judas and his goats
by Anthony Metivier

‘and signs and the signs of signs are used only when we are lacking things.’

- Umberto Eco

i. in which a goddess intervenes

reading all these men
upsets me
i’m getting to h.d. –
in a moment –
she is on my shelf
burning with want to be open

but in a course on poetry
designed more for introduction
than for knowledge –
the dicks come first –
which reminds me of yonge st.
the girl with her pierced, tattooed
breasts walking in less
than a skirt
i wanted to kiss her there
beneath the eyes of L Ron
pull the steel between my teeth
smell the blackened skin –
that my face were a needle, i would
tattoo words there, replacing the dragons she may or may not have chosen

but these things are permanent
and in time, h.d. – dripping in ink –
it is you who i will come to

ii. in which now and then combine to reveal a secret history

we sit together in this place which is littered with fine things
we don’t have to name them, because for the most part, they stand shelved
and unread
he once tried to make a fraction, but the books came in quicker than he could read them
he was always bad at math – yet somehow, he is always getting better
like his books – the more he has the less he reads
seemingly

i want the hard cock of your intellect in my mouth
he says suddenly
moving like a blur to tear his lips into mine
this is new and insane and the music in the background divinely agrees
when he was thirteen he wore tight black jeans until the knees went out of them so badly that they became tight black shorts and even then he wore them until the crotch had worn raw, exposing plaid boxer shorts and sometimes hair
both of these things happened far too quickly for him to become accustomed to –
they, too, were new –

maybe it was the first time with pot
on the beach nearing september – we lived in a strange place, where the rivers meet –
there was sagebrush rolling around, on the beach
we were beneath the mountains, they were everywhere, like religion, staples of our perception, reminders of hell
this place was every place, at once a mean, cruel desert, at once an estuary of rocks and trees, at once a destination and a springboard, where the water told the land and the land told the water, and the white met the strange, black-eyed girl who needed a love that england had never known

smoking pot took him away, and that, he thought, was great
it was in a pipe, that first time
he pulled back hard, three full bowls
nobody could believe it
‘you’re going to be so high, so high!’
‘how will it happen?’
‘it kind of hits you in the cheeks. first, and then the forehead. it tingles, but it’s also numb. you’ll like it. it’s good.’
you were right about the tingling numbness
later he put his head beneath the faucet to amplify the feeling that was slowly slipping
away

iii. in which we find that then is not eradicated from now

he remembered for me the first girl he had ever kissed
from the catholic school, near the hospital, and they had met in a funny way

there was a ravine up in the mountain that was great for smoking without being seen
packs of cigarettes bought with allowances, lighters stolen from dad, ‘can I buy a smoke for a quarter?’
yes or no, you were always the ass who had a pack when the others did not
wind always moved through the ravine and the idea was that the air would take the smell of smoke from your clothes, so no one would know
you could wash your hands with the blue soap at the gas-station
sniff nervously at your finger tips while seated at the dinner table wearing a clean shirt
your jean jacket draped across your bed downstairs
and you were sure they didn’t know

her name was thereasa, which was fitting –

and when we were coming down the road from the mountain she was with her sister in the driveway
with a basket-ball but no net
she was wearing watermelon-print shorts
which she had made in her sewing class
catholic school had that too – an installation for the life long appreciation of the needle
(which was to be handy in the time of heroin and tattoos)
judy was the name of her sister
who was blonde, hiding blue eyes behind carefully manufactured bangs

we had no history as we descended the mountain
we were rash with our various hungers when we saw these two catholic girls
did we have pot? they wanted to know
on a school night? we teased. it was sunday, our personal day of mourning
they assured us that there was no better night, nor ever would there be one
‘our parents aren’t home. come around the back. there’s a porch we can sit on. i can steal a few cans of beer – or a shot or two. do you like tequila?’

that porch became a haven, even when their mom or dad was home – or both, which was worse?
then it was good behaviour and talk of school
pretending to tutor about a language he did not know – math
he liked the books, it was true, but the numbers were rot
(years later, in university, he goes out of his way to find a reason to mince calculus with cummings)
they whispered strange muted songs beneath assertions of trig
but the kiss didn’t happen there
it was on a friday night after many cigarettes had been smoked bravely out in the open air
they first held hands, in the movie theatre
forgetting the images even before the images had slid past the blank screen
‘thereasa, let’s go. my dad’s drunk. he won’t hear us coming in.’
(years later, he watches on video that same missed film
positioned sparingly on the couch with another girl –
but he doesn’t mention this past event, even as it trickles through –
not when he is in the bliss of the hair and the skin he assumes was groomed
endlessly for his supposed and eventual sedation)
she agrees, boldly, in mock-drama
‘i thought you’d never ask’

