1993 - 1994
Cities are sepulchres...
John Donne
The curse is the blessing.
All things begin and end, but we get caught in the web of
temporary sorrow by contemplating the terminal points.
The limitations make our journey complete.
These stones are made of tears that have no memories
of the eyes, and of the crying. A forgotten cannon at the
bastion’s wall, or a castle abandoned in garbage would
know the story, should we ask, but we have to go to work.
I’m sitting on ruins and meditate, searching for a thread
of light that leads in and out of a black disk. The setting
sun and the rising moon cast a shadow over the crater
where I live, and my dreams are made of fire and lava.
The night I last saw you, I used your body to empty
myself, and you smiled, you let me rob your wealth
of care and fierce jealousy. After I walked you home
I listened to Bach’s St. John Passion in a dark room.
I’ve forgotten you for ten years. The distance of five
countries brought you back, disclosing my hypocrisy
and my terror of your love. I know you really loved,
you gave yourself to the wound, to the childless blood.
Your body burns in the sore night, the streets are barren,
the children sleeping, the grandparents dreaming of their
youth, the workers and their wives tossing in bed, restless.
We are awake in embrace. I beg you, forgive me. Forgive.
A blessing from five hundred years ago hovers over
the city. An angel stepping on rooftops, the river
watering the souls of the dead. My arms’ strength and
my love is the victory of your beauty, radiant glory.
We created each other, with magic you elevated my body,
with my blood I nourished your desert skin. Palm trees stood
erect, fig trees were blossoming. Flowers and water have
made each other immortal, and will never leave the land.
I’ve conquered solitude. No one came to see me, no one wrote me.
To sit in a room, staring at the bare walls, to dream — all I know.
When past lovers filled my memory, they didn’t touch me, perhaps
didn’t want to. I thought of my mother. My bones were bleeding.
I’ve known the past too well, and I never thought of the future.
But neither counts, only this second and the succession of each,
wherever they lead. And I need a reconquest of time, because
I forget your face when I wake up without you in my bed.
Paris was sad and Dublin was angry, I didn’t see London
and never liked Rome. The soldiers are all gone home, and the
visitors come downtrodden, only the sun’s left for us who want
to stay. And I want to stay here, I always wanted to stay.
I prayed in the cathedral of your body, under the arches of your
chapel. I kneeled and meditated in your garden, I listened to the
singing birds, and I saw the land, the cultivated fields, the fertile
hills. And I’m your lover, for the moon is shining in your arms.
Waterfalls and misty mountains protect the sacred grove.
The houses on the hilltop remember earlier times when rivers,
forests and cities were united in silence. We’ve grown too big
to take refuge in a seashell. Blind prophet stumbles on pebbles.
The catalogue: Old walls, mating dogs, inward looking cats.
A concert never attended, a castle never visited, a train never
reached. A man and a woman dressed in black, coming with
a long iron key to a walled-in door. Lunch undigested.
I’ve restored the Moon, my work’s completed in two blazing
balls up in the sky. The sunflowers catch on fire, and it spreads
through the field to the village, to the house where I’m waiting
for deliverance. I’ll leave my dirty clothes behind. The secret.
Let’s sit down here, where the afternoon rests quietly,
where the shepherd bows his head and sleeps. Now
look at the sheep grazing on the wet field, and hear the
lute playing by itself. The blood of generations is singing.
The fog over Balaguer drinks up my yearning. For thirty years
I’ve been waiting, three times I completed the cycle, until
I reached the core of the creation, hidden under ten fiery spheres.
The spirit flowing through the dark hole sustains the universe.
And I’m weak from fear, from joy, and I’m praying for protection,
my fingers run over and over the ancient wall to find the gate.
Empty eyes, empty hands and an empty heart I have. Fill me up
with light, Eternal Guide. Lead me to the foundation of gathering.
Untouched by the demon, your fragrant breath warms my face.
I’m reading the sacred book of your skin, to forget this train
to León, the twelve years between us, that you’re still a child.
I’m kissing your breasts, tiny apples. I’m gently biting your cheeks.
Whispering words of love in your ear, I want you to know I care.
