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Canto XX you were darker than me—black Irish I guess and I knew nothing about you what you wanted to be or how you wanted us to be yet it seemed as if we were always a little ahead or behind ourselves—never quite in tune but I loved you then—sometimes I wonder if I love you now but you’re probably married like me and in love like me at least that’s the picture I’ve painted in my mind because I’ve never forgiven myself for turning from you you who had my hands and feet tied as your slim waist was tied to mine but that was years ago with that lace around your head you could have been mistaken for the Blessed Virgin and when we drove past the British Embassy you would blow the car horn say “I don’t hate the English but they hate me” each season your English friends visited DC they jibed joked and expected you to laugh along at their Irish jokes incestuous Republicans and evil Leprechauns why’d they even flirt with you as O’Hara says “Lust springs from the bowels” and I’m afraid of this little knot grown large in old age and I hate/love to go to the PCP who gets a finger in there tiny time bomb spurts blood while every expression of my faith falls because it’s all been translated you see from a native tongue and you might get it but their land is rent—meadows bathed in green liver—people turned to land if only you could work your magic on my grimy soul—you know when you weren’t around I chopped white lines on an etched gray mirror then lifted it and sniffed—my heart rattled like gunshots along your Shannon trotted as if it would stop and my eyes crystallized into glaciers needles pricked my skin—a vase of tulips slid across the coffee table when I glanced away the vase moved back then on the phone we talked about blow jobs but I didn’t think it was flirting until I remembered you and Essex tossing one-liners you teasing him clearly you can revive me as easily as you float to me paddling our boat on the black river that gurgling river that swallows us whole—you let him kiss you and I tore the bar apart for that for that I kicked wine crates into booths smashed glasses and creased one door jamb with my head hair left in its cracks and blood streaming down my face “not real blood” you say of course it was red wine exploding from brain to wood you would drink it if you could—the kind of love we used to laugh at others for when I rang your phone all night long because you said the kind of love you have we had you used to laugh with me now you’re laughing at others and you said the phone ringing ringing ringing you thought I’d do that and knew it was I on the other shore so you laughed with the other all night long because it was that kind of love and that kind of river—I could never have been like him and his Soho world trapped in Freud sleepwalking with no memory of night or moon swinging itself high over the wide river where its shimmer makes one swoon for love maiden head let me stay if I make it mine no law but our law tobacco yellow knuckle not bruised a glove no hoe no red eye rock wall singsong all signs pointing to our ancestors who watch grin hold each other and sing and stifle with bright cries but who am I I could cry into the snow for years efface myself drift through the night bus stop to bus stop with nothing to shield me and I could never be your equal your son stolen your person non-person how small my life is compared to your struggle and how the snow must have clung to you for warmth what love could have cured—the whiteness says P. Cavalli “I pretend to wait for you to enlarge the minutes and you do well not to come” you know when Mussolini took Rome he named his accession the Year One being myself here now whiteout yearning for another self much more a location to cradle it we could have been different and every time that other me emerges I beat it back and cry when I do—you cry too if it will help you says G. Teskey “the potential for the imprinting of schematic form in this substance rests in two interwoven constraints” down silent catacombs like sleepwalkers two abreast with no memory of night you can’t wake me never could—originally it wasn’t sin it was boredom a genetic defect inherited from Him—bored with His angels He made us then the angels got jealous got even but even Adam was bored with Eve and Eve with Adam so bored they forgot to eat life ate knowledge instead which of course doesn’t cure boredom but only magnifies it—hence God was bored is bored will be bored now and forever with men so I stuffed my snout with menthol swallowed a bicarb ate Bayer so my head wouldn’t swell rubbed baking soda on my gums then massaged them with coke and through my bloody nose air smelled sweet as morning dew on the uncut prickly beards of graves—through the radio’s static four priests buzzed like Invisible Beings and I heard equatorial plains simmer faceless ambassadors square off ships jammed at harbor ogling masses wheat rotting in the fields and on the docks so I filled my mirror again and listened to our enemies on the radio bellies flinched oil dripped from tank muzzles drenched the sugar beets until in a nice mirror ice bled down my jaw and four priests proposed that faith hadn’t any grave since raptured ones fly whole to heaven even after the bodies are decapitated worm ridden fouled by cancer each to each they kiss and rise to a new world new life and us missing them
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Thoughts on Pattern Recognition by William GibsonOneTwo Three Four Five Six Seven
cantosIII III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX
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