How It Is (6 page)

dream come of a sky an earth an under-earth where I am
inconceivable
aah no sound in the rectum a redhot spike that day we prayed no further

how often kneeling how often from behind kneeling from every angle from behind in
every posture if he wasn’t me he was always the same cold comfort

one buttock twice too big the other twice too small unless an optical delusion here
when you shit it’s the mud that wipes I haven’t touched them for an eternity in other
words the ratio four to one I always loved arithmetic it has paid me back in full

Pim’s though undersized were iso he could have done with a third I fleshed them indistinctly
something wrong there but first have done with my travelling days part one before
Pim how it was leaving only part two leaving only part three and last

in the days when I still hugged the walls in the midst of my brotherly likes I hear
it and murmur that then above in the light at every bodily pain the moral leaving
me as ice I screamed for help with once in a hundred some measure of success

as when exceptionally the worse for drink at the small hour of the garbage-man in
my determination to leave the elevator I caught my foot twixt cage and landing and
two hours later to the tick someone came running having summoned it in vain

old dream I’m not deceived or I am it all depends on what is not said on the day it
all depends on the day farewell rats the ship is sunk a little less is all one begs

a little less of no matter what no matter how no matter when a little less of to be
present past future and conditional of to be and not to be come come enough of that
on and end part one before Pim

fire in the rectum how surmounted reflections on the passion of pain irresistible
departure with preparatives appertaining uneventful journey sudden arrival lights
low lights out bye-bye is it a dream

a dream what a hope death of sack arse of Pim end of part one leaving only part two
leaving only part three and last Thalia for pity’s sake a leaf of thine ivy

quick the head in the sack where saving your reverence I have all the suffering of
all the ages I don’t give a curse for it and howls of laughter in every cell the tins
rattle like castanets and under me convulsed the mud goes guggle-guggle I fart and
piss in the same breath

blessed day last of the journey all goes without a hitch the joke dies too old the
convulsions die I come back to the open air to serious things had I only the little
finger to raise to be wafted straight to Abraham’s bosom I’d tell him to stick it
up

some reflections none the less while waiting for things to improve on the fragility
of euphoria among the different orders of the animal kingdom beginning with the sponges
when suddenly I can’t stay a second longer this episode is therefore lost

the dejections no they are me but I love them the old
half-emptied
tins let limply fall no something else the mud engulfs all me alone it carries my
four stone five stone it yields a little under that then no more I don’t flee I am
banished

stay for ever in the same place never had any other ambition with my little dead weight
in the warm mire scoop my wallow and stir from it no more that old dream back again
I live it now at this creeping hour know what it’s worth was worth

a great gulp of black air and have done at last with my travelling days before Pim
part one how it was before the others the sedentary with Pim after Pim how it was
how it is vast tracts of time when I see nothing more hear his voice then this other
come from afar on the thirty-two winds from the zenith and depths then in me when
the panting stops bits and scraps I murmur them

done with these fidgets that will not brook one second longer here at my ease too
weak to raise the little finger and were it the signal for the mud to open under me
and then close again

question old question if yes or no this upheaval daily if daily ah to have to hear
that word to have to murmur it this upheaval yes or no if daily it so heaves me up
and out of my swill

and the day so near its end at last if it is not compact of a
thousand
days good old question terrible always for the head and universally apropos which
is a great beauty

to have Pim’s timepiece something wrong there and nothing to time I don’t eat any
more then no I don’t drink any more and I don’t eat any more don’t move any more and
don’t sleep any more don’t see anything any more and don’t do anything any more it
will come back perhaps all come back or a part I hear yes then no

the voice time the voice it is not mine the silence time the silence that might help
me I’ll see do something something good God

curse God no sound make mental note of the hour and wait midday midnight curse God
or bless him and wait watch in hand but the dark but the days that word again what
about them with no memory tear a shred from the sack make knots or the cord too weak

but first have done with my travelling days part one before Pim unspeakable flurry
in the mud it’s me I say it as I hear it rummaging in the sack taking out the cord
tying the neck of the sack tying it to my neck turning over on my face taking leave
and away

ten yards fifteen yards semi-side left right leg right arm push pull flat on face
imprecations no sound semi-side right left leg left arm push pull flat on face imprecations
no sound not an iota to be changed in this description

here confused reckonings to the effect I can’t have deviated more than a second or
so from the direction imparted to me one day one night at the inconceivable outset
by chance by necessity by a little of each it’s one of the three from west strong
feeling from west to east

and so in the mud the dark on the belly in a straight line as near as no matter four
hundred miles in other words in eight
thousand
years if I had not stopped the girdle of the earth meaning the equivalent

it’s not said where on earth I can have received my education acquired my notions
of mathematics astronomy and even physics they have marked me that’s the main thing

intent on these horizons I do not feel my fatigue it is manifest none the less passage
more laborious from one side semi-side to the other prolongation of intermediate procumbency
multiplication
of mute imprecations

sudden quasi-certitude that another inch and I fall headlong into a ravine or dash
myself against a wall though nothing I know only too well to be hoped for in that
quarter this tears me from my reverie I’ve arrived

the people above whining about not living strange at such a time such a bubble in
the head all dead now others for whom it is not a life and what follows very strange
namely that I understand them

always understood everything except for example history and geography understood everything
and forgave nothing never could never disapproved anything really not even cruelty
to animals never loved anything

