You're listening to I Have No Process. I am your
host, Nicholas England. This is the second episode
of No Voice, a collection of poetry whose writing
spanned more than a decade. In the first episode,
we entertained many surreal vignettes, dreams,
and nightmares. Now... The poetry is going to
become a bit more grounded, more personal. But
don't worry. It's even angstier than anything
we've shared before. Why bother writing poetry?
Every generation inherits the controversy regarding
poetry's social value, and that of art, generally.
These days, a degree in the fine arts is akin
to a dunce cap or a bullseye. Fashionable elders
look at our cohort and wonder. What kind of moron
takes out student loans to read Russian literature
with their peers, only to abandon those libraries
and lecture halls out of predictable necessity,
to then take up a sustainable career in data
analysis or real estate instead? The middle class
is shrinking. We don't need tax reform. We need
more plumbers and carpenters. agronomists, and
civil engineers. God is dead, remember? Society
has no need of shamans or prophets. We have athletes
and movie stars for that sort of thing, and clever
memes reminding us that someone out there feels
the way we do. When you go to the doctor, You
know the reason why in advance. Your leg hurts.
Your lungs are full of mucus. Your headache won't
go away. Or maybe it's simply been too long since
you had your vitals taken. You're an adult. You
understand the value of routine maintenance and
preventative care. Because even when you don't
know what's wrong with you, You know what could
be wrong with you, and that's motivation enough
to seek an exam. Your body has cholesterol levels,
white blood cell counts. You want their number.
You don't want to suffer Alzheimer's disease.
You don't want ovarian cancer. When you go to
a poem, you can't know ahead of time what you're
about to hear. Nothing can directly prepare you
for the experience of opening yourself to the
text. You can't have a result in mind before
you start reading. You can't determine the output
of the poem in advance. Nor can you measure it
against anything quantifiable within yourself.
The spirit lacks a pulse. The soul. a waistline.
A poem either pulls you effectively out of your
routine observations or it doesn't. No matter
the talent of the poet, no matter the skill in
the verse, whether or not a particular poem speaks
to you is almost impossible to justify. When
it comes to the construction of a poem, There
is a proportionate relationship between how complex
it is and how widely it will be resented by regular
people. It is the exact opposite of engineering
in this regard. Like electricity, poetry should
be for the masses. But if we only designed and
built turbines that anyone could understand how
to assemble from scratch, then every turbine
in the world would be small and our total capacity
for power greatly diminished. The donkey would
walk in a circle, the river would push the watermill,
and we should never have cause to ask for more
than that. Take heart. We are modern people.
We have experts who studied physics and chemistry
and materials sciences to the point that they
are capable of building nuclear reactors all
across the world. And now billions of people
have access to an incredible amount of electric
power because they get to benefit from the results
of an esoteric education. You and I can't be
expected to know how a nuclear reactor really
functions, all the way down to its depleted uranium.
The contemporary engineer may be utterly anonymous,
so long as the product of their education can
be enjoyed without an education of one's own.
The poet, on the other hand, does not have this
luxury. If the poem is to sing in the heart of
the common man, then the poet must refrain from
climbing very far up the beanstalk while they
work. From a certain point of view, I have never
published a poem in my life, nor will I ever,
because every poem that I write is just an instruction
manual. for a poem that you will build within
your mind. I cannot know what poem you will read
as you scan my lines. I can only know what I
have laid out for you within the glittering umbra
of the potential. The secret is, you write the
poem when you read it. You either know what I
mean, or you've never really read a poem before.
Because of this odd quirk within the transmission
of artistic meaning, there is nothing to publicly
celebrate within the bounds of any given poetic
work. You will never read the headline in your
newspaper, Poet discovers new phrase unlocking
glimpse of heaven. It is beyond absurd. For it
is impossible to have an ecstatic feeling spoon
-fed. It has to be carved out, discovered, as
though the reader alone had the astonishing ability
to parse it from the wilderness. As Nabokov said
in his lectures on literature, every new type
of writer evolves a new type of reader. Every
genius produces a legion of young insomniacs.
