Sunday, April 5, 2009

311. CARNIVAL EYES / THE RECOGNITIONS

CARNIVAL EYES /
THE RECOGNITIONS
Enormous cities of the past - groveling,
misshapen hulks of human shape scratched
out of harbors and hills - spitting forth humors
from rot. Entire cities of the past whose voices
echo still, in space. Huge comminglings of
noise and voice, searching for one finished
message in a spread layer of sound.
Enormous cities of the past.
-
The anguish of Humankind, seeking joy,
debates with itself what that joy should be.
As such debates go on, the waste amounts
to so much retro nothing - with no one
recognizing the stakes at hand.
-
Carnival eyes, red-painted lips, heads
which go in all directions: the faith of
people connecting souls, all to one another
in their farcical tranche of deliverance and
salvation. Kinships of Gods: governments of
ideas, great moments of the past, pyramids of
dialectic. Everything living on, in eyes and
motions still roving through this day.
-
'I've wanted to tell this story for a really long time:
how I entered Philadelphia covered in grime and with
a mystique I'd forgotten about, but left just as quickly,
thinking of you. It was an enormous cavalcade of funny
things - the hustlers along Walnut Street, and all those
young kids drinking beer.'
-
In 1964, when I was 14, I played Walsingham
in a Shakespeare play. I skittered on stage, said
my few lines, and went off, on my way. It was just
a moment for me, back then, to surmise what
public presence should be. I was not impressed.
The curtains, in fact, took all my attention -
their fabric, the way they separated to present the stage,
and all those grotesque faces, barely lit, looking up
in some strange and awkward Edvard Munch-like way.
High above me, the wires and cables and brackets of lights.
-
Enormous cities of the past; yes, yes.

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