5112. MY RECITATIVE

MY RECITATIVE

Intentions like this are to cloud me over : that old

Mark Twain manuscript on display at Wave Hill

always makes me remember. He and his family stayed

there for a period of time, and this large, wide, handwritten

book is a remnant of testimony to the days he spent. I'd

like to take it someday  -  just lift it and walk away. All

those silly garden ladies would never notice. Anyway,

why it's displayed like that in a gift shop of gab is

way beyond me. Nature is swaddled in chains.

-

Here I am scrawling some more. Little lines and the

gestures of a monk : musings to some Jesus about that

which I should do, and muttered prayers for the dead, 

while illuminating a manuscript and just copying words.

God, what a paltry life is this!

-

I want to take the address of this train and let it run me down:

fifteen sodden people in their fifteen different lives, all

doing the very same thing. God, what a paltry life is this.

Even the conductor is wearing shades : to protect

him from the darkness, while adding to the gloom;
and God, what a paltry life is this.