her tongue shot fiercely into his mouth like an alarming slug
so this was the texture of tastebuds he’d waited so long to discover
this was the taste of his own nicotine, and you know what? i can lick your gums too
it was a strange war to wage
and dad, upstairs, wasn’t so drunk after all

iv. in which his sudden apology is found unnecessary

these are endless details, i know, but i’m glad you’re here to listen
to hear the combination of parts that reshapes the reason for our kiss
if only we could talk about the books, without referring to yet other books
and to the books within the books
if only –

v. in which he recounts a mythic figure

and then there was paul, hair raven black
who could grow his beard before my shadow had even started to show
we were best friends for awhile, when i was fifteen, he was twenty-six
he had his pilot’s license, so he said, and was teaching me to drive
my dad thought paul was a fag, but how we knew him was legit
we were a band in a community of bands – cymbal heavy, using words like ‘crunch’ and ‘mud’
to describe our sound
once or twice the man with the pencil came, wrote us into the news
after that, paul came one night into our garage by the railway tracks
he nodded as he listened and noticed how we all maintained eye contact while we played
‘that’s the sign of success, my friends, the sign of success’
we hired him
he made gary run the stairs to keep steady his drum
he taught beau strange exercises to help loosen his tongue
he showed me, sometimes without words, a thing or two about living
he took dustin to secret meetings which didn’t do anything
(dustin was an anti-climatic lad –
but he would punch trees just to see his own knuckles bleed
this i had to admire
and you could hear it in the music)

circle-eights driven backwards in the parking lot at high speeds
taking certain girls of age to the mini-golf, and then for ice-cream
paul was rich, but by then i was sixteen, still living off allowances
which i usually invested in brand new cds

we walked one winter into the mountains
paul knew a lot about animal tracks and wilderness survival
he told me how to build a cave that would eliminate the need for society
at one point, he burned some sage, brushing the smoke across my shoulders
i took some into my lungs, but paul muttered, ‘unnecessary’
then he told me, if you want a lesson, come and burn the sage
the sage always gives you a lesson, but you have to be brave
you have to accept the lessons the sage gives you, or else they are lost

there was the time we walked from the airport to raleigh, at least 50 kliks
something about that july day, after sitting in his house drinking home-made wine
with the sun descending over the airport, burning out in the depths of lake kamloops
we started to walk

once on the highway
a few cars stopped – without having seen our thumbs
we were covered in the sage and ignored them
i didn’t bother smoking cigarettes around paul
they cost money and make you stink, he said, and besides, girls don’t like it
of course, we were on the road of girlfriend frustration
one who was mine and … one who was not his
his frustration was my nanny
who was with me while my dad was in vancouver, occupied with his own, lumbar-based frustrations
dealing with the splintered pieces of a cord gone quite wrong
we walked with the sage
but we must have been blind
because these things were never sorted out

eventually paul disappeared
into alberta, i hear, to lick his wounds
something about a girl who was my age
who was sixteen and wore sunglasses perpetually
i have a number that i still dial once in awhile
in case he ever comes back to meet with the rivers

vi. in which some major, moral, and perplexing uncertainties arise

maybe now we are in the bar
nestled in the basement of our college
or some place downtown where we can fill our pockets with match-books
watch the game disinterestedly
we are asking one another endless, sometimes useless questions
‘why is ondaatje so hung up on dogs? dogs and the asses of dogs, tails riding high … is he a bestialist?’
‘foucault was. he didn’t just write the history of sexuality. he lived it’
‘where do you get that from? is it documented?’
‘no, i just think it’s true. somehow, he was too intelligent not to’
‘to what? to fuck goats?’
‘to fuck everything’
in a curious reversal of our barked arguments
the pitchers of beer slide into the blackness of our raw throats
until we are spinning in happiness and stumbling for the bus

suddenly, he says, in his shocking, yet calming way
‘ i love the way a pussy moistens and opens as it moistens
until it is red and full and full with its redness
i love to breathe that picture even now’
as we sit on the bus in anticipation of the subway our eyes glaze behind this image
we wonder in silence, collectively, i am sure, when we will see another one
when we will know the joy of secrets revealed simply because she holds them
but i’m afraid to tell him, or to tell anyone
that i want a mind much more than a lay
always have, always will
or rather, i want a lay in the mind like the ones he gives me
like the ones a lot of these guys give me:
mental orgasms breed intellectual jizzm – and it flies everywhere
i want to hug at the knees of professors and argue loudly on those things
that i won’t understand until i have riveted the books with sluggish sperm or vaginal smegma
(sometimes it feels like i have both)
all my teenage-talk of shit-crusted assholes comes roaring back into my ears
as i sit in fierce discussion –
but always with the boys
where are the girls who won’t run and hide when i scream
‘the ideal order of art is complete – let me run my tongue across your vagina
because it informs
because it is life
because without it i am destitute
but where is the vagina of the mind?
the receptacle into which i can force myself endlessly, exhausting every possibility
every word, every inhalation?
i can no longer dip into the minds that are a bore
i am tired of dipping
on the phone, she asks me, tentatively, ‘so, are you a homosexual?’
as sick as it sounds, as rude as this realm of telephone death can be, inside me i whisper
‘it seems, my dear – intellectually speaking – that i haven’t got a choice"

