Mark Rudolph's Poetry
Part 1
The drowning man is the greatest singer - such evenness of tone and
sincerity of expression in the midst of the overwhelming noise and motion.
But let's start at the beginning.
It was just after the Schrodinger's Rat game that
she decided to stay with her husband, that fat
blockhead, and in a completely unrelated incident,
K's collarbone struck my elongated fist made into
a block of bone for the special occasion, fracturing
some of the tender parts and sending him on a well
deserved holiday. Later I sent a federal express package
to R., and an email to her cousin in Rio (with a
nice surprise on the day before her gallery opening).
It was a funny time, but not really. It was during
that period that I forgot how to smile, and I used
to get a millisecond or so into the future by high
velocity and zeal - I wanted to give Allah every chance to
write zero on my forehead, but I can report in all honesty that
there's nothing out there except for a Big Quiet,
a quiet that chills even the most desperate blood.
Some days I could barely lift a spoon.
Some days I didn't give a damn.
But I have found out that the drowning man is the greatest singer.
What an evenness of tone at all pitches. What projection.
What tenderness and abandonment of self-consciousness.
It is a tone full of more and better poisons
that drives you wildly to the artificial memory of
all times and places while it makes you gag.
You endlessly arrive (it takes my breath away)
With you I want to put folded clothing
in scented drawers and I want to speak
one word at a time,
first me,
then you,
then me,
this special way we will invent.
When we play at love impossible things happen
with surprising frequency.
My bursting into your paper studio that first day.
You and the piece of cloth you wore around your hips
like a dress and threw outside your door in anger
with your underwear wrapped inside.
crazy brazilian woman.
the smell of vanilla perfume
the easy laughter
the easy smile and dark eyes.
Even if I stood outside in the rain for an hour
thinking about it all
I wouldn't understand.
There is a plan for Lilac Time.
It is out of our hands now
but you will go away back to some land of nowhere,
so please wear the silver ankle bracelet I gave you,
run down your hallway,
open up the broken shout,
the broken cup,
your reasons.
Press your beautiful lips against the dome.
Maybe this time around we could almost float
if only we were just a little more happy,
or just a little more dead.
Holding up my hands like wild ripped sails
in the prevailing wind,
the circulation of particles
in differential equations
it will not matter.
You will never be as happy as you were.
Either this is a great compliment to your previous life
or it is a condemnation of what you have become.
If you could re-live just one hour of holy innocense
meant *just for you*,
the noble belief in concepts,
the easy smiling,
the easy music from your throat,
the wild thirst of autumn
and the touch of waistline
and the song of your own immortal hands.
Everywhere an intoxicating perfume of garlands of marigolds
and the smell of colored leaves on the ground...
How many faces did I know.
How many times did I ask - "please tell me your middle name."
Please walk with me to the bridge where branches point everywhere
along the hillsides.
At the place where the stone lions look on
I will kiss you like it was the only moment ever lived by anything.
I thought I was invisible in a way that dogs
would not bark or even lift an ear - this was when
I got back from India.
I thought birds would not be afraid and would land on my shoulders.
I was wrong about many things.
The rest is private.
At this point my only concern is the release of JOY,
the mortal perfumed combat and the same eternal story over and over
and over the way it was when we were seventeen.
They say it is a life wasted
and maybe they're partly right,
but we all die soon enough.
So now we will again look at each other
in that shyly desperate trance
and in the end it will be part of the same eternal SMILE
written on the faded photo
laying on the kitchen table
taken just before the accident.
Outside my land of divining
if you have a stop on the road to love
you can find me.
In a turmoil of made of Fineness
I will wait for you
roses on my fingertips
and waves of violet light all around me.
In a song as warm as my hands you will hear words
so soft and so still,
warm and patient as sunset on an old stone building
standing on a cliff above turquoise water
in what seems like our memory.
Each moment a different colour
a different possibility
a different life,
all of them,
I give to you,
I give them to you again
and more, much more,
I don't even know what it is,
I give it to you,
over and over.
You endlessly arrive (it takes my breath away)
With you I want to put folded clothing
in scented drawers and I want to speak
one word at a time,
first me,
then you,
then me,
this special way we will invent.
When we play at love impossible things happen
with surprising frequency.
My bursting into your paper studio that first day.
You and the piece of cloth you wore around your hips
like a dress and *threw* outside your door in anger
with your underwear wrapped inside.
crazy brazilian woman.
the smell of vanilla perfume
the easy laughter
the easy smile and dark eyes.
Even if I stood outside in the rain for an hour
thinking about it all
I wouldn't understand.
There is a plan for Lilac Time.
It is out of our hands now
but you will go away back to some land of nowhere,
so please wear the silver ankle bracelet I gave you
run down your hallway,
open up the broken shout,
the broken cup,
your reasons.
Press your beautiful lips against the dome.
Maybe this time around we could almost float
if only we were just a little more happy
or just a little more dead.