warmth of our dead bodies

BOOK IV
THE DIFFERENCE IN ELECTRIC LIGHT

warmth of our dead bodies


61

the invention of the wheel, the service of iron, oil
everything is doomed, everything is a failure, a catastrophe
and a thousand thousand more of my listings
at the end of everything, only the credits, only the savings banks
giving us tickets
Old man Charon pulls up in his used Fordy

"what's the matter, brother? You fucked up again?"

it's okay, it's okay, Frenchy
we'll play forks and bellies
when Another time comes
when the sand will fall on the square
when the star of Wormwood shines
when the Carrier's reins burst

"load up, rookies, let's go!»

unfulfillableness and art
are equal in value
my hypercube is shattered
my faith turned into feces
while I, a buridan donkey
move from point to point

not realizing that geometry is on the outside
Dogmatics is what's on the inside

that's what I discovered
that's what I couldn't subdue

while they were about to hang
in Snitch Square
invisible dependants
for fighting, for freedom in Gehenna

while they were about to be hanged
I was packing my bags
the cold and the wind
never again

this is what I found
this is what I was able to stow in my briefcase

and went out to the Gap of arranging
of figures on a wooden board
I saw and heard photons
murmuring in the ears of the public
among them were the famous dead
that's how I ended up in the Solid State

"my pulse is dropping!" "I need another I.V.!»

they tried to stop me.
they grabbed my arms and legs
broke my neck, shot me in the back
but I was doing something for some reason
and as soon as the Sun of the Invisible
lit my cardboard wings on fire

I finally understood it all
there's not much left, for Infinity is already on the brink
 

62

fly, fly, why did you sit
on the face of a poet, an artist?
fly, fly, what do you want
to find in his borderland?
fly, fly, come with me
let's dig graves together
fly, fly, I believe that
you are the Absolute, Poetry


63

it's all a dream, all a dream...
there was no Tyrant
there was Darkness, no "after"
no love, no "somebody"
and "Light" was the doctor's prescription

there were no stocks
nor prisons by the likeness of pages
Moloch in your head
there is no cruelty
why did you invent "faith"?

why did you slit your wrists?
why did you yourself sit on the throne?
what did it give you to travel
to the end of the night, to other novels
poems are glimpses...

how to wake up, how to awaken?
how to get out of the corridor?
how to leave Shades of Black ?
how to change Violence?
what is Causality if not pain ?

a poem about death
about murder
about barbarism
about the death of the author
about the text, about the inside of the text

read it backwards
from the last to the first
verse
that's how you'll find the cipher
that I left behind, the entrance to Elysium

the door is just a word
darkness is just a door
darkness is just a heart
the heart is a powerhouse
light is torture for the idealist

the poet dies, yet
coming out On the Other Side of Death
what he sees there, exhaling
nothing
only the sea of nothing

he doesn't care about Truth
it is the truth itself
told in the beginning
bringing Life to an end
bringing Death to the precipice

the poet dies, yet
something remains
on a bench in an autumn park
Old-fashioned, semi-living
scratched in the dark


64

when the hero dies
something fades between the objects
of the everyday life described in prose
sentiments made absolute by poetry
something burns without a trace between
the lamp/ moon turned on at night
and the cosmos proving the stars
something always stands in the conclusion
between the two words, "Death of a Hero"
the two terrors washing over the Awe
something like Twilight, like Hamlet
something like a super-figure, a super-system
described only by myself and Charles Simic
something that is always in front and yet inside
something that dies without regret
something apart from the darkness


Nemel, 2023
January 28 - February 7-8 – March 14
White Hotel