3615. NOW THE CANTOS, BROTHER BOB

NOW THE CANTOS,

BROTHER BOB

I am thinking of airplanes again; those old kind, the

sort that came up through there 1920's - Blaise Cendrars

and all his friends, riding high the cresting adventure: 'If you

like we will go by airplane and will fly over the country of

a million lakes.' Ah, yes. So many people come out of

shadows that you begin to wonder where they've all

been. Never a cloudless sky, never a moment occurs,

in the same fashion, when there isn't a thought about

something. All those cantos, all those words. We are

steaming off our language like an envelope flap,

curling the paper with the glue still attached.

-

Fifteen hundred and seventy five : that's the amount

of things I did today. I counted, every last one, or

almost, as I did them. I counted the people with

whom I spoke, the ones not liking me and the ones

I love. I counted the times the wind made me lift

my hands to hold my hair. I counted everything

solid that I had to move. No gestation period

like the one of waiting for a life to end.

-

I saw her, and I saw her again.

-

So that, now, restful and bushed, I am sitting back

talking with my wife. She is watching TV. Another

ancient movie in black and white. Catherene Hepburn

and Lucille Ball together, both young and stupid,

doing things I hate, but I hate movies so none of

it matters. Why anyone else would waste their

time  -  hmm  -  however so, that's a different

story, which is all a movie's meant to be,

after all I guess and who really cares.

-

I want to get up, take the gun from off

the chair, and blow my own brains out.

Now the cantos, brother Bob, now the

cantos again, and will you think of me?

-

Ah, yes. All those cantos,

all those words.