fade in

K: "Who are you?"

D: "I am death."

K: "Are you here to get me?"

D: "I have already long walked at your side."

K: "I know that."

D: "Are you ready?"

K: "My body is scared, but not me."

K: "Wait a minute!"

D: "You all say that, but I leave no postponements."

K: "You play chess, don't you?"

D: "How do you know?"

K: "Ah, I've seen it on paintings and heard it in the ditties."

something for a monday evening

outlook

consistency

A Ponder upon the state of Sir Geffory.

Looking at gas giants
Panting.
He once glanced directly into
The sun, just for a moment
So the sunspots that besotted him
Could be imprinted in the black
When he closed his eyes
Allowing him to entwine the claws
Of his imagination around them.

Voyeur Astronomer.
howling in glee as
Meaty whores streak across the sky
The lens fogs up at thoughts of being
Whipped by a comets glowing tail.

He’s chewing on beef sandwiches
Delivered by the night maid
Who ran away before he could
Grab and ravish her
All washed down with beer
A smoke and a tumult
of coughing and cursing.

Some people find integrity in poverty
Or justification for sleeping
through grand nights like this
crowned with ceaseless eternity,
instead preferring to work through
Grey or blue distractions

But with the warm pockets of wealth
And insanity to plunge cold hands into
Sir Geoffrey stands with an eye
glued to the glass, his retina sucking in the
weary photons from long dead stars
which have travelled through the depths
at unrelenting speed to strike a chemical spark
into electricity interpreted by a brain
that yearns to dissipate itself
into the pure exquisite pointlessness
that true freedom brings.

"Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It’s all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author’s name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, “Shhhh.”

Then start again.

—Ron Koertge

this is quite good

MUSICVISION PHOENIX from Guillaume Delaperriere on Vimeo.