vii. in which an anonymous peddler of words is doomed to share every thought, every secret, and also comes to realize that now is always combined with then – that it’s important to know when not to try to separate now and then – that it’s important to leave surgery to the surgeons – that all parts combine to endlessly recombine – and that he has seen the stitching but no longer wants to lick the wound

because she wants to know, needs to know

we are in the room of books, still
‘you sure you’re not tired’ve listening to all this shit?’
no, i say, go ahead man, it’s all good
‘is it?’
don’t you dare stop ‘till it’s through

we’re missing parts, you know
maybe we’ll stitch them in as we need them
or maybe we won’t
but i had a locker the first time i saw her
gorgeous dark skin and black eyes holding a knowledge so old it will always be new
and on the bus that went out into the forest, i would see her
this was the first and only bus i’ve ever rode at full speed, equipped with a video-camera
installed to recount who put their gum where
what boy-scout scratched his initials into the green paint and why
or who littered the floor with the sunflower seeds, who spilled the juice
we were transparent on that bus, and you got the sense that they could tell
which boys liked which girls and which girls liked which boys
so in general you avoided looking at anyone
i’d already read orwell so this didn’t come as a surprise
i only wish i’d looked longer
every age has its own beauty, but her time escaped me

i’ve taken at least a hundred photographs since then

as well, i saw her when i first met kafka
i sat on the giant cement steps overlooking the playing field
reading about the vulture that would not quit – only a paragraph really
but one worthy of being embedded in the skin – one day, if my skin still has time

i want to tell her, when i see her next, that it’s not about fucking men
or women either
because i’ve come to the ever-open conclusion that it’s about minds
taking stimulation where you can get it, and dropping it where you can’t
teachers who rush from the room at the sound of the bell know this –
they stay away from death, but rush towards the fire – if they can see it
it’s not always so
life would be too painful if it were

viii. in which dan’s blue van is recalled and to great reward

‘as a matter of fact, I swallowed one of these about two hours ago, and the explanation is, that it is in fact, my hand.’
- a voice that sounds an awful lot like aldous huxley

almost died that way
trying to nibble my foul left hand into dust
dropping acid in the parking lot of my mom’s church
but that’s another story
- church was perpendicular to the school
- school was perpendicular to the field
- church also met the street
and the cars came in and the cars went out
but we were always secluded
except for the blue van that we drove to colorado
eleven of us; twelve if you’re kind and willing enough to stoop and include me
quinn and I, the long haired smokers of cigarettes and weed
he bought chewing tobacco while still in b.c.
didn’t think he would make it all that way, not even until we could hide behind gas stations
and maybe sneak a few drinks,
‘cause they sell beer with their gas down there and have cheap cigarettes’
for weeks before we left we schemed over fake i.d.
dan the pastor man drove the blue beast
state after state – but we slept in montana
missoula, actually, where david lynch was born –
they had the name of the town up on the mountain, just like in hollywood
‘or maybe like a deranged moses would’ve’ had he had the time

it was fun to take gravol and guzzle cough syrup
made the sky change colours
made the shopping malls interesting
but this, this was different
cost my parents a thousand dollars – but i was off
off to colorado

i remember i had to carry a bible with me
the rest of them did too
but mine had a green cover and said
‘the living way’
i use to highlight in blue or yellow the parts about dragons with their heads between women’s legs
or else keep my nose in the concordance, looking for demon’s and their secret names

hurling towards the desert in the blue van
i would orate the revelation of st. john the divine
a bit of quinn’s tobacco burning my tongue and my lips
… the words were there … but not the ideas
no! everything! everything was there, everything! but the threat of eternal punishment
plagues me still

the others don’t matter – but some were girls and were cute and you could easily get them into arguments
usually about their moms or their dads, who sat in the pews with hair spilling out of their ears
or who wore bizarre coloured stockings
or maybe they just loved god far too much
and it was all centred on us
we were busy, still trying to get the lines of that damn cross set straight –
math was teaching us to think that way
so it was good to leave for awhile
in the blue van
to colorado

