An old piece I keep bumping into and continuing on a improbably long on-and-off basis. Found it again tonight and finally finished it. Enjoy!
J.M. Barrie – God gave us memories so we may have roses in December.
.
.
.
5th November
one day
i shall come home
far beyond the wave
where we shall no longer roam
(remember, remember)
5th December
There is one word in the street
Your name like punctuation; drunks gurgling in tongues:
London is your congregation, I your unwilling prophet
Our awe seethes. You are lucky to be dead.
There was Adam
And now there is Eve—
He preached God's glory and dealt judgment
I quote a murderer and
promise choice
-- a lie.
You are creator and casualty of it, after all.
5th January
Jennings, McGrath, Dumas, Clearwater—
the one and twenty names I forge,
all neatly printed at the end of each ultimatum, each cajole,
each hallowed blasphemy.
Clearwater against De Gras's;
Pope's logic a frost on Blackstone's quicksilver
-- I have a fondness for Dumas and his quotes
and so rarely let him out.
It is true, what Gordon said:
The mask, the forgetting.
And here I thought I was supposed to find myself, hah—
A joke.
5th February
I dreamt last night, of you—
Incandescent, living night
Dressed up in false memory and
grave silence; god, your eyes
Blank as hate, as love, as
nothing.
I told you to get lost, never come back,
I told you to sit, tea and biscuits,
I told you the tv's spoilt again, and take your mask off.
Stop hunting me. I can't sleep.
5th March
I write…
in your room between your
sheets the cell my cell toast
and burn the
egg white wipe why listen
music cries from
jukebox evey will you
dance with me I feel
dirty
I write…
As Clearwater – so hopeful;
As McGrath – ever weary;
As Pope – spit-bitter;
As Jennings – too young
I write…
Listen, V, listen:
I write.
5th April
The months are long
but time is short. There is so much to do
and all I have is this free time.
This expanse of– do you understand?
This expense. This free time, never mine:
ours. And soon, one day, I know
it will be my turn
to burn, blaze, fire from my tongue
ashes in my mouth,
streaming incandescence
rising up, remorseless; like
the way I always saw you; like
the way you thought I could be.
Oh V, V – was I ever ready for
the truth behind the mask?
Will they ever be?
5th May
You have trapped me in this:
I see this clearly now.
You let me go
to capture me;
You set me free
and ask me to come back.
Of your free will, you smile.
Of your own choice, you –
Liar! We both know:
the devil quotes scripture for his own purpose.
And now, you say: go live your life
as you wish
as you will
and I ask nothing of you
leave nothing for you – except
of course,
this bleeding heart of mine
in your small hands
cut open, beating, beating –
dying;
and my soul,
which is England.
And I ask nothing of you
because you belong to no one,
not even I who only
made you.
And six words, because
three is not enough –
Are you ready? I fell in love with you.
My Evey.
I fell in love with you.
Oh the watershed tortures are nothing, V;
Of all things, I will never forget –
Of all words, these six I will never forgive.
5th June
I tried to stop today –
out of spite, I admit;
but the words clamoured in my head –
such a ruckus; I had to write after all
if only to get some peace.
I am apathetic; I am obsessed;
you have cornered me; I am
driven. I have discovered grief
as only a bodily function: natural and
meaningless – do you hear me?
I eat, I sneeze, I grieve, and of course
of course
the mind stays clear of bodily excretions
which means
which must mean:
I write because I want to.
I want to.
(this has nothing to do with you;
i am leaving you, V, listen
listen!
Like before, I am leaving you.)
5th July
Someone once told me you wear a mask so long you forget
who you are – Ah and thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ – yes but in the end
you must give the devil your due – yet I must be cruel to be kind,
Thus the bad begins and leaves the worse behind – but I would say
nothing emboldens sin as much as mercy – oh some rise by sin,
others by virtue fall but Evey:
I shalt be both the plaintiff and judge of mine own cause.
And you would finish –
No price is too high for the privilege of owning yourself
And I would reply –
And seem the saint, when most you play the devil.
And then, in the silence of my imagination,
perhaps you will say, so quietly,
What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
And how unfair it is that you can always win;
how unfair that you would dare to bring that word up
when it is too late, too bloody late; when
I could always say – when what I have always wanted to say is:
In a room full of victims, murderers are gods.
5th August
It is nearly done
Your work, your life, your soul.
They hold the elections tomorrow –
I would prefer your anniversary,
but there is little sentimentality in our
brave new world.
My new role fits me easily:
sociopath, clean and quick.
Already I have killed fourteen writers,
and am planning more:
Few miss the deceased.
What shall I do, when I have killed my last self?
Shall I start on the front-row audience, reveal the truth
behind my letters;
Shall I show them that New New England was shaped not
by the teeming voices of the multitude, but nothing
nothing but one woman,
one Eve;
shall I do to them what you did to me?
No. I would know:
it takes nine months to give birth to gratitude, to sight anew,
to forgiveness
and we do not have such time.
– Or perhaps it is all
hypocrisy: I just don't want to deal with the aftermath
like you did
like you barely could.
5th September
It is over.
It is finally over – and I do not blaze.
It is finally over – and I do not stream incandescence,
nor rise remorseless, or otherwise.
All my masks are dead, and
there are ashes in my mouth.
And I feel – I feel –
My massacre is finished; I lay my pens down.
I would return to the scene of our crime,
but you did not ask me to.
I would come back, but you did not ask me
and you are not here to ask
my hand in a dance
or otherwise.
There is no train for me.
Perhaps you are somewhere else, waiting;
the way I have been waiting for you
heartsick and angry; perhaps
you are waiting still.
But there is no train for me, and we both know:
that is what really matters.
And I feel – I feel –
(there are roses in December
and they are too much,
too much
too much
and yet,
not enough)
5th October
The day after your death
I found a promise – a poem –
written at the corner of an abandoned book
left open-faced in the Gallery.
The smudged ink of such a simple line
written by your unsteady hand -
more intimate than a gloveless touch, somehow:
I wish I had not burned that book.
Now there is no reason
for such petty revenge:
I suppose there never has been. There is no reason
for anything much anymore – except
of course,
this young heart of mine
in my own hands,
cut open, beating, beating,
living;
and my soul,
which is mine
as it always has been
as I finally understand now.
And sixteen words
because six is not enough –
are you ready?
-- Of course you are. You already know.
I could accuse you of
false choice, false will but
you never did know if I was coming back, did you?
One day
I too
may come home.
But not yet.
5th November
(remember, remember)
.
.
.
Shakespeare:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy/ With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ / And seem the saint, when most I play the devil
Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
I must be cruel only to be kind;/ Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
Some rise by sin, others by virtue fall
Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge of thine own cause.
Nietzsche:
No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
Gordon Deitrich – You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.
"Our island home / is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam" - Alfred Tennyson
In a room full of victims, murderers are gods – forgot the author; will welcome a memory-refresher :)
Thanks for your feedback! :)