Thomas Lowe Taylor -- DESPEDITA

***************

DESPEDITA

Who are you, anyway, close enough to burn my eyes out, again, another day turns the heart’s whore out hustling burning it out the wild glow impersonal struggle the warrior-heart beating back too many words, “a foster home for wooden Indians,” shit like that turns to safety in the pen, scared that I’ll show too much if anything at all, photos of masks, a mask, photos of shadows, the you of you, self talk retreating deeper down within the retreating deeper down within the battle peering out, “you old whore,” Wally said, the him of him seeing in me the him of me; your tears again remind us the unspoken hours recede and fall, a letter written and not mailed, this writer’s other, blank ink stains your white pants or someone solitary to love, the model of the hour resists inside the power junkie’s parasitic suck the life she makes you house and garden every way away and holding on with both hands the swirling declination whirlpools into darkness & fire, acid glove. Say anything, say something back and forth or is no one soon enough to lie about it, not wanting to give away holds you back from that, too, it’s hard to let it out and not go away after it, you are in the field, fighting for all your worth to be specific, to make passion personal, but it won’t, and who is love, here, the name of you or me, or is it buried in the silence of my own history, worshipped away in abstract longing, turned into, into something contained made fuel for the pen. No, it is in the pit & chasm, I stand and look down into it, I back away and hold on, the question unanswers itself, is that your persevering spirit or the simple repetition of danger to which there is no alternative, I want you to know all this, too, as if what, passing through danger, looking for the real you at the end of it makes me who I am in the here and now, is so wrapped up in being itself that I make it a recognizable part of the game that I know is the beginning itself of what I am to do, it’s the book, I say, beginning itself in the familiar love-conflict between you; and her, the archetypes of conscience which are the subjective and the objective registers of the form. But the you of you feels me draw away ‘into someone else,’ you say, into the her of her. Or are there others, too, too many to mention, and, hurt, you fall to blaming him, for that, but it is the book, he says, not sure himself if it is the truth or the safe escape from the heart’s whore unbending cunt that makes you false, that keeps you from the me of you, so I feel guilt, or that I am lying, or that there is someone else when it is only the book and not you at all, and that’s where it hurts me, too, makes me want to stop, to throw it in, and I can’t, and I wrestle against it, puffing, afraid, compelled, but in there, powerfully, wrestling around and around. All so familiar I want to barf. I remember the empty room, again, the gray sky out there takes me away. Just be honest, you say to yourself, I want and I have. Stop the conversation, listen to the music; I did that already. You should stay at home, not talk to anybody, not go out, you’re so crazy. I’ve heard that, I should be the one on the leash, growling at the dwids. Control, a little control & focus to drive the hustler back and stop shaking, no more headaches, you can’t do it alone, you know, it’s just not worth it when you’re alone and heroic, or is the fame-game the same as the self-game, I suppose even that has its own mystique, like crying, if you do enough of it you feel better even though nothing has changed, and it does, it feels better; I guess you just go in and out of it, but all the time? Forever? What you value is thinking that you got somewhere, closer to the me of you, what we want to be the same. Yeah, be careful with it. Following along hesitant step after step in what appears to be the right direction, after some false starts and a certain amount of tripping & falling face down in the mud, and though it seems heartless to turn love into writing, feeling into power, I mean, that’s why I’m always afraid about lying, if that’s it, so I hold on, and say, just wait, it’ll be all right, it’ll be worth it, and I’m not really all that sure about it, or think that I’m lying again, turning it into words, do I need it that much, this? Promissory notes. Rehearsals. Penetration & musk. Strangers, clouds, suffocation beneath rose petals, heart’s whore whining; looking through the layers to find that what’s there is enough not to ask for more, and why do you, struggler, why not give it up and say your name, now, moot question of all time, let me off the hook & chain, against the wall and flower, time’s arriving again today in two hours, the mailman in his red white and blue truck, down one side and up the other.