Reader
I hate that ghost, that asshole who pricks me when I am
minding my own business. WHICH I AM. Fuck off ghost, but it doesn’t
fuck off, it pricks and pinches me though it has no pincers or prickers.
How does it do it, it just does. I like to be alone but the ghost
won’t leave me alone even if for a time I think I am alone.
ENJOYING MY SOLITUDE. I think I am in love with my solitude. The
ghost ruins everything. Maybe I should kick the ghost where it counts.
Where does it count on a ghost? Nowhere counts on a ghost. Nowhere
could be anywhere on a ghost. You just don’t know.
Poetics
The poets tell me things like Hooray for refuse.
Like, there’s a grackle in the crotch of that tree.
The poets freak me out. I hide from them by posing as a tree. I
stand in tree posture, on one leg, arms in a diamond above my head.
Tree
posture does not so much look like a tree as a cartoon Egyptian,
but the poets don’t know the difference. They have wrought
too many metaphors. Something in the poets is broken.
The
problem with the poets is that they will just stand there staring
at me, thinking I am a tree. They will stand there all day. The
poets never get bored. A grackle will land on my crotch and rest
there, and then the poets will stare at the grackle. They will look
at the grackle’s black feathers and see purple feathers and
red feathers and blue feathers and green feathers. They will see
themselves reflected in the feathers’ oily shine. When the
grackle flies off, they will sit down in the shade beneath me and
pluck their lutes and hum. If they fall asleep I can sneak away,
but I usually have to wait until they get hungry or thirsty or shivery.
This can take hours or days.
I try
to avoid the poets, to duck around a corner or into a store before
they see me, but I do not always see them coming. Sometimes I am
taken by surprise.
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