you see, dan knew what you were all about
you got the feeling that he’d been through all of it before
something must have happened
his brother played the drums and dyed his hair and got dragoon tattoos
dan was unmarked, but he wanted to play guitar –
bought one from my dad
it was half-electric
and it made sense too

dan studied god in kentucky – i never knew why, but i knew that kentucky wasn’t kamloops and I knew it started with a ‘k’
‘importance lies in the hard sounds because the hard sounds make things happen’
but dan knew things behind those absurd glasses
he would pull them away from his face in order to magnify his eyes to the shape and size of two eggs
and he would push out his lips while he sucked his cheeks in
he was a fish
i’m a pisces

there were crazy people in colorado
the most beautiful had accents tasting of the south
and you wanted to know the smell of their tongues –
but you were shocked when you found your own coffee and tobacco hiding there
there was one girl who wore white shirts and was blonde
who had come on this mission of god for the same reasons as us
to get away
quinn really liked her
i think he was still wearing his gold cross back then
there were skateboarders from diego
and a guy from estevan, saskatchewan
it was strange who made it to this convention; no one seemed very christian
quinn and i told many lies
he was the son of ozzy and i was the nephew of cliff who had died in a bus
in fact, i was cliff jr.
quinn had always mourned not being named jason
so he became osbourne
jason osbourne
if they knew we were shitting them
they spoke not a word
and besides
they looked famous too

we went off to a mall with this crew, under new, stranger mountains, inversions really –
unlike back home, in b.c., these were the insides of mountains, lacking in green trees
and the sky moved, perpetually changing form
from one phenomena to the next
sunburns and bruises from the hail

some bland talk about god made exciting by lightning in the vein
i’m always amazed by what happens when the right paper hits your tongue
john knew – he swallowed scrolls whole, like honey for a certain bear
it would be awhile before i got sick enough to die
seized in the judgement of the things yet to come
we went into these mountains – estes park – where they play the air-raid just for fun
these one street towns with eight-dollar ice cream lack garbage, lack gravel, lack death
they ship their favourite ones elsewhere
haul them back with the stones already cut

we faked diarrhoea one night to avoid a certain lecture on the dangers of drugs
dan gave us pink pills which we never took –
not until the trip back, when a few bad fast-food burritos translated themselves into tiny, internal hells –
we yelled out the window that night
with electric guitars and unrefined hendrix
he died the year i was born

and ever since we’ve dreamed of head-bands soaked in l.s.d.
utah and the sea of salt
until then we mourned the blue van, moving north, back-tracking our way home through state after state
dan knew of a deranged church
‘it’ll be educational,’ he said
we stopped, camped some place in the woods next the side of some road, scared to leave our tents for cigarettes or a piss
somehow we knew we weren’t supposed to be there
soon enough, though, j. smith came into life, the golden man, sunlight dripping from his erect
soundless horn
parked outside, we walked through the gates
glad for sobriety, glad for common sense
glad we still thought of christ on his cross
they had him standing there, in perfect white, a pasty pale wound opened on his chest
but it was bloodless, and his palms were sealed
who was this man, standing with the universe behind him?
(seven jews in seven canoes on their way to mexico
live on elephant meat until after the wars …
when the sinners become the indians)
new planets in need of new mothers and new fathers –
because you can’t get to heaven –
you get to marriage
you people your own world
(how true, i thought, or am thinking now –
you do people your own world
you speak it or you fade)
they ushered us out and the foreign tourists in –
when i sunk back through for the washroom and a smoke
i heard jesus speaking again
i didn’t know he was so fluent in cantonese

and then the baptismal of the dead
we were bad, quinn and I, sneaking off to explore chandoliered rooms
to see the pipe-organ so large that when you moved it couldn’t help but let your mind ring its steel
to see the tub on its platform, held aloft by stone-forged bulls
we ascended those stairs slowly
with undue caution for tough guys like us
(roll the dice … hurry up! how many hit points? we’ll kill the dragon yet!)

when at the top, quinn read aloud –
whispering so softly that i thought he was hallucinating a candle’s flame before his eyes:
 

yes
then, then were we glad to flee homewards
back into that safe place called british columbia
to leave dan and his blue van in the church parking lot
to ponder whichever named or unnamed books he desired
and we could resume our habit of hits, ten bucks a pop
hope again to play in bands at high volume
play with the best, write with best, sleep with the best in our dreams
even if we weren’t the best
we knew that we would be

ix. in which he acknowledges those who have gone before him

things are open now
their lives are open now
the ink jar has spilled –
come! pour out over these divine
papers
words will make you heard, indefinitely

it’s because grandpa mentioned shostakovich
early one morning
‘i know this is a little heavy for monday first thing’
he said, ‘but see how you like it’
he told me
‘stalin killed shostakovich for making music like this
music this beautiful’
and then he pushed his fist to accentuate the air
on track 3 we have thunderous timpani
fierce clapping snare
cymbals starve away death
‘think of that – the classics broken into tracks!’

