i, shatter: June 2007

Une étape autour de mon ville

But when is around town when
I live très isolée? Am I
out of the loop or breaking out
of here? Remember, I can still see
the peaceable kingdom on widescreen
evenings and the chanai stalls promoting
Egypt on their window displays.

When do I have to start worrying?
When I have to start building walls
in front as well as at the back
of my house? Or when I can tear
down my iron fence and replace it
with pickets? Which I will repaint
white for the happiness conceit
for which I will ask permission
not from nature but from the nods
or otherwise of close neighbours.

Watch me miss my mark and strike
white the red earth.

But still these are oblique concerns
of mini-DV close-ups. Dull. I've
forgotten Kiarostami's misgivings
and shot ahead when what I really
want is a wide angle and a new tripod
for my ego. It's like at the end of Taste
of Cherry, when no one knows if it's real

or an approximation
of magic.

CXVIII

when the night fruits roll down white chinese plates
a butter avocado, dark purple, it's everything.
she, her legs spread in a v,
threw an arm around the rider's black helmet,
and shot yellow octopus arms
of banana skin to the metal fence that went
clang! but her toes are puffy as if it
and any second might burst peach-coloured nastiness
where the nails used to be.
her legs though are stronger and leaner and shapelier
than her sister's, as she climbs the dark brown stairs
in her open stilettos, i could see one calf tightening like
a bodybuilder's arm.
and his mouth puckered as he saw
the blue kingswood with the blue navy
number plates—the yellow anchor and numbers
sticking out in the disco lite of 2 pm,
and his eyes followed its heavy curviness like
a lover departing and stopped as a suzuki escudo ran into
his line of vision,
the nice
comfortable feeling of seeing
a car the make of which is an icon in your country gone from his pale face.
did it come back when we saw the pink legs
of skinned frogs, next to the green
bumpiness of unskinned ones on green sliminess
of day-old papaya leaves, the spines shiny
from the juice of the frogs?
it's like when i dream of a new undiscovered, now disundiscovered,
but soon will be lost again when i wake up,
#34 series of unfinished tintins,
and he cannon shots his french cuffs
from under vivienne's pencil thin (staedler 2B=1.5)
suit arm,
up,
and shakes them like surgeons
waiting for the nurse to fix the surgical gloves
tightly like condoms.
enjamb your lines before
the meaning
—.
is it possible to think, pace N.'s insistence that genius
thinks in pictures,
in dolby dts thx surround sound?
for how else can i tell you of my mother's bad phone manners as she ends
conversations with yes i never knew don't you understand ... click.
but all you need is work at the end
of the day when the orange window panes frame
the black blue of an early evening and the grey rectangled
itunes stretches a blue line over a case of you and i looked at the time remaining
and i couldn't make out the seconds
because of the tears.

So Paëthon Said To Gatotkaca, Toking on a Cloud:

“If only I had your wingèd singlet,
I wouldn’t have had to borrow dad’s
fucken sun-fucken-chariot.”

CXVIX

Ini mungkin tidak akan menjadi sesuatu yang utuh:

Aku hanya ingat tentang kau di beranda rumah orang tuamu di Lismore
pohon mangga di sudutnya masih kuncup, banjir belum lama surut
tanah masih berdarah seperti langit sebelum jam enam.
Bau pohon gum. Knalpot ute yang mendentam.

Kau seperti sedang bersenam tai chi, atau falun gong, atau hanya salah satu
Broadway numbers yang kau hapalkan dari kaset-kaset VHS dari Harry's.
Rambutmu sudah abu-abu. Berandamu sekarang tertutup kasa nyamuk,
Tidak seperti dirimu dulu yang senang dengan angin semriwing dari kutub.

Kau sedang memandang ke luar, ke pinto Co-Op yang masih tertutup,
muka Rosalind tua yang tergambar di sekelilingnya. Hidung yang bercuping lebar
tepat di atasnya. Aku masih ingat waktu kau tiba-tiba bilang di kali ketiga kita bertemu, "Berarti selama ini orang-orang masuk keluar lewat mulutnya."

Kau meleleh di mataku. Udara seperti menekan ujung-ujung jarimu
untuk melengkung, membulat, membentuk tinju. Betapa susah
untuk mengenang kenangan seperti aslinya. Tidak seperti mengagumi foto hitam putih
Jendral Sudirman ditandu Oerip Soemohardjo di buku sejarah anakku.

"The smoke-flowers are blurred over the river," ya, ya, terus apa lagi
yang kau lihat di seberang sana? B&B mungil bercat biru di Watego's
satu unit lagi kali ini dengan pemandangan satu juta dolar di utara jembatan,
pensiun awal dengan super-annuation yang super dermawan.

Kenapa kita pernah heran kenapa kita tidak pernah bisa utuh?