Unaware of my fever, you’re tossing in the seat, and stretch.
I’ll close my eyes. I’ll say a polite goodbye and I’ll let you go.
We have bridged the gap, conquered the distance. We’ve arrived.
Always the same, though forever changing you are in the waves
pushing time ashore. I see myself healed and renewed in the
green and blue pupil of your eye, in the glassy surface washed by
the distant, deep afternoon sun, from above a land of drought.
hallom ahogy a madár szól I hear the bird singing
Once you spoke to me in the dark and I fell silent. But now, that you
revealed your face and stretched out your arms for me, I’m shaking,
and I know I’ve been moving about not even touching the ground.
titokzatos halk hangokat utakat occult sounds of tranquil passages
Spirits chanting, the machines are lost in an awkward dance.We rape the sandy beaches every summer, then come to the marketsquare to find out who’s to be executed. The north wind blowing.
a végső világosság felé towards the ultimate light
To find redemption, we need to grow into our ethereal shapesnow dangling above us, having lost contact. The path is pavedwith ignorance, a dead end rests in solitude. Here I was born.
porrá omlik lépésem a kertben my steps crumble to dust in the garden
Craving compassion I found vacant eyes, a ghetto of shared beds.Wrath followed, wrecked walls, and blood on the kitchen floor.In the ocean a fish had the diamond in its mouth. My sole peace.
avar zizzen a hátam mögött dry leaves crackle behind me
The sun covers my vomit with heat. I squandered my strength to
strange people who took me in their homes, devoured my words,
and survived. I don’t want to fuck with them anymore. Goodbye.
jutok egyre lejjebb I start sinking
In the volcano sleeps the queen. Desire of waking her
boils my heart, and I’ll be well cooked by the time I can
kiss her rosy cheeks. Or I will drown in the lava.
járok egyre mélyebben I’m getting further below
I was sad after driving the shadow out. It had a place in me,
eating my life away, a vacuum wanted to be filled with light.
Sunrays darted down and hit the white spot in a vortex.
alatta minden ősznek és elmúlásnak under the autumn and decay
The part of the city where I live will be destroyed. It’s already
falling apart. But I like old stones, they’re alive. People just move
their bodies. When we’re gone, a never seen age will bottom up.
meztelenek a fák the trees are naked
Spain is pierced with a cross-shaped dagger. I’ve seen the mosque
crucified and the synagogue renamed, I’ve seen the ancient bath
in a high-rise bulding’s basement. And a swastika on the wall.
halottak dead
To die now or to live longer, it doesn’t matter. I am here.
Miranda de Ebro, 1993 December 17.
“...the soul you have placed in me is pure.”
Talmud, Berakhot 60b.
By singing The Last Dance of Mary Jane, I’m here,
it’s playing on my heartstrings... ha-ha-ha...
Things are empty, but my heart,
air’s there, warm, stuffy and misty air.
When will I get out of here? Answer me!
Baudelaire and Artaud are dead, they didn’t survive
themselves, I’m being put to the test alone.
A.A. is everything Europe has ever tried to become,
(Asylum: Artaud reading The Flowers of Evil).
LIFE destroyed, I can’t go on, it’s enough.
I’m leaving this desolate place, I have little to do,
to outlive eternity in 13 days.
My dreams killing me. They come from the shadow,
attack at twilight, wake me up in anguish. They are
the anguish, my days occupied with work. Exorcism.
At night I’m vulnerable, women and men of the past
torment me. They want to crucify me, but I don’t
believe in death. My heartbeat is the answer to all. Amen.
This is what I said to my employer one quiet evening:
“The allotted time, and the time that has expired. I haven’t,
and I have no more time. It’s easy to understand, now
you may send me away, but don’t forget to pay me first.”
He said: “What the hell are you talking about?”
Lo and Behold!
This is what I said to my dentist one quiet afternoon:
“I have a surprise for you. You close your eyes, I open my mouth.”
My dentist didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say.
This is what I did one quiet morning after waking up in cold sweat:
I took a shower, had breakfast, went back to bed and fell asleep.
Lo and Behold!