he played me more music than i could ever learn
since then i’ve seen my first opera
seen a glimpse of what these sounds are about
grandpa played the rite of spring while looking through my photographs
he seemed disinterested in them
even though he had given me the camera
i took a photo of him, but somehow it just didn’t
turn out
or maybe it did
the lighting was poor
his edges were blurred
you can’t distinguish how he senses temporality

like me he likes to sit in chairs and hear music
or sit before humming computers – though
his computer will always be faster than mine –
which is why his computer doesn’t make as much sound

i think chairs are important
for listening to shostakovich

it’s also because grandma, with her blessing french accent
sends envelopes on
my birthday
when i was younger, i didn’t read the cards
unless i was made to
i wanted the cash inside
to buy books or cds
or other types of disease

now that i’m settled about money –
)each chinese new year i’m reminded
that i’m a snake … the money’ll always
be there(
now that i’m settled about money
the cards mean everything

she was a nurse when she was young
and although i don’t know her well
some small part of my problems are fixed
by her presence
out there in georgetown
in her chair next to grandpa’s

x. in which old friends cause him to brag about the old days … yet … regretfully

1.
let me tell you how i am
or make an impression at least

the high-school is farther from the river than i would’ve liked
but the graveyard was very near
danielle took me there twice during the months of our ‘us’-ness
she was serious about insanity
cobain lived in her closet, she said
there were rumors that if you gave her false acid
it was only a matter of minutes before she would begin to bark like a dog
i missed that one
but i believe it
i too have stories to tell

she smashed me over the head in the hall-way
over a walk-man and over another girl
i think i punched a locker then –
there must be something that accounts for the scars on my right hand

i’d stolen a lot of books, which was probably why she liked me
i couldn’t help myself
i learned to hide library marks and silence alarms

so i had books
i found camus that way
i said
‘read the stranger
it makes everything seem so clear
it makes everything make perfect sense …’

-‘with the exception … ?’

‘love
i guess’

2.
the more i think of it, danielle wasn’t so bad
we laughed a lot in that graveyard
but she wanted to kill herself
she’d left her parents – already, in grade ten
but this was common
i had done it too
lived with jennifer downtown
and kayla who was two
or four
i can no longer remember whether or not she was able to speak
but i often heard her cry

the whole time i lived there i sat at the kitchen table eating macaroni
and writing awful lyrics that actually got recorded and some even got sung
but danielle had gotten herself a room in the suburbs, kamloops, b.c.
at times, we sat in that room, listening to nirvana, before they’d been given the the faith of
‘you are legion’
(later they would announce his suicide over the loudspeakers
i wasn’t in class then
was in the hall talking shop with dino who had left to wash the paint from his hands
they also announced o.j.’s verdict and the death of euphoria
these were strange times to be studying numbers and words, numbers and words)
she would kiss me so hard i would bruise
she had strange nipples i did not like
(i think this was on the same day that sophie and i had examined a magazine article on all the
different types – we nicknamed the worst ones:
‘cookie nipples’)
i kissed them anyway, glad they had no crumbs
she swallowed me between her unprejudiced, active lips and hung her underwear from the fan

3.
she came often
to hear the band play
i love that shed by the railway tracks
smelling of oil and discarded parts
i once hit a rat with a screwdriver
and we would immolate spiders with wd-40 and beutane-based flames

one night, after much drink and much noise
she careened into a stip-tease, unbidden
for the most part i was amused
blinking slowly behind the beer, pulling sluggardly at my four thick, round strings

later that same night, she saved my life
after those manic scenes in the graveyard, you just had to be surprised at her knack for diplomacy
i won’t name him because he might just kill me yet
but after sitting in gary’s jeep parked on china beach and stewing in the precious green fumes –
after that we were downtown, somewhere in the maze of houses, east of the hospital – near the school
to be sure – but i was still lost
and in a circle of tough teens we stood
blasting away at some real special stuff, the blackest of hash smoked sharp through a bottle
next thing i knew, i was spitting at him
there were words first, i remember, but they seemed unnecessary
absolutely
i’m not so tough, but at times … at times you know it’s right to bring a guy down
make him look into the eyes of someone who knows –
whether i knew or not is irrelevant –
his fists came slashing, barking like sandpaper dogs, chewing my skin with those nails he had there
beau heaved into his stomach, and they both fell to the ground, scrambling like aquarium crabs
and danielle took me into the jeep
to keep me from fighting
to keep me from death
she held me and soothed me and made me worthy of her kisses behind the dirt and the sweat
drove me down the river so we could hear the sizzling gush
water means everything, especially at two in the morning after you’ve swallowed the desert
and your left eye is bruised

