Born?
I was born in a paper bag in the basement of a shark,
in a windstorm in Arizona, in a Turkish shebeen,
in the cold blue corner of an isosceles triangle.
I was a child of the union of rain and whisky.
How much of my beginning can I remember?
Why, isn’t this it? I remember nothing and everything.
There was a blue sky. For once my father was happy.
My mother was a test tube but more fruity.
I find the world fairly round, roundly and profoundly unfair.
You ask about my last life, the one before this.
As I recall I travelled in the suitcase
of a man always stopping to call long distance.
I was the ashtray of a perverted monk,
I was alone I was always alone.
You want to know how long this road I’m on is?
Listen, 60 minutes is the end of my attention-span.
Anything beyond and it’s head-over-heels
I’m in love again with someone’s juices and aromas.
You’ve read Lawrence. You’ll know what I mean.
My favourite food is anything.
If I stopped eating altogether I’d be a very slim hourglass.
I’m so tired of salt with everything.
I’ll just go on being turned over and over,
living out my life in quiet three minute orgasms.
Am I capable of transformation? Well,
I can turn energy into raw mountains of detritus.
I am capable of anything. Everything again.
Again nothing. I want to go back into my box now.
Ailments? I catch cold when I need to.
No tobacco, no alcohol, no drugs. Up at dawn,
jogging on the spot, somersaults. I keep myself neat,
ready for action. Intrepid is my middle name.
In my job down at the harbour I guide the boats in.
You want to know how I work?
First I have to be turned over. Then
I walk up and down staring at nothing,
thinking of nothing in particular.
Serendipity. A certain aimlessness. Theft.
Betimes I am madde as anie hattere.
Certainly I get sick of the company of Young Smartarse
and his mates, I am a morose and solitary drunk.
I take this ambience from a man called Waits.
I take it and I give it back again.
No, I never watch old movies. I am one.
At what time do I burst into blossom?
Whenever I dance, when I grow up.
Actually I’m in bloom now. Can’t you see?
All these pink buds will be shiny green apples one day.
My favourite position is 90 degrees upright.
How did it feel to be taken away by thieves?
Terrific, I love travel. I adored them,
they were all excellent dancers, good talkers.
They taught me advanced kleptomania and secrecy.
I’m old enough not to be daft enough to answer that.
You want to know what happened to my seven sisters?
That would be Melissa and the others, Sugar Plum,
Stanley Knife, Consonant, Tin Can, Marzipan
and the other one that was never called anything.
They’re the Sisters Pleiades now. Can’t you see them
all around me? They were all abused by Father Time.
As to my future life I just plan to keep busy.
Busy and useful till the salt runs out.
Then I expect to be a hand or just a finger.
When I speak to the police what will I tell them?
All these questions. I’ll say I’m no stool pigeon.
I’ll tell them how unbearable you’ve been,
they should lock you up for life. I’ll spit salt at them.
So how would you feel after a thousand nights without sleep?
What does freedom mean to me? My favourite tipple,
the same as my religion: everything I see.
Taking longer to change. When there’s
nothing else in the world I can rape.
And what do I mean by ‘I’m in love again’?
Well, I was bored in the supermarket.
The top half of my glassy body loves my bottom half.
It’s my normal status. In any case
I was dried out, I’d drunk six cups of coffee.
I don’t know I’m no intellectual.
I was in love before. She gave me a ring.
That ended in a jackdaw’s nest. She gave me white crystal.
I gave her only my time. And what now?
Well, I could write a cheerful book about graveyards.
I could drive the peasants out of Thuringia,
lob mortars onto hungry people in a Sarajevo bread queue.
I’d rather dance though. I’d rather the company of books,
candlelight, unaccompanied singing. Fact is
I’m an officer and gentleman in the SAS. I kill people.
I can mumble the Lord’s Prayer in Anglo-Saxon.
And the riddles: what am I now, pray? Answer:
a long falling through myself into a pile of whiteness,
the cone of ashes of the dead at Birkenau.
What do I expect of strangers?
That they keep close to the walls. Water, bread, a small fish.
Just slipping in and out of time. I’m content
passing the salt from one half to the other of myself.
This time the answer is Edelweiss-Piraten gegen Nazis.
And who would I run to? Who indeed.
The mad. The imprisoned. The condemned. The dead.
Anyone who starts the day without a good breakfast.
There are four of us in here you know,
one for each season. And more to come.
What are my dreams? Wanderers. Other dreamers.
By the end of the week I’m more a smell than a flavour.
There are those to whom I bear the debt of time,
guttural people. I myself am clear glass,
falling white crystals. Drop me and I break and that’s Amen.
What am I weary of? I’ll tell you.
Eggs, for one thing. Quotations from Shakespeare.
The Books of Exodus and Leviticus. Answering questions.
Flying the Atlantic. All of Disney.
The words arabesque, fraught, and binocular.
I’m weary of a life without legs.