An explanation doesn't act as a complement to
a work of art. It takes the place of the art,
and with offhanded violence. This fetish for
plain articulation manifests a whole system of
parasites, from digests to cliff notes. to bestseller
lists. We elect to navigate and comprehend these
media as much as the works they obstruct. Because
it's easier. Because we don't want to be embarrassed
misapprehending some vital aspect. Because we're
used to following the safest paths to our next
dose of dopamine. Once you follow the logic of
this, you'll no doubt see how the reader can
be robbed of their own existence as reader, reduced
a little more than mere consumer. When you take
up a poem, be wary of who's really doing the
reading. Is it the obliging socialite, so cultured
and up -to -date? Or is it the young insomniac?
clawing their way out of your mind. If I may
speak to the poets and other artists listening
now, know that there are many people who will
look at your work and summarily ask you one question,
top of mind. Who is this for? When they do this,
you will know it is not for them. Even if it
could have been, the moment they say those words,
they will have left your audience. Their mantra
is anathema. Don't get me wrong, understanding
one's market is a worthwhile effort. But when
that concern is the first response to your art,
the game is up. The heretic has no clothes. You'll
have a choice to make when you respond and after.
Is it these people you wish to edify and please
with your craft? Will you contort your aesthetics
to accommodate their tastes? Illiterate flotsam
though they may be, it could be wise to keep
their phantoms close. when next you toil in the
workshop. After all, we didn't render these works
only for ourselves. We want to reach friends
and strangers alike. If everything we conjured
were tailored exclusively to our own reflection,
over time our art would take root nowhere but
in the rank darkness of our rectums. Our poems
and paintings wouldn't be wise. They'd be clever.
Can you taste the horror of this? So no, do not
forsake those who almost willfully miscomprehend
you. Break yourselves to their inherent hostility.
Reframe your invitations to them just as you
would to an acolyte. or sycophant. Yet take it
only so far. For at the end of the day, this
cultivation of your aesthetic will be an asymptote.
You'll never really satisfy these people. You
will never deliver the result that they've required
for themselves since before you met. You could
spend years yoking yourself to their esteem,
while still holding true to your essential aims
in an effort to produce a masterful yet savvy
work of art. And just when you sense that you've
finally arrived, they will at most see promise
in you. Nothing more. See, you took the lesson
of their foils to improve your craft and your
character. You failed to get the actual message.
That they meant to turn you into some shiny,
form -fitting PEZ dispenser. Spewing out content
for media conglomerates, wrestling for shares
within a status quo that will easily survive
you. When you reach that point, it's time to
grab your bicycle and go home. Whatever you are,
be it a woodworker or a steel drummer, you have
an audience. When you're ready, go find them
and nourish them. If what you do is passionate,
never stoop. If what you do is artistic, never
coddle. Assert your challenge without apology.
Come what may. You've come to me. You think I'm
in this for the acclaim or the renown. You think
I have financiers and publishers breathing down
my neck, insisting that I remove those pesky
imdashes from my pages. I don't build nuclear
reactors. If you read a poem blueprint of mine
and it bounces right off your skull or whooshes
past your ear, the lights will not go out throughout
your neighborhood. Nobody's listening. Nobody
cares. In this moment, I am not with you. I set
these words down long ago. You are without me.
You're on your own. Don't you feel it? In this
moment, you are free. Carabiner. I open the door,
walk outside, to the car. And in a moment I know.
Less than a moment, really. Before my hand even
presses against the contour of my pocket to tap
its vacancy. I left the key inside. Won't get
very far without that. I remark, as though reading
a line from a mock stage play. I often feel that
I am missing something, either something or I
am displaced. Even before the door closes behind
me, it opens in front of me. My eyes will canvas
the desks and side tables, under stacks of papers,
in drawers. fingertips scattering across the
vaults of my wardrobe. The feeling rarely conjures
anything. If I carried less, perhaps I would
remember each thing more clearly, discern a searing
absence. Not wholly germane, but a powerful warmth
sometimes radiates from my head, like an untended
foundry. I have to stop thinking, or I'll catch
a fever. Each moment in life, spent in preparation
of the next. I blossom into this moment. Everything
else is a memory. I once had a friend who gave
up on his dreams. His final offering was a book
of Rilke's. The bestowal of a name upon a torch.
He surrendered this to me, like a shadow. merging
into shade and so the torch became heavy as its
flames went on parade years have gone and many
surgeries later i find myself back upon the operating
table or rather for the first time the anvil
where stress may now but make me stronger i admit
I dropped the bright baton this winter. It slipped
out of my hand. I had to stand very still, with
eyes closed, lest any trick of the sun betray
this waking world for that one. Two, three days,
I recovered what was mine. In no time, a woman
was sitting on my sofa, demanding that I explain
how to cope with despair. I told her. Total acceptance.