last i heard, that guy was still in jail

4.
myself, i only went to jail once, which i’ll tell you about if you like
it’s rick’s story really
and danielle was still around – unless she had already gone to vancouver to wear leather pants and make her hair strange without caution

i’ll write her in anyhow
even if it isn’t true
i’ve come to love my memories of it

rick lived with his parents and for awhile i lived there too
but it was uncomfortable, because i didn’t think they liked me being there
they couldn’t understand why i didn’t have a home – they knew i had a home
but why wasn’t i living there?
so, i would stay hidden in his bedroom for hours
he had great books
on satanism
and archies
and serial killers
and magazines with girls in their swimsuits

he said porn was boring
but that he liked doing it in the swimming pool

these were the things that almost taught me how to forget religion
so i came late and i left late and on the nights without school we would drink fiercely
rick’s parents had a wine cellar built like a library
bottles aranged by dates and country, beautiful dates, beautiful countries

how maddeningly that smell comes back at me!
corks, ashes, dark chewed-up lees
drink life to the

buck-a-beer night at the max, and it was my birthday, a whole seventeen
i’ll buy you a beer
i’ll buy you a beer
i’ll buy you a beer
i’ll buy you a beer
and more
until i was dancing with an evil guy’s girlfriend (but she didn’t seem to think he was so tough)
and it was spinning and spinning
that dress and that dangling silver ball
the floor met the ceiling
and heaving
i ruined that dress

but that’s not what landed me in jail
no – we stumbled out into the night, romero zombies looking for meat –
after much shame
after enough reason to prove that we needed helmets, safety pads, spit-guards
we were drooling retards in that place of frenetic animals disengaged
botched synapses and bullshit phrases
this was the time when we first heard frank zappa
but we didn’t get it
we thought he agreed with us about being dancing fools and vomiting rut-heads
so when we saw danielle in the parking lot we made a scene
drunks hate ex-girlfriends
but they should try not to scream
next thing i knew i was dancing on the hood of a new car
focusing spider webs on the windshield with my cool skateboard shoes
and rick was into it too
the damage was high, two cars no one could drive
we took off into the small hills and almost would’ve made it if it weren’t for the cop coming by
he let loose that heart-seizing blip while our feet were wrangling through the weeds
i was going to die in the back of that car
sweating myself sober, too manic to appreciate the novelty of what i’d only ever seen on tv
rick was cool, having seen all of this at least a million times
before
he was negotiating sweetly, but was too drunk to realize that we were in for it
and good

the worst thing is that they bring in a phone and a laminated card with the numbers of lawyers
it’s like roulette, they’re all the same
but they make you pick one
the one you’re going to wake from a nice, bourgeois sleep
just so the book of the law can say:
‘call your daddy right away –‘
because i wouldn’t agree, wouldn’t tell them who i was, wouldn’t make that call home to descend from the pits
‘get yourself out of that horrible place. now!’
yet, i wish i’d been sober in that damned little cell
i missed some hard, focused memories down there

am left with blurred images of fingers rolled in ink
‘don’t smile for the camera, we want your natural features’
i must’ve looked fat with all of that booze beneath my skin
and the man said, pondering me in my underwear
‘what’s that tattoo? what does it mean? and that one?’

they even took my earings
yes, these are things i would like better to remember

but, hey, this is rick’s story
they’d seen him in here before, you see
and he was twenty, needing a lesson

the amputee in his cell beat rick half near to death
under the pale, almost religious light
with a prosthetic, shining-steel, limb

xi. in which a certain red-head is remembered and loved and never forgotten because true friends take you to their graves and rain tears upon you until flowers appear soaked in glory and perfumed spit

we’d met before
but it was only in the speeding room
full with its computers
that we became such good friends

we were both racing with magnetic energy
which is probably why –
throbbing hearts screaming release in the confines of that weak teacher’s gaze
who played obscure videos about a guy who built chips –
this was before ‘95

how many lovers and non-lovers have we both known since then?
how many times in the volvo –
or in my car –
(which was silver? which was grey?) –
honking and screaming to achieve our oft-needed kicks
howling behind the chamber music of feminists
with manic guitars or nuclear bombs?
we seized what would leave us in the coming of age
kissing our poets in silk sacrilege
and regretting how short the weekend was when we screamed through ontario
twice we were going to kill this country with exhaust fumes
but i was slow to come
so hard to catch up with you of quiet fame
i remember you showed me how he fished
on a strange documentary. i couldn’t feel it as well as
you felt it
but i used to take his books from the library
because he was a part of you
and i read how silent fishing can be
no hemingway roar or rape of hair
just a song of the wilderness
these were books i returned for some other kid to find
i’m not always so kind

