To ensure the operation won’t be scuppered by a moment of haste.
Two fat-arsed black teenagers are tossing a paper ball back and forth, screeching with laughter. A cultural monotype. Nothing new for Ludovico. He approaches them and wiggles his fingers. A subtle hint, but one that everyone understands signals a desire to join in a game of catch. The crumpled-up piece of paper wrapped in tape (each, like snowflakes, is unique) flies in his direction. He jumps up and catches it. Someone gets the impression that the earth’s gravitational field has slumbered for a moment. The man in the white tunic remained in the air a moment too long. A hiccup in the force field. In the new millennium you can’t even trust the laws of nature. Everything is prone to error.
Before throwing the paper ball back, Ludovico flings a question at them.
‘Did you know there are undercover cops here, agents provocateurs, who are planning something very, very nasty?’
The ball moves in a high arch, like an artillery projectile. As the girls follow its flight, their eyes fill with tears. One of them, finally, catches it, and they explode into laughter.
‘Did you hear him?’
‘The cops, he said.’
‘Hahahahaha.’
‘Cops? You got to be cutting me.’
‘What would the cops be doing here?’
‘Anyone here got something in his pockets?’
‘What do you mean, cops?’
‘Maybe someone hired them?’
‘Hahahahaha.’
Ludovico is humiliated. Once again he’s used the wrong technique to try to spook the wrong people. When the ball returns, he ducks and creeps to the other side of the crowd, where some sort of ritual is taking place. There are men in green shirts and there are women in green skirts. They say they are servants of Cosmostone. Cosmostone is the angel of solipsism. Ludovico waves a hand. The priest moves over to him. He has a lazy eye, so you can’t tell where he’s really looking, and a shabby beard.
‘I must be having a really crappy day today, otherwise I wouldn’t have made you up.’
‘What?’ asks Ludovico.
‘Oh, how I hate myself sometimes.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Why the hell does my head race off all on its own? What does this mean – I don’t understand? What is there to understand? Why am I setting traps for myself?’
Lud
ovico gradually cottons on. He puts his arm around the man’s shoulder and whispers as if in collusion.
‘Do not worry. I am Cosmostone. ‘
‘No, I am Cosmostone,’ replies the priest.
‘We are all Cosmostone,’ says Ludovico.
The priest remains adamant. ‘I alone am Cosmostone.’
‘So everybody around here is a servant of yours?’
‘I am my servant.’
Ludovico slaps him. This outburst of violence brings a few passers-by to a stop. They look at each other and murmur disapproval. The other believers smirk. The priest strokes his reddened cheek and sighs gloomily.
‘How I hate myself, sometimes.’
‘I also hate you,’ Ludovico says.
‘Exactly.’
I need to identify with them, or I’ll end up alone. Sadness embraces me. None of these people know what they should know and I am too sympathetic towards their ignorance to tell them. That’s why I watch how they smile. You won’t convince me that they’re without cares. They have people they love, and I know that complicates matters. You are able to conceal your own pain, but then you pay more attention to the pain of those who love you. You identify. Take on someone else’s burden. Marjorie was raped by her father-in-law, her husband died in a car accident, she was left homeless, dependent on a whole range of psychotropic drugs. I was walking down the street when I saw her. A carton of milk bottles had fallen out of a truck, shattered, and spread a white puddle all over the pavement. Marjorie went down on all fours and began licking at the ground. I took her in. Psychotherapy has its limits. There was only one thing I could say to help her. I hugged her and said I loved her. Just that, every morning, every day, every evening. Eventually, she began to speak. She never thanked me for it.
Anwar’s entire family was tortured and killed by neo-neo-Nazis. He didn’t tell me why, he said it’s not something he likes to think about. So why did he tell me then? We’d only known each other a few weeks. I asked him about his family and he told me, immediately, directly, without hesitation. Does he tell everyone? I don’t think so. But he had to tell somebody. And who, if not me? I’m a lightning conductor for human misery, a catalyst for sadness, an Atlas for all the world’s gloom. If you’ve never cried but would like to, go to a library.
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