You gave me a pen for Christmas, most beautiful, and I have a lot to write, nothing else I can give. Now hear this: I went out to the street of many faces, walked to the riverside, found an open bar. I’d been there before with the spirit of a woman I once loved, but things change, this time I was there with you. Do you remember those ragged ones having nothing to do, so drink? The African guys, lonelier than cardboard boxes flying in the wind? Their somber children sitting on barstools, father playing with fruit-machines? We aren’t like them, we belong together. Yesterday I saw you walking away with my life in your pocket. I wasn’t sad. I knew there will be a place for me in your silence. I haven’t tasted homecoming for so many years and I don’t know why. What does it mean to leave all the time? Once more I’m doing the same. As I lit my cigarette, my notebook got burnt. I in your arms. How about the people? Well, the families are back together at the dining table to forgive without saying sorry. It’s called celebration. When I look out the window I see an enormous shadow over the city. I have memories of childhood, snow and community, it was the wet, warm air of a barn, I felt the earth beneath my feet. We’ve grown up. And now my only problem with Christ that he was born alive. I love you.
My angel, you’re tortured by your mother and your dreams. My love, she’s a bitch! Kill her before she kills you. Then go out to the crossroads, catch a ride to Barcelona and get lost in the crowd. Sing your song all the way down to your hell and send the devil away. You must leave now. My sweet, I cannot have a new mother, mine is just enough. You leave me cold in the South and it isn’t fair. I won’t come back, so keep me in your heart, I’ll be warm like a fireplace, the sparks will be your light, they cannot be your fire. Love someone, anyone, love some more. I prayed for you in Hungarian, I wanted to be heard. I’m hurt. Selah.
As cats hide away to die, so I came to this place to bury my past. The city has no name, it doesn’t exist. Yet, there’s some life here, cars running, people talking, constantly talking at each other. Creation is a mystery, and from the source we can be resurrected. I want to leave with a blessing: May God bring you to his light, that you overcome fear, the protection of religion and money. Embrace life. Who cares if we die? It will happen anyway. I was born in a dark and cold house. I gave my flesh and blood to unworthy friends and women. From the beginning I’ll start again. Keep my misery, flowers grow and water flows from it. Amen.
December 27. 1993. Lerida, Spain
őseim my ancestors
név nélkül without name
otthontalan without home
elmentek left
hol vannak? where to?
láthatatlanul invisibly
költöztek moved
önmagukba into themselves
haladnak going
mozognak spreading
mindenfelé in all directions
nehéz heavy
csomagokat luggage
cipelnek they’re dragging
mindenhová everywhere
a törött the broken
tányérok plates
a kopott the rugged
bútorok furniture
emlékei a memories of
felejtésnek forgetfulness
ittmaradtak remained
Summer 1993, Toronto
Russia: Broken pride.
Hungary: Empty pride.
Greece: Lack of pride.
Canada: False pride.
Spain: Stupid pride.
Israel: Nervous pride.
America: Pride pride.
(My pride is hard.)
I’m stoned on the pot we had with Larry the other night,
I’m stoned on the poems we read, I’m stoned on the blues of
Lightnin’ Hopkins, he’s better than Bruckner and Mahler
together. I’m stoned on the black man’s dance in my heart.
And I’m stoned on making love with my girlfriend on the
floor of the classroom last night. And I’m stoned on having
lived in youth hostels for three months, where people
change every night, like clothes on the wire. I’m stoned.
They threw themselves in the abyss.
Not even a cry was heard, they clenched
their teeth and didn’t utter a word.
Great silence fell upon me, the
knowledge of my limits shut my mouth,
not fear, and not the fear of death.
A prince had won all the battles,
sung all the songs and prayed all
the prayers. A bridge was built.
The young man travelled from town
to town, saw his lover in the shade of
a palm tree near Zaragoza, then left.
Old men are quiet. They move little,
look in unknown directions after sunset
and reach the Holy City every night.
We won’t die at the gates of the Temple.
We will enter one by one with our children
and wives rejoicing in the light of the new day.
Mandelstam’s universal cavity is my mouth mumbling
meaningless signals through a widening crack, my lips.
