Enduring
these long lonely days
at my southern retreat,
as a self-appointed accountant
of diaries
and other corps de ballet
of life,
I feel how easily and inevitably
the present and actual
transforms into “periods”
and “temps perdu”,
taking on atmospheres
of the past,
as the seasons turn
from autumn to winter,
and I'm informed that some tall old trees
on Anna's farm up north
are taken down
as storm precautions,
and that the migratory birds
leave frigid empty spaces up in the sky,
and as aches and sentiments, and modes of exercise
change,
and the pile of texts I'm here to record
turn thinner,
but crave much more time
than I had envisioned,
while impermanence,
with all its flickering shapes
and shreds of voices,
remain all that remains

The house stands
in the pale and cold

Inside it
my body lies
under a heavy Indian blanket,
without thoughts,
Shostakovich's 12th String Quartet
out of the speakers

Inside my body
the life-sustaining processes
take place

All my life
they have keel-hauled me
through an ocean of perception

I was clothed in a skin-suit
with a tight fit,
without ever being asked for my signature
on any legal document; a dermatologic assault

The snow cover wraps about the day
like civil disobedience

Hour upon hour line up,
tall fridges in everyone's mindset

In the black downtown holes
of major cities,
inbred artists, hiding from the public eye,
feed on conceptual art