such a bubble at such a time it bursts the day can’t do much more to me

you mustn’t too weak agreed if you want weaker no you must as weak as possible then
weaker still I say it as I hear it every word always

my day my day my life so they come back the old words always no not much more only
reacclimatize myself then last till sleep not fall asleep mad no sense in that

mad or worse transformed à la Haeckel born in Potsdam where Klopstock too among others
lived a space and laboured though buried in Altona the shadow he casts

at evening with his face to the huge sun or his back I forget it’s not said the great
shadow he casts towards his native east the humanities I had my God and with that
flashes of geography

not much more but in the tail the venom I’ve lost my latin one must be vigilant so
a good moment in a daze on my belly then begin I can’t believe it to listen

to listen as though having set out the previous evening from Nova Zembla I had just
come back to my senses in a
subtropical
subprefecture that’s how I was had become or always was it’s one or the other the
geography I had

question if always good old question if always like that since the world world for
me from the murmurs of my mother shat into the incredible tohu-bohu

like that unable to take a step particularly at night without
stopping
dead on one leg eyes closed breath caught ears cocked for pursuers and rescuers

I close my eyes the same old two and see me head up rick in the neck hands tense in
the mud something wrong there breath caught it lasts I last like that a moment until
the quiver of the lower face signifying I am saying have succeeded in saying something
to myself

what can one say to oneself possibly say at such a time a little pearl of forlorn
solace so much the better so much the worse that style only not so cold cheers alas
that style only not so warm joy and sorrow those two their sum divided by two and
luke like in outer hell

it’s soon said once found soon said the lips stiffen and all the adjacent flesh the
hands open the head drops I sink a little further then no further it’s the same kingdom
as before a moment before the same it always was I have never left it it is boundless

I’m often happy God knows but never more than at this instant never so oh I know happiness
unhappiness I know I know but there’s no harm mentioning it

above if I were above the stars already and from the belfreys the brief hour there’s
not much more left to endure I’d gladly stay as I am for ever but that won’t do

uncord sack and neck I do it I must do it it’s the way one is regulated my fingers
do it I feel them

in the mud the dark the face in the mud the hands anyhow something wrong there the
cord in my hand the whole body anyhow and soon it is as if there at that place and
no other I had lived yes lived always

God sometimes somewhere at this moment but I have chanced on a good day I would gladly
eat something but I won’t eat anything the mouth opens the tongue doesn’t come out
the mouth soon closes again

it’s on the left the sack attends me I turn on my right side and take it so light
in my arms the knees draw up the back bends the head comes to rest on the sack we
must have had these
movements
before would they were the last

now yes or no a fold of the sack between the lips that can happen not in the mouth
between the lips in the vestibule

in spite of the life I’ve been given I’ve kept my plump lips two big scarlet blubbers
to the feel made for kisses I imagine they pout out a little more part and fasten
on a ruck of the sack very horsy

yes or no it’s not said I can’t see other possibilities pray my prayer to sleep again
wait for it to descend open under me calm water at last and in peril more than ever
since all parries spent that hangs together still

find more words and they all spent more brief movements of the lower face he would
need good eyes the witness if there were a witness good eyes a good lamp he would
have them the witness the good eyes the good lamp

to the scribe sitting aloof he’d announce midnight no two in the morning three in
the morning Ballast Office brief movements of the lower face no sound it’s my words
cause them it’s they cause my words it’s one or the other I’ll fall asleep within
humanity again just barely

the dust there was then the mingled lime and granite stones piled up to make a wall
further on the thorn in flower green and white quickset mingled privet and thorn

the depth of dust there was then the little feet big for their age bare in the dust

the satchel under the arse the back against the wall raise the eyes to the blue wake
up in a sweat the white there was then the little clouds you could see the blue through
the hot stones through the jersey striped horizontally blue and white

raise the eyes look for faces in the sky animals in the sky fall asleep and there
a beautiful youth meet a beautiful youth with golden goatee clad in an alb wake up
in a sweat and have met Jesus in a dream

that kind an image not for the eyes made of words not for the ears the day is ended
I’m safe till tomorrow the mud opens I depart till tomorrow the head in the sack the
arms round it the rest anyhow

brief black long black no knowing and there I am again on my way again something missing
here only two or three yards more and then the precipice only two or three last scraps
and then the end end of part one leaving only part two leaving only part three and
last something missing here things one knows already or will never know it’s one or
the other

I arrive and fall as the slug falls take the sack in my arms it weighs nothing any
more nothing any more to pillow my head I press a rag I shall not say to my heart

no emotion all is lost the bottom burst the wet the dragging the rubbing the hugging
the ages old coal-sack five stone six stone that hangs together all gone the tins
the opener an opener and no tins I’m spared that this time tins and no opener I won’t
have had that in my life this time

so many other things too so often imagined never named never could useful necessary
beautiful to the feel all I was given present formulation such ancient things all
gone but the cord a burst sack a cord I say it as I hear it murmur it to the mud old
sack old cord you remain

a little more to last a little more untwine the rope make two ropes tie the bottom
of the sack fill it with mud tie the top it will make a good pillow it will be soft
in my arms brief movements of the lower face would they were the last

when the last meal the last journey what have I done where been that kind mute screams
abandon hope gleam of hope frantic departure the cord round my neck the sack in my
mouth a dog

abandoned here effect of hope that hangs together still the eternal straight line
effect of the pious wish not to die before my time in the dark the mud not to mention
other causes