Teeth symbolize anger, like crumbling stones against the
pressure of time. Hush! Silence is better, the crossing of
two circles will not make the globe turn round. Walk on
the beach, dip your toes in tar, or knock over a chalice
filled with wine to the rim. I’m crawling on the street.
Something humiliated me and I don’t know what it is.
You keep pushing me away because I don’t leave. I won’t.
There’s music on buses and in restaurants.
Israeli music sounds like polka performed by
crazed Italians. The man playing Bach violin
sonatas at the corner of Dizengoff and Frishman
has a serene smile on his face. He looks exactly
like Isaac Stern, or he is, having made aliyah.
When the music died in him he
had to turn away from the powers
he had challanged. Others were
killed by a sweet melody in a
massacre penetrating time.
We choose suffering in order to
live, not because we like it.
Perhaps we’ll be rewarded with
everything we’ve lost. Like Job.
Things fall apart. I didn’t see what happened,
my friends drew circles around themselves and
I woke up in a rounded distance, in the cold
geometry of the stars. I still feel a bit lonely out here.
It’s always the cold wind, it’s always
the dark desert wind, you live in the negation
of unity. The ruins and the storm are friends
stroking each other’s face, returning every kiss.
Nowhere to go. Four times you left the city,
sailed across oceans, rode across plains,
and didn’t find the place of your birth. Now
you’ve arrived in the heart of your questions.
You forgot to ask yesterday, and you chose
not to ask this morning, not a silent prayer
would leave your lips. You’re facing the heat,
the sand in the air and the ruthless sun.
Your tongue trembles in your mouth.
Standing on the other side,
you write, meditate, listen to
the voice of the black night.
I’m in the middle of a bridge,
looking at the river below.
You hurt me and became a master,
we were torn from love, to be naked,
to be facing the powers, and I have
always accepted your distance.
You live in my heart, and you demand
perfect attention, wholeness, devotion.
To succeed, to be true and fruitful
is the task of apprenticeship.
It’s not the question of love anymore.
It’s our survival to be the last pushers,
selling the last pieces of reality,
haggling over unspoken words.
The soul freely moving inside
the body, simultaneously
confined and released.
The space in the chest leads
deep and wide into division
idolatry and unity source.
The past. A bowl deteriorating
from bottom to half way up the
side. Then gold to the brim.
Pushing down, bouncing, pushing
down again. The now. Fragile vision.
Childhood brokenness and fear.
Silence hit the city, the roads sleeping.
I’m up, dancing samba with a woman whose
breasts are shaking to the rhythm. I’m back
from a long journey, with my soul of a child’s,
my hands holding up two tits to the heavens.
There’s so little to hold on to in this world, and even less in the other
or nothing. To be alive is a miracle, and we shouldn’t be sad about it.
Choosing life means being obedient to the singing of birds at dawn, to the hand perpetually reaching out, to the smile of friends and to the presence of a woman’s love for no reason. Small things matter. Like shopping for the weekend.
Picasso died tonight, he was run over by a car as a result of bad karma, having eaten a bird this morning. And many other things happened. I got the phonebill, so I made another long distance call, this time to Spain, where the love inside me died on December 29, 1993. And I saw Karen around six in the evening. I knew I would see her, because I thought of her and I believe in magic. After dinner I was reading Larry’s poems, consequently he phoned me to find out how I was doing. But in the middle of the conversation Picasso got killed, so Larry didn’t invite me, though he was planning to. I liked Picasso, he was a nice cat with a rather funny name. I’ll miss him.
With you I feel lonelier than ever, your
solitude frightens me, I choose the paper
and the pen, I won’t need to go to Cyprus,
they like it wherever they are, even the most
unromantic place, like Israel.
Your soul’s heavy, it’s hard to bear, and since
you have ideologies we aren’t a good match,
‘cause I believe in nothing, and I’m happy
to be alive, happy to live here and now.
Between two rings of power, before you
enter a new world, where everything is
alive, full of spirit, incarnation, there you
get frightened, you need to grow strong.
You know the faint light, the archaic lamp
projecting into the future. The soul of
computers and TV sets of the 21st century.