speaking of which, i shot more than the hornet’s nest with that gun
but your brother’s so tall now and all he can talk about when i see him is the time on the bus
when i went really wild, terrorizing the children
with my inflected howl of ‘i like balloons!’
i was shrill and your sister half-puked on her plate
that game was fine!
by the way, kubrick died today (8 March 1999 – yesterday actually
but i heard it today – which makes it today)
kubrick penetrated us at that place of yours
(a real hero now dead)
that forest retreat back up in the mountains where you chased horses in the blue truck
beneath the blue sky – and wasn’t that volvo blue too?
the car you used to chase time with
through the caucus of trees that was our short home?
kubrick roared through that young army and we laughed at the phobias we’d never seen so open before
(sometimes, assholes and bastards can be justified)
plaguing nervously through the mouth of that tight-lipped buffoon –
until a series of bullets tore through his chest –
i never knew about you
but i savoured seeing that with my head on your couch –
and later, in some class, we would repeat those crude, awful lines in protracted southern
accents –
it was cattle country after all –
and it made sense since your piano was so out of tune

now we’re in the lands of twin executions
though your city is more dangerous than mine
yet, our waters recede just as deeply into the
distance
and maybe he is fishing there
in either place
or in both

xii. in which another heroe are invoked, at an earlier point in his life - but is perhaps not properly dealt with

cohen, you old fart
i’ve known you more than you’ll
ever know
or ever care

one day i’ll be old just like you
and hopefully just as silent
with a past like fire
with a past like burning pages

until you are obsolete
(or like a book brother william has never read)
prick me
constantly

xiii. in which he writes for celia, who talks about heroes in an honest, thankful way

i read about nahnebahwequa
on photocopied paper because there was no other way
she said she would appreciate my thoughts
which made me feel good, but then
she always makes me feel good
it feels good when they finally start to have faith in you –
or maybe they always had and you just hadn’t realized it

after reading this secret history, hidden high in the library
amid acrid, published books
i found the fourth floor boring

which was sudden
because nabokov lives there
and orwell too, and all the kings of
facial hair i am on the verge of abandoning for something quite new

so i burst out and sat with jen at the bar
called the absynth –
and they’re right because it does numb the senses –
how long i have sat in dumb vibes and gave lectures to my friends –
drinking pop from a green bottle
i sat to send her my thoughts
because i agree about heroes, and deeply
how frustrated i am to never meet mine
and not have to tell them –
because we all know the giants aren’t really that tall –
i spoke to eco this year and was a fool with my unsigned book –
yet now i have a name for adso’s rose and it is
in black ink
in ball-point bic pen –
from italy, i hope –
although;
celia is a hero too
i’ve never asked for her name
never asked for more than to sit in her office looking over the lane –
on the eighth floor she hears me babble and with silent regret
returns to the work of being a hero

i was going to write her an essay, filled with
cogent thoughts –

‘well, yes, i agree
with points a, b, and c
and how clever it is
to bring this life into speech’

this long hidden hero who gzowski never heard –
nahnebahwequa –
though if i am the ears of canada, celia
you know i’ll be listening

so; you listen;
if i can be so damn brave
i’ve heard the secret history … or at least a small song –
it is a slow whisper that hears everything –
though it may only become a footnote in some book on some quiet-pressed day –
to live on the shelves of the fourth floor –
if that’s the case, celia
on that day we win

xiv. in which that which is hidden is revealed and seen as a calculation – proper and necessary – whole, yet unwhole, common yet lacking ground; this in rooms filled with friends and great, great joy

and then there is adam who is at both the beginning and at the end, and at the now which is happening now –
this is strange because the room in which we met is captained by yet another adam –
whom we playfully mock, often, but at the same time, admire
he knows the whole of literary history and its theory –
probably because he once heard from bloom in person – or rather over the lines of the internet through which you can dial back all the way to –
adam
but we’ve heard these things before
but we’re destined to hear them again

it’s so strange they are two in this time –
these two adams –
when the west meets the east there will be storms and trains of fire
mad john wayne wagons and leoni moments of silence
the judgment day is calling from the throats of wicked words never fogotten, always informing:
the book that makes new books and makes those books even newer
mine has a green cover, you’ll remember, if your memory is not spare
of course, now … adam dials back to adam dials back to adam dials back to –
you needn’t forget a thing, lads and lassies, because memory has found a space
a room full of zeros and ones and we’ll all get to eternity, get to ponder life outside of
that room

