that was the year...

that was the year that each hill was a city. you could see them out of train windows, smoke rising, trip-wires, backgrounded and high-heeled. half ashtrayed. something you’d stand on your tip-toes to see, leaning over and peering in.

that was the year of readiness. a desire for power-point presentations, imitations of heartfelt seriousness, themes were in the air but we groped at them like high school make-out partners. spin the bottle. ackee ackee 1-2-3. seven minutes in heaven and a serious overbite.

that was the year they were impious enough to ask us if we knew where the euphrates was. those of us who were former lifeguards, or had played out that fantasy once or twice, who called ourselves “dutch” in private, who had seen the plans for phase two, who liked to think beyond terrorism— well, we were mildly shocked. we deferred our answers. we wrapped mufflers like nooses. we didn’t like the early skeptics, former cold warrior target audience testers, and yes, triumphant anticipators. we knew ourselves as an early cause, as paths grown hard, forced into the landscape of each hill. and yet precisely because no one asked us, we took the vow.

anne carson

a couple weeks before that there was a visiting scholar who flew and quilted a wit so they published it

the seat next to me smelled hooverphonic, an agitation of breath and height

a getty special
a los angeles high-brow mountaintop
a maglev climbing language stumble, it grew bored
a staircase prophet
a liar is a liar in courtyards or governments or on the cross next to christ
call it a monotone reading of the lively
a man in a net trapped campaign
cassandra

reproduction, refurbishing, rewritten, restored translation of a break-down when the housed cracked on another los angeles hilltop somewhere near northridge, but felt all the way in rome, florence, athens

edison invented the light bulb
how does that compare to the statue of david

when I was twenty-one I went to the hilltop with a girl I had a crush on and another I was sleeping with. some holes are natural and some are man-made. malibu is somewhere in between, 30,000 pages of short hand, facts no one will care about a week from now. the way light sneaks into subways and construction sites. doodles.

what we finish falls down the sides of things. cut.
apartment complexes
limbs
math graphs
a pair of red boxers with a blue waist band

can you confiscate the taste of a shape

the reader is bothered by the collaborator
she glances twice and unfortunately gives in

why do we listen to a reader. is it the brain as a building, the smell of sweat in auditorium rows or the taking apart of apollo to destroy the taste of the beer that you get at the corner store for twice the price.

in 11th grade mr. brown was my spanish teacher, but he was mostly good with stories. apollo then, as a word, taken apart, is as unstable as a brother, is forgotten as a white-washed relief, is a broken rope ladder, is bodies in trees, is street walkers overlooked, is a piece of the lake floating out to sea, is the wedding day long gone, is one participant in the stack of pictures emptied into bags in the aisle. they are mine as much as they are hooverphonics.

mr. bubble.

you tell me it would make a good story but it’s just something I’ll always remember
still, I could reel you in if I wanted to
but first you’d have to concede italy
that god is in the t.v.
a taxman
god himself is a beautiful dead tuscany cemetery
a napoleanonic response
and nappy, he saw enemies everywhere he turned
yet he never saw the lazio fans in the stadia
never searched for a biletta with a crazy taxi driver

or a word singing
not words, just one word in good voice

I’ve been hugged outside the gates of every future ruin amongst us
no, it’s not love, but it’s a bit of fun isn’t it. a kiss on each cheek.

roma

here, no one thinks a thought just for a head
instance--palatine, olympico
stadia
the way of the speller to whom it's obvious that I am jesus christ

sometimes I feel obligated to tell them this
that they are still romans
think togas
green garlands
mostly men
as taxi drivers
cafe americano
desk jockeys
ticket takers
always three or four of them
one of them more quiet than the others, in charge
still romans
italy is just a word

I want to say to them--
in america I am often superman but for some reason I am jesus christ here
they would laugh that distant perfect laugh they have
they would be better looking than superman himself
their clothes jealous of the people who wear them

morning
traffic in the street turning water on and off in the the shower
slide curtain
romans everywhere
but I, I am jesus christ
or sometimes, for fifteen minutes at a time in america, I am superman