May we learn, be redeemed. It all depends
on a touch that signals the arrival of our
home. Many will reach out then, from the
same source in each of us.
O boneless being, then little child,
I saw you in the street, looking at
the cars, people, looking straight
up into their eyes, into their soul.
O boneless being, then little child,
your father let you grow free, your
mother nourished you. They love you.
Now you understand and love them.
O boneless being, then little child,
now that I see you I’m crying too,
with joyful tears of self-recognition,
now that I see your bones forming.
O boneless being, then little child,
you didn’t know how to love, and
you’re still struggling with your heart.
Ancient Spirit, give me a heart of flesh!
In the order of the universe we are so
little, the Earth is a pass-through, other
worlds, infinite, shining in the sky. Yes,
somehow we’re important too, it matters
how we do the dishes or clothe our
children. It matters how we look at each
other, how we touch each other. And
we’re small and self-important, obstinate
in ignorance, blind as the blind. The smell
of the barn of our childhood should
never leave the memory of our senses.
I am it, the epidemic and the plague, cancer, the lump, poison.
Revolution and counter-revolution, anarchy above all. The flow
of light through destroyed society, sick machines and people
indifferent. Freedom I am, the soul emerging from electric strings
to the dreamlike surface of the sky, to the crescent moon.
My earlier faces greeting me as friends, inside you I’m moving,
you pick up the rhythm, and every thrust becomes an orgasm, quiet
and completely open. Mingling perspiration. Angelic you and I.
How sweet is your desire to me, your want, your love juice flowing
in fragrance of kisses and colors of dreams. Strawberry jam.
So I sing the bliss of my soul as it rises through the flame and
the smoke to infinite worlds above, though still looking back
upon its human form, the body divine, in which there’s joy
shared with others heading in the same direction. Friends,
lovers, I’ll join your flight to the best of things, to the Sun.
A page, nothing written on it.
Pure whiteness, blinding light.
The strenght of eternity. Cosmos,
you thought it empty, now it’s
filled with light leading out, up,
taking you home, to the resting
place of your soul, to your joy.
And the rhythm is the heartbeat
of the globe, free of bloodshed.
I want to dance for hours and
make love to you every night
in the same rhythm for years.
Then I want to read, to sit on
my bed and meditate, and
I want to write a long poem
flowing with energy.
So
I eat slowly and breathe
properly and I exhale before
swallowing the food. And
my stomach’s very happy now.
You are my friends.
You are my family.
unafraid
and merciless
giving of
the right
proportion
of laughter
with always
the same
power
I’ve been sent back empty-handed
so many times to face darkness, questions
unanswered, torn by doubt inside.
The whys and hows replaced simplicity,
for after all it’s only you I miss, or if
you like, the togetherness of you and me.
It’s never too late for love. I don’t care
where I go, as long as I’m doing it for
the both of us, to be alone with you.
It’s time to stop chasing the shadow,
roaming all over the planet, finding
memories and rare reminders of hope.
What we need is the here and the now,
no matter how banal it sounds. Open up
and let the light flow through your body.
A play in one act and five scenes
To David Milton Jones
Am neither all poet, all man, or all leaf,
but only the pulse of a wound that probes to the other side.
Federico Garcia Lorca
Dora Benjamin
Charles Baudelaire
Antonin Artaud
W. A. Mozart
Paul Klee
F. G. Lorca
Stefan Benjamin
Circular stage, around which the audience is seated, preferably on cushions placed on the floor. There should be no more than forty people present, including the actors and the technicians.
When night, full moon; during the day the sun. The stage and the seats together form a symbolic amphitheatre, the actors sitting in the audience, they enter and leave the circle each time they’re on.
Two musicians sit at the two opposit ends of the horizontal bisecting line, which is invisible. The perpendicular line is a thread of light, the “constricted line” of the creation, (Tzimtzum * ), upon which the actors walk in and out.
The rest of the circle is the “vacated space” in which God’s creation took place, birth and rebirth. The guests and the hosts symbolize water, the sea; the stage the moon’s halo, or the burning light of the sun.
Portbou, the culminating point, the pillar of return.