If Tsunetomo were my contemporary, he would do
the same as I. If he ran out of groceries, off
to the store. I turned to face the apartment
complex, what I've agreed to call my home. From
the outside, it is characterless, as nondescript
as an empty pantry. The bricks in the wall never
touch. Without eyes or nares, without dripping
tongues, how can they picture their part, the
whole? One brick dislodged before we came here.
It fell into a common garden bed and has lingered
there. Which is more a brick, the one lying upon
the ground or the one surrounded by mortar? and
other bricks. One says to the other, Come, this
is the way. No atom has any opinion as to what
it's about. The slug stares up at the dog as
the dog licks itself. How should I reckon the
face that moved over the waters? The world has
the weight of a tone of color. I enter through
the foyer, just as an Asian man lifting a bicycle
passes me in the corridor. He descends the seven
steps of the staircase, then bounces outside,
without regard. I palm the railing as I climb
the bisected flights until the top floor. From
the landing, I look down upon clusters of fungus.
the spawn of rain upon the awning. A long crack
runs down the eastern wall, another down the
west. I pray they are cosmetic, some mere separation
of plaster, nothing structural. A clock somewhere
hammers forward, one minute more. I am a teacher
now, now running late to a lesson. The girls
call me teacher anyway. I care for them, little
birds, nesting on the far side of their planet.
Will I know them when they are grown? It doesn't
matter. It is enough to know them as we are.
We study language, the form of things, but they
ask so many questions, entangling us in substance.
Life lessons. Feeding marshmallows to children.
Echoes of conversations I have with my wife.
The guiding of those who cannot read the hieroglyphs.
Teaching. Modeling. You drop down to them, then
climb back out. Training the mind means you don't
have to listen to it anymore. You let thoughts
work spontaneously. Without words, proofs, or
programs. I argue that Luke was a man before
he went to see the Emperor. I tried to explain
to my father what it meant to lose a child. Three
hours of talk. He failed to understand. At last,
I mentioned a film we had both seen. A tragedy.
It's like that, I said. My father wept. Where
do we go when we die? Take a cup of water. Pour
it back into the sea. Inside, I do not see the
keys upon the rack. Different jackets in the
closet. Slacks in the hamper. Yesterday's backpack.
Or tomorrow's purse. I would ask my wife. If
she were home, I do not want to call her. The
keys are not behind my borrowed babbit, nor did
I place them, for whatever reason, beside blind
chance. It isn't that things happen despite our
interests, only then to work out for us when
all is settled. That we let success conjure doom.
That we fail. only to defer our triumph. The
calculating mind is senseless. It measures the
immeasurable, tries to index the universe, goes
hungry comparing apples and oranges, pomegranates
and handkerchiefs. Even if we live in the best
of all possible worlds, some grass is greener
than other grass. Where are you standing? Living
for others, seeking answers, aligning with the
virtues of public expectation. I do what occurs
to me. I bide my time. The rest is waste. When
I was young, I called them fever days. When I
was swollen with anxiety, I called them days
lost to the void. They were a clearing, a gap
between the boy and man. I lived then, too. A
hermit has a beating heart, especially when the
mind dances around cause and effect. Enough flogging.
I learned to give up scaling mountains. The mouths
of the masters never moved before me. I unfolded.
like an origami crane. It is the same for those
who stare at walls until the dinner bell is rung.
My first teaching is as follows. Calm is the
lid on the bowl. Peace is the love for everything
within it. The cricket in the bowl of shit calls
for you. I should dial my wife, if only it did
not mean what it means. Stalling for inspiration,
I stop and gaze upon a painting on the wall.
Representation, motion in stillness. We yearn
to leave a mark, even muddy footprints, knowing
that whenever a star goes dark, somewhere in
the night sky. It has been gone for centuries.
I was terrified of Spangler's intellect until
I learned he also suffered panic attacks, living
with his mother. I hear that Julius Caesar wept
once upon the stone of Alexander. It can be difficult
to remember that da Vinci, no matter his renown,
shares an equal and overlapping dignity. with
the anonymous orphan who dies with a needle stuck
in their arm. So, do not say no to the bull that
charges at you. Just make it your work to get
out of the way. My wife answers, though does
not have any special knowledge regarding the
keys. She recommends I look where I already looked.
