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You tall tortured king, following the light you feel, the smile you crave,
the look you can’t bear to look away from.
Now you’ve bowed your head again, and for the last time, though it’s not even dusk.
Now even your wing-like leaves roll and twist inwards.
Soon they’ll crack and break, your scrawny torso will shiver and fall into its plush entourage,
which only looks up at you now, waiting, a bit fearful,
while beside you still stands half an old stem, your mother perhaps, a crutch you’ll never use.
And not even your dangling children can help you now,
they’re just a hungry necklace, a fleshy weight out to take your color,
like the crown of sun-flash now split among them.
But still we look into your lovely dark night, drinking our softest, saddest selves.
And you, you have finally, suddenly noticed us.
You look perplexed and a bit sad too. Everything happened so soon.
(after Schiele’s Sunflower II)
I'm a flower becoming data. (There's music but it doesn't matter.)
A glassy page revs in around me— where are you, where am I? (It matters but it doesn't matter.)
There's music but it doesn't matter. (Who knows, who knows what your smile is made of.) Is that the screen moving or me? Is that a screen or a street before me?
Where are you, where am I? (I'm waiting for a friend but it doesn't matter.)
There's a little link: it's someone. Click-click : smile a word or word a smile. (It's nothing but it doesn't matter.)
Never mind who that you is: it's someone too. (It's enough but it doesn't matter.)
There's matter but it doesn't music. (I'm a window that can't see - who is out, who is in, who is?) Is that me or the screen moving? Is that me or the screen smiling? Is that me or is that me or is that me or is that me or is that ...
Who is out and who is in? A glassy page revs away from me. (It's real but it doesn't matter.)
There's music but it doesn't matter. (I'm a flower becoming data.)
The plane went into the building but it did not come out. Then another plane went into the next building but it did not come out either.
It was as though plane and building were made for each other, like they had waited their whole lives for this and could finally die now, feeling completed.
While down on the streets and around the world most of us only kept watching, half-expecting the planes to come out again, but they didn’t, they just disappeared.
And then the buildings disappeared too, just dropping into the ground like summer sandcastles, taking what they knew with them, their lives and their loves,
their yesterday, their today, and tomorrow, their jacks and jokers, kings and queens, their plans and orders, their secrets and dreams, their faraway views and executions.
Who cares, give up, give in, breathe and begin again, anywhere, any thought, bounce from cost to cost, say no, say yes, say.
I care, come here, look on, feed upon my home, it moves, spins, picks loss from life and asks, needs a course, tops a course.
Why care, fall away, say away, watch not and know another knot, stay there, sound fair, soothe a sense, be a part, parting off.
(to Samuel Beckett)
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