(Portbou at night. Walter Benjamin is on the head of a pillar by the sea. He imagines his wife standing behind him at a distance. Dora Benjamin is facing the opposite direction.)
W. B.
The right hand.
D. B.
The palm.
W. B.
Ash.
D. B.
I left.
W. B.
I left my death.
D. B.
Your hand, distance.
W. B.
Curles in your hair, fingernails.
D. B.
Ashes.
W. B.
The crow pecking is the woman who eats anything.
(Walter Benjamin dies and returns; he’s in the room of his head now.)
Pitiful awakening in a narrow hole.
Wet walls, dry eyes. A dark mirror.
Give me wine, I’m sober, or take me
to places you’ve been. Open the
window to the houses in the valley.
Flying houses in a snowstorm.
Breath on the pane. My hand on
your belly. We were sick, lying
in bed for days. Fever dreams at
dawn in our mingling sweat.
Two dry leaves on the pavement.
Your words are coded in my memory,
and I repeat every syllable.
You’re my little one, my own flesh
and soul. Semen snowflake.
(Walter Benjamin lying prone, Charles Baudelaire, like a shadow leaning over his body. Dora looks on, motionless. Finally W. B. turns over and fixes his eyes on her, then on one of the corners in the room.)
The whore-earth knows only betrayal.
You clothe her in white dress, soothe her
with coloured dreams, you lose your faith
to her, but you remain stiff and cold,
no sun can warm you anymore, and no
land can give you shelter. So I ask,
Why go mad? Why keep killing yourself?
She’s not worth it, and your spirit will break.
The birds are gone, the sun is hiding,
salt steeps in the sand. Softer than ever
my breasts wait on you, child, as you
quake in the orgasm of the sea. If the waves
don’t arrive my thighs surround the water,
I am the bay that swallows you in and
I am the womb that gives birth to the clouds.
Will you ever recognize my face?
The bitter taste of my words. The sunset.
I’m hanging upside down from your mouth.
Twilight. The belly of the sea cut open.
Spiral in a maelstrom.
The upper corners of the room. One.
(While Walter Benjamin speking, Baudelaire approaches in the direction of Dora, then they walk out and fade. Spotlight on W. B. who’s in a meditative state, sitting in the light-circle. Silence, then dark stage.)
(Portbou, morning. Walter Benjamin is on the seashore, standing outside the stage-circle. After having spoken he withdraws.)
The sea is ugly now, impatient waves trying to turn
the sand into water. Lights on in the asylum. The sun.
(Antonin Artaud crouching, then slowly emerging in the center of the stage.)
The absurdity of cities, the melancholy of mixing
voices, buses and music, speech and hollow distance.
Life from scratch, a conversation without words.
The moment of my birth, the fluttering wings of a bird.
A man came to build a house. A woman stayed in
the woods, she didn’t want security, not even a
roof over her head. She loved the trees and the
beasts of the forest. She was alone. Or she wasn’t.
(Dora enters where Walter left the stage.)
I don’t remember my own self, what I was like
as a child, I don’t remember my parents, they
never touched my baby skin, and never taught me
how to walk or pray. Now I pray by walking.
(Dora reaches the left angle of the triangle within the circle. Mozart appears at the top angle, Artaud is standing on the bottom-right angle.)
I will drive everyone mad with the words
of a book unwritten and unread. I want to
be alive, to unite image with reality, to create
a body from the mind. Like stray dogs hoping
for food, waiting at the entrance of some
restaurant, we expect satisfaction from dirt.
What a dream! What a closeness of faces!
I’m suffocating and confused. I’m a scream.
(Mozart slowly reaches the middle of the circle.)
Do you hear the chorus singing? Voices
pounding on the sound of violins. Death
is strong as the stupidity of our denials.
These people around me are my enemies.
They’re curious but indifferent, always busy,
friendly, jealous of every moment I spend
in their absence, though they’re never with me.
(Mozart steps up to the middle of the line between Dora and Artaud, with the movement of a bird he touches down, kneeling with his face hidden. Dora is in spotlight, speaking to Artaud.)
We are here, but we cannot arrive.
(Dark stage.)