but jacek knows better – he told me so:
he said, ‘after all, zero approaches infinity’
and what of number one? i asked
he says, ‘carve for yourself a moebius strip
here, i’ll show you’
he’s good at that, at showing – and he likes essays, says a good essay is the only way to make your point –
yet, as he tears through the paper i stare blankly down the hall
i’ve been coming into math slowly – but jacek’s a canon-ball
‘you write ‘living artists’ on one side … ‘dead artists’ on the other’
holding the strip in the air, he says
‘twist it – just like this, see’
putting the ends together, he makes the circle stick with spit from his tongue and then he
traces his finger quickly through the inside, saying
‘this is why the dead can meet the living
you change time just a little; it takes only a twist and a fold to make all things complete’
zero approaches infinity

adam makes a mess of things, as well
in fact, they both do
to quote adam the student – i’m sure he won’t mind
he’s a playwrite of extraordinary power –
and besides, we’re all scholars now … if i cite you, i won’t have to pay you:

adam [the teacher]: mary, you're a poet, what do you think of
eliot's assertion that –
(insert assertion).
mary: (in a sexy voice) umm, i really don't know
anything about that.
adam [the teacher]: kozlowski?
jacek: well...... (insert bullshit) ..........
dimitry: (cutting in) that's right sir! why,
haven't we all read the 28th Canto of dante's pergatorio? this
is exactly what eliot was talking abou –
adam [the teacher]: (cutting off dimitry) cantor, what do you
think?
adam [the student]: well, i have two points...
adam [the teacher]: (shaking his head) yes, well, that's nice.
didi? (shakes her head) bert? (shakes his head)
anthony?
me: well it reminds me of this book about a guy
who liked to lick the festering wounds
of dead bodies on the highway –
adam [the teacher]: (cutting anthony off) mary, you're a
writer, what do you think of
anthony's idea?
mary: (cooing) umm, i'm not sure what i really know
about that …

you see, one adam wrote this, but the other made it happen
it’s like this fucking class room is the garden and we’re tossing out names
all brought together to form a library for the future
even if it is mandatory and even if it is in zeros and ones
because zero approaches infinity
and one is the tie that binds
these things loop like mad marbles carving circles into death
and you know these circles well –
they’ve placed words of life just beneath the skin
i wear orwell like a jacket:

war is peace
freedom is slavery
ignorance is strength

but i’m tired of that now
and so will i tire of this
i’ll feed from it forever but it’s important to know that the circle has been un/broken
i’ve learned a new circle
one that fires like the strings of adam’s sitar
he’s the perpetual student, unlike our weird, vain t.a. –
who puts a cap on knowledge like the beret he wears to shakespeare –
it was cloudy that day, but downtown had never felt so good –
and we sat in the bar and later i moaned under the weed
lungs like collapsing balloons, but this time, gorgeous and unafraid
taking the sight of him in like the dragon inhales the lamb
holding his sitar and blasting me off into new spaces that math could not control

of course, later, like jacek, he shatters me
sixteen beats to a bar
and a strange drum
wru – ump … da dum … wru – ump … da dum

so quickly he plays me into sleep and it’ll take you sixteen years before you understand this masterpiece
he says – or wants to say
and when i think of death i know i’m crazy, because after that day i read foucault on the bus
‘slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison’
and between the two, i was dizzy for days
reeling in something so sweet i needed to vomit
(told celia this – besides adam, she’s the only one to get it – and
maybe her wild daughters)
and she met him in an elevator once
maybe she saw these things in his shifting wise eyes the way i sometimes do)

every time i see him he … he’s days away from a shave
but the teacher is clean – void of mess, kills lint with a vaccuum
and now i think adam’s right:
if you want to write –
i mean really write –
you’re going to drag yourself across pavement on a mean horse
with a sled from foucault, exposing your belly until your entrails hang for all to see
and they’ll staple these wrecked, wretched innards
in a grocery store or in a book, or god forbid, in a library –
and this secret history
this
is it

vx. in which conspiracies find broken stairs and are taught to stop climbing – and also in which he stops moaning – accepts a few grains of self-love with his loathing – and kisses himself goodnight

why i love conspiracy movies is because they show me that sudden timeless fact
it’s simple to see
we’re stabbing and stabbing
perpetually

the blood from your back catches in my hands
drilling holes where christ would have liked them better –
but i will purge you
if only with the interest of my own kids in mind –
because i’ve realized that i want them
and when they grow up i want a world of endless connections to wrap them in its whirl
endless connections without pain

10 March 1999