It is not her problem. Why ought she do differently?
Then I spot them, the carabiner half -concealed
beneath some mail bound for the trash can. I
tell her, and then, with nothing more to say,
I leave her. Now, somebody write the last line
here. The tree, the baby, and me. If I didn't
know better, living here as I do, I'd think this
was a real rough neighborhood. To glance across
onyx barricades of wrought iron, blocking the
narrow portals of interred tenancies, sunken
businesses. Cascades of packages and trash flowing
up so many cold, grey stairwells. Each person
treading past either too young or too old. Nobody
middle -aged. No one in their prime. The train
that screeches and aches around each turn, no
matter how broad the thoroughfare. will stop
at Blanford Street, east of the university, before
it performs its inexorable slide down into the
smooth, spare bowels of the city, which echo,
as with the hot gusto of a Byzantine pipe organ,
the ungodly shriek of mechanical friction. At
that final skybound station, which marks the
border between what people call downtown and
whatever else is not downtown, but only looks
and sounds and sprawls just like the downtowns
one might find anywhere. In view of Blanford,
there is a tree, tall and generously bowed, which
stands unperturbed within its oneness, there
at the boundary of a metropolis. that has turned
septic in its uncowed masculinity. Old, angry,
rheumatic demon, whose day has long since passed.
Its artifice tangled and calcified. Jostled parade
of the historic, the intellectual, the working
class, the transient. Brackish flood of disparate
diasporas. Every shipwrecked wanderer piled atop
each other. Backwater of the cramped, defensive,
self -centered, cool. Yet here, as anywhere,
a tree is a tree. Vital. Timeless. And even this
midden heap has more than one. For what is a
city without its trees? Whenever the train descends
and the lonely arbor disappears, I think of Kikuchiyo
in his anguish as he clutches the orphan he saved
from the mill. This baby is me. the vole. I feel
robotic at my workbench, another ponderous contraption
of flesh scratching arthritic questions into
its skull. I have no use for mirrors. I prefer
to measure the weight of my breathlessness, the
heavy shape of the cavity once the air has gone
out. Existence has compelled my attitude to cherish
every last setback as the fare of a sacred feast,
a private promise beckoning a grain of truth.
It's common to find me prostrate, even genuflecting,
in spite of my bum knee. I grin and grovel, begging
aloud for more disappointment. The alternative
is madness, unyielding grief. The world's great
vaults and arches, from Potosi to the pyramids,
and from there the stars. Wave by sober wave,
their visions dash upon the scree. They won't
eclipse the silver ring, that vintage ornament.
reclaimed, fitted down and bound to the permanent
vigilance of my passive hand. I recognize my
dreams for what they are, the wakefulness I find
at the base of their trench. Here the vole burrows
deep beneath the butte, further and further onto
stone. Its choices the fewer, the deeper, till
there is no place left but where the critter
stands. And that becomes the answer. The forum
the vole was, somehow, always meant for. I accept
you, even without knowing you. What impact could
the facts of the matter have upon my discipline?
Some poor souls get their legs hewn off, their
eyes burned out. Others feel the razor slice
of silver medals, mistakes in championship games.
What complaint can I maintain that when I set
my teeth into the swelling sweetness of a peach,
I do not linger. I chew it scornfully, that I
could never impart its taste unto another. They
say that everyone has a book these days. At least
the peaches speak for themselves. So how's the
book coming along? Has anyone enjoyed the asking
of this question? Saltwater When my wife came
out to fix herself a noodle dish for lunch, she
hovered over my shoulder to steal a glance at
my writing. The watched pot boiled. And she ate
in silence. Love as a process. There is no such
thing as rational love. Observe it under a microscope.
Throw its diagrams up in lecture halls. It vanishes.
I know where to find some typical lovers. In
a copse or hedgerow. Those turtle doves whose
wings flutter in daydreams. I have invented nothing.
The kind of lightning one can capture in a bottle.
Toss that to the mob. I yearn for you when you
are here. I do not let my eyelids take their
rest. Listen. You can hear my heartbeat without
even pressing your ear upon my breast. What is
love but to wake up beside you? What is love
but the smell of peanut oil on our hands? What
is love but a promise your lips gave mine? Open
your Melville. Read every last expository word.
What can you tell me about the whale? Our spirits
dance together in the quiet of the days. I love
you. I arrive at these words the same as anyone.
Do you know what Sisyphus whispers to his stone
as he pushes it up the mountainside? I belong
to history. to hopefulness. I have adored you
for so long, it is hard to pinpoint the moment
of saltation. Many autumns have I shaken acorns
from your boughs, just to watch them tumble toward
the leaf -strewn ground. I carry a basket with
me now. I gather them. Is that the only difference?
The teleology of the self. This day led to that
one. So on. I find it crude to coalesce them
into a single yesterday. The past fails to ripple
upon the surface of the present. Those memories,
hushed within the undertow. Revolutions that
waned. Lives as long as ours defy biography.
There is so much to unlearn. The person I once
ached to be. Cherry -picked composite of misapprehended
heroes. I stamp my feet upon their faces. Lend
some spit to the tree roots that crawl over the
bases of their monuments. When I kneel upon these
shrines in twilight hours, I like to break out
yodeling. The song that gushes out is gallant
lunacy. I send it with purpose. I am not confused
about why I carry on the way I do. You, the primrose
of my evening, ask me what is for dinner. I decapitate
a bottle of champagne with a scimitar, then let
the fizzle froth upon you like a fumarole. It
is no business of mine if the sky should fall.
We haven't stopped collecting acorns in the wilderness.
I choose life beside you. Life, in all its absurdity,
its beauty, its caprice. My impermanence is yours.
What shall we do with it? That is... What shall
we do after we go and sit out on the porch and
watch the sun go down over the silvered sea,
the sun frowning at us a moment as it bids its
reluctant goodbye? The clouds will swarm under
a full moon tonight. Come, take us both to Curacao.
Realized. Hold it all together. Take the long
view. The ivory vessel could shatter in an instant.
And it can shatter only once. Don't forget. Did
you invite this danger in? She asks this of me.
I already thought of that. It is a tempting notion.
It has its own logic. But the answer to her question
is no. Thursday night. I should go to bed. It
is she who says this, though in the manner of
one giving a prologue or disclaimer. as if those
words alone will excuse the incoming torrent
of half -baked insults, accessory to her percolating,
undigested thoughts. My wife stays right where
she is, there on the sofa, then spreads her anxious
mind about the room. Our friends are better than
us, the other couples. Each partner has a great
career. We'll never have the money they do. A
house needs two incomes, and one of ours is so
small it barely counts. We'll never be able to
afford a house in this economy if we're competing
with our friends. And who wouldn't want to live
among their friends? It's okay, though. We have
different values than them. We're not settling
for less, exactly. It's just that, together,
we make less. The straw that breaks the husband's
back. Just a straw. Nothing inherently worthy
of histrionics. She was half -witted, fatigued,
didn't mean a word of it. Didn't even say it
to me, just said it aloud, as though I wasn't
there. Whatever snaps in me is a long time coming.
I have braced against her multitude of winds,
her cauldron of angst, her symphony of woes.
But what my endurance was for, take that away
and why brace at all? Friday. The delayed reaction.
The long fuse. Too long, more often than not.
I take a walk, despising my surroundings with
fresh acid. I find a bench behind the school
of social services at the university my wife
attends. I wait there. though could not say for
what. Half an hour. A light rain falls. Everyone
else collects themselves and heads somewhere
inside. On the grass. On the berm. By the statues.
The fountains. No one feels secure enough to
stay but me. Another disappointment. The drizzle
ceases. Sunshine returns. New people flock to
empty tables and open swaths of lawn. I stay
on the bench in my false presumption of calm.
False because when I later walk home, with each
brisk step, my blood whips back toward anger.
That I am to have the tenth. Or is it twelfth
variation of a tired conversation? She knows
we need to talk. When we sit down together, I
say to her the words she said to me the night
before. She cannot remember any of it. On the
same sofa, I utter her words and she weeps. Why
would I say something so awful? If she is the
one asking this question, how should either of
us find the answer? And if she cannot recall
the degradation a mere 18 hours after, how should
either of us stop this from becoming anything
but routine? I do not require reconciliation.
I do not pursue the feeling that all will be
well again. Another time is already approaching.
Always another time now. I must continue to brace.
I must hold on. I must forgive. Allow. Brace.
Be generous. Brace. These things take years.
Hold. Have patience. Hold. Another hold. It's
okay. Brace. Rather, brace. It will be okay.
Hold. We've been here before. Brace. With far
worse. Brace. Can stand up against. Hold. Anything.
Hold. Anything. Lessons will be braced, learned.
Growth will be held, earned. No matter what,
when it matters most, each partner will hold
up their side of the pact. I have not given up,
not by any stretch. I have simply given out.
We go to a concert that night. Three drum sets.
Starless in Bible black. My spirit wails. I have
the dream again of the man on the beach. Thirteen
years, that particular dream. Twenty -nine years,
give or take, for the archdream. of who I am.
It feels so far away. Hold, you stupid son of
a bitch. There's nothing to do but hold. She
carries me home. I can barely walk, collapsing
in fits of tears. She does not question them.
Later, she will say that, when she looked at
me in the audience, I appeared dead, pale, bloodless.
Did you enjoy the show? Somewhat. There was some
bliss hushed within that devastation. Saturday
I head to work. I listen to the same visitor
for six hours. We have one of our delicate skirmishes,
where I believe in him and he does not. Sunday.
I head to work again. The visitor returns. We
pick up where we left off, which is to say, all
over again. Neither of us has slept. We yawn
throughout our solemn slog. Monday. My one day
of the week without a shift or lesson. I'm exhausted,
and I'm running out of runway. Time to summon
a last -ditch effort. Acupuncture worked a minor
miracle before, near the end of the bad old days.
I stagger to a neighborhood clinic, mistrusting
my own hope for an easy fix. It's sort of peaceful
there, but I grow to loathe that sitting in the
dark with my restless heart. When the session
ends, I cross the street to the dispensary. It
is my first time entering such an establishment.
I purchase one bag. It is very affordable. I
walk home, enveloped by a strange dissociation,
as in a dream. I am bemused by my station in
life. The mentor. The teacher. Even the husband.
The worldly everyman. As though I know a single
rotten thing about the world. So the vessel shattered.
The realization is nowhere near so bad as its
anticipations. The fractured pieces, strewn about.
Make something new from them for Christ's sake.
Treat them as an artist does stained glass. Everything
just as it was, only more so. I concede no regret
for the tack that brought me here. I executed
my responsibilities, dauntlessly took on new
enterprises, endured each challenge without complaint.
I did well for myself. And for those around me,
there is no cause for regret, for fear, for shame,
just because I snapped. I am not bowed. It is
merely a case of rent nerves. A farmer rotates
their crops. A general rotates their men amongst
the lines. Just need a bit of R &R is all. When
you have my wealth of experience, you don't fret
uncertain times. You trust that it pans out.
A person works with what they have, and what
you have is often plenty. There's no relief in
self -pity. You follow your instincts and you
come out the other side and you don't forget
a damn thing because you're bringing it all with
you anyway. so you might as well reckon what
the hell you've been carrying each and every
day of your life. Do that, and you'll know your
way through puzzles you've never seen before.
These symptoms, Monday's symptoms, they'd send
a lot of folks to the hospital. Dizziness, disorientation,
tremors, stiffness, shortness of breath. heart
palpitations, flutterings of panic, exhaustion,
demoralization, despair, the valid concern that
years of effort and sacrifice will go unrewarded,
unrequited, and unsung, and that your most fundamental
ethical and moral concepts are fruitless anachronisms
that will yield nothing but embarrassment, poverty,
and unbreachable solitude. I took care of such
a man a couple days before, at the drop -in center.
He was a first -timer, wasn't sure what he was
doing there. His family had taken him to the
emergency room, then the doctors sent him to
the beds. The system placed him there, and then
he wandered over to me and all my wisdom, and
I took good care of him. even as I suffered Saturday.
I call off my lessons for the rest of the week,
and I call out of work. My employee's handbook
dictates that if you're out only three days,
you don't need a doctor's note. My own discretion
will be sufficient. I am a professional, after
all, and I know my patient better than anyone.
The foremost priority is to cut off the adrenaline
flooding through my neck. The acupuncture was
a modest opening. Now obliterate the rest with
cannabis. Sleep and wake refreshed. My methodology
is sound. The treatment works. The adrenaline,
at least, is abated. In my ensuing lays, I watch
a documentary Kozlowski made about workers and
managers at a factory. In the honesty of their
efforts, they are enough. Kozlowski films them.
He is enough. I watch Kozlowski. I am enough.
My wife comes home. We talk some more. She mentions...
with rueful predictability, the promise I made
to her the first month we were together, about
my mental illness, about how I was recovered,
how I was never going to kill myself. She brings
this up as though any episode of mental crisis
spells utter disaster, an atavistic return that
renders vows undone. She leans on her own insecurities,
acting as though my former frailties are not
exactly what drive my present virtue. As she
is the person who benefits the most from that
virtue, she should know the difference without
being told. My wife's stepmother warned her before
we moved out here. Artists can be temperamental.
If a man doesn't do what he feels he's meant
to, he can crack up. Well, I cracked up. And?
Would my wife's stepmother like to know why?
Because it isn't the fact that I'm a provider
now, instead of the artist of my ideal. It isn't
that I put all of my seasoned ambitions on hold.
just for my wife's pursuit of her own self -improvement.
It isn't my students, my peers, or my employers.
It isn't the money, the bills, or the privation.
It isn't steady down the line, or the exacting
price of vigilance. And it sure as hell isn't
because I wanted to suicide more days than not
for nigh on twenty years. I cracked up because
everything I have done out here, I have done
for my wife and myself and for the dream of the
life we want to build together. But I no longer
trust the life that's being built because I no
longer trust my wife. Anybody got a rusty knife
to stick between my ribs for that? On Tuesday,
a man comes to repair our bathroom door. A different
man, a man named George, took the measurements
a week ago, but refused to jot them down. George
then came back a few days later, measured the
door again, and again refused to put any figures
in writing. Tuesday's man performs his duties
a bit more expertly. From the window, I am surprised
to hear George's voice outside as he confides
to the man who is doing his job for him. I can't
go back up there again. Their work truck has
a slogan written on its side. It is the slogan
of the company that manages our property. We
do it once, we do it right, and we move on. George's
foibles bring more joy into my life than anything
I have experienced since Thursday. I listen to
an old pop song. I am tempted to thrust my hips,
dance around the apartment some. I saunter over
to my wife, then flash her a fancy step as if
to say, See? I remember this. Every now and then,
a person receives the dossier of their life and
reads it over. We see what appeals to us, what
works for us, what we can work with. It often
feels like playing a part, or even studying an
opponent. Amidst this current episode, I don't
feel much like the prisoner, but rather more
akin to his protean number two. The voice in
me that fiercely fumes, What's it all about?
is smaller than the calm, steady authority, which
replies, Sit down and I'll tell you. Even in
this novel angst, I feel not in control. but
in charge, I alone. It is not me, in my entirety,
that is ailing. It is but one crucial part. So
nurse it, lend it comfort, then tear the muscle
that aches for use. I choose to play a game of
witchers, not just to pass the time, but to have
someone take me on an adventure for a change.
Halfway through, a hideous, cursed thing needs
to be saved. It has to be transformed by a potentially
fatal procedure in order to recover its lost
identity. The ritual might not work. The body
must be made pliable, which is dangerous. But
sometimes one has no alternative. I know all
about it. Later, my character comes across another
cursed person, this time the forlorn leader of
a rugged island clan. Something called a hyme
has made a home in his despair. Once freed from
the clutches of the parasite, the accursed man
feels as though his spirit has been sucked through
a whirlpool. He feels empty, rudderless. The
witcher I am playing says, It is natural. It
will pass. Days. Weeks. It passes. Wednesday
brings a bit of gentle mania. I do not mind.
I saw it coming. I merely ask myself, should
I write it out or tamp it down? I generally prefer
to let things fly, to see where strange new waves
might usher me. There is a song my wife adores.
It's just a ride. I'm on it now. The self -conscious
ride. The look how the machinery works inside
me ride. As though I designed this Nicholas contraption
ages ago and now have but to explicate its grand
design. It would be better to discard every memory
and look around right now. Gaze and gawk slack
-jawed at my wife. How the light bends around
her. Observe our cat, who lives always in the
moment. Regard the books on the shelves, weigh
the corn in the belly. Add up the money that's
growing in several different bank accounts. You
earned it all, whether by valiance or luck. So
what, precisely, would you have otherwise? I
handle three jobs, plus the housekeeping and
the husbanding. Peer work abroad. and peer work
at home. I am in love with my favorite peer,
whatever her struggles. Something had to give.
This breakdown is part of her process too. If
I always have it together, she will never need
to be the more capable. Yet sometimes, she must
be the one to have the answers and to make the
toughest choices. To watch me suffer will do
her good. Necessity may not be the mother of
invention, but it is the mother of reinvention.
On Thursday, we have a toast with lunch. Here's
to the fact that life is long and the world is
so very large. When people say life is short,
They mean to say, life is precious. It is not
a way of saying the same thing. And when people
say, it's a small world, they mean to say, oh,
what a coincidence, in a world so vast as ours.
For if the world really were so small, such happenstance
would never merit mention. To my mind, at least,
the matter is cut and dried. I harp on it all
the time. Friday comes at last. The last day
before I must tend to others. Before honor compels
me to get back to work. The calculations begin.
The hours and the tasks. In my heart of hearts,
I wish I had more time. But then that's to be
expected from a man preparing to gulp down reality.
I know my prospects will improve, though there's
no mistaking, they're dreadful now. Dreadful
because I was already fairly certain that I've
been unhappy all this time. And now... With unquestionable
nakedness, I know it is so. It doesn't matter
that I've learned so much, that I've performed
my duties admirably, and so on. At the end of
the day, this endeavor does not satisfy me. Still,
I must put on my overalls and trudge back out.
Into the one life I have. Only now disabused
of the pretense that I can make the most of it.
As my mind reels and winds the while. I did well
for myself. When I was deluded. In the mode.
So much for carrying on. The time has come to
draft another ego death. My instruments had better
be sharp. Or else I'll make a casualty of my
anesthetized dreams, and the man in me will disappear.
And all of this virtue, too. It's funny. I'm
the one who said I'd be happy with my darling
almost anywhere. Running a gas station in Iowa.
It's a life. Well, fool me once. Quick as quicksilver,
I reject this poison. I can't have been a true
man all this time, then act as though I've become
some wretched thing. It can't have all been waste.
I'm not returning to prison, and the gas station
in Iowa isn't prison anyways, and we're not even
in Iowa, though part of me wishes we could be.
I have everything I need, and so does she. We
are both cresting the wave, walking the path,
our paths. We are what we are. If that isn't
enough, nothing ever could be. So, where am I
to rest the tip of my index? How shall I shift
my world until it hums? Despair is an annoyance,
a gnat to be swatted and crushed. Two strokes
of a pen, two flashes of an oil -soaked brush,
I will be golden again. I am a sturdy vessel,
tried and true. Time to resume the business of
life. Point me in the right direction. Then shoot
me out of a cannon. Wear shine -bright teeth
within the sky. I shall meet them anywhere. Be
the truth, or be a damn good dream of the truth.
Unmoor me. Let me catch the dead -now wind again.
And then be off. Time has slowed. I age beyond
time. Again. Old man. Takes a whole day to do
my errands. The masculine shape stepping out
in front of you. Determined. Yet going nowhere.
And as I walk. The dead leaves dance before me,
chittering heralds of the cold wind. A man about
town, a soul in hibernation, serve me up as a
plate of beef lathered in a Nicholas reduction.
Make me small, grind me down. Buff out my legion
jagged edges. When I walk out of here, my eyes
will be sapphires, and my heart will be a burnished
stone. Vignettes on the route from South Station
to Old Saybrook. A boy stands beyond a chain
-link fence, staring at what he alone can know.
But look, a slowly curling smile. Through the
train window, cityscapes slide past. A tent on
a hillside strewn with trash. An excavator. a
mound of rubble, the homes that were built for
our parents. A gray -maned photographer presses
his nose into a camera, grimacing lest he miss
the moment. Pine trees keep to their green cloaks
as autumn's laughter. shivers the naked oaks.
The Chain Ten years ago, I obtained a copy of
Edward Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Crucial as it was to the collection of time -honored
works I sought to amass for myself, in the vain
hope that I could blitz and cheat my way into
a classical education, if only by scraping together
a bit of hoarfrost. I kept Gibbon's gold -lettered
spine on my highest shelf, there a daily reminder
that I must find maturity in its shadow. I took
a gold chain necklace, the provenance of my grandfather,
and nestled it inside, there to act as a proper
bookmark for such a monumental work. The years
went by. The pages went unread. One day, a student
of mine asked me to elucidate the history of
the known world off the top of my head. I knew
the brushstrokes of Paleolithic man, Unta Ur,
Vishnu, Confucius, Homer, onward