(F.G. Lorca moves around the circle-stage, Dora silently waits in the center. Lorca moves up to her in concentric circles.)
I could plunge in the darkness of my heart,
I could drown in my own blood, but destiny
holds me back, I have to wait for executioners
to finish the job. I remember the childhood
moon, the midnight grass and my lover’s
thighs, the dewy hair, the first evening of
wine, the vast spaces of the southern field.
Now the birds have come to the shore between
day and night, to this fine line of existence.
I’ll embrace the tides, the children buried
in the sand, their heads sticking up, then sink.
(Paul Klee stands outside the circle, like Walter Benjamin on the shore, and as Mozart represents death, Klee is the angel of life.)
Who told you to wait? And why did you listen?
I wanted to paint the museum walls, to turn them
into white, into the radiance of seagulls resting on
rocks and bridges. I’m tired of piling up corpses.
(Lorca reaches the center, sits down behind Dora, their backs touch. Later, Klee slowly walks around the stage-circle.)
And ink, this black dirt can never dry up,
it’s the life sentence of a prisoner, the oil of
engines, the saliva of a frog in the beak of
a raven. The violent morning, the sulfure
of the night, the gunpowder exploding or the
handgranade; the machine gun and the sword,
even a pair of scissors can make it, anything,
anything can make it, your bare hands or an ax.
When will you come for me? I’m not afraid anymore.
(Klee enters the circle at the spot where Dora stood in the second scene, the left angle of the triangle.)
An old town rests in my memory, faithful walls
enclosing the blind force of orgasms and the
silence of family dinners. I sent a letter to
the minister of education. The air of my studio,
the deep sigh of my wife and the laughter of
children I put in the envelope with an
“open here” sign on it. Then I paid the postage.
(Klee fades out, Lorca leaves the circle at the top of the triangle. Dora emerges in the middle, now alone on stage.)
A river is running through the clouds.
(Stretching out her arms she starts spinning. Dark stage.)
(Antonin Artaud on dark stage, sitting, smoking; lights slowly turning up. Baudelaire stands on one leg in the center.)
The crime was committed below,
in total silence. My face is wrecked.
One of my balls hurts and
one of my socks is dirty.
My left shoe is gold, the
right one is silver. I’m one
half and you’re another.
What’s our color together?
Gold, of course. And my
balls hurt so badly!
(Artaud offers his cigarette to Baudelaire, who rhythmically moves around Artaud, humming a tune.)
The eye-fish
never sees and
never swims.
The eye-fish
lays idle on
the beach or
floats in the air.
The eye-fish
is a lazy creature.
(Baudelaire stops moving as if suddenly scared. He’s looking into Artaud’s frozen face. )
Draw a circle in the dust
and write your name in it.
The magician deprived of space, the
prisoner of a single bed, the broken
mask lying on the pavement. I am.
(Spotlight on Artaud back on the line of the circle. Baudelaire lights two candles in the center, blessing the fire.)
I can hardly put up with the pain of my
memories, with names corresponding and
voices echoing, then the clamour of the day
and the slippery ground. So I withdraw
into myself, and remain loyal to a single
vision from my youth. My secret core.
(All lights go out, but the candles.)
(Walter and Dora sitting at two opposite ends of the vertical bisecting line. Dora’s on the head of the pillar. They’re speaking to the audience.)
I won’t talk with you. You take away my
meditation and name it useless, though it
gives you life, the blood of lovers.
You parasite!
What is this fear in you? What
is the disappointment in my voice?
That we might lose each other
and our faith will be uprooted?
(Walter goes to the candles, Dora turns in his direction.)
When I sit down to write people surround
me, they stare at my pen moving in the air,
writing their names and places of birth
one by one.
What do we want from this city?
To found a new culture on its
skeleton streets? Why do we
cry out for our past every day?
(Both fade out.)
(Stefan enters the stage. He’s walking softly around the circle, finally he steps in the center, between his parents.)
The right hand, the palm.
Ash. I left. I left death.
Your hand, distance.
Curles in your hair.
Fingernails. Ashes.
The crow pecking is the
man who eats anything.
(Dark stage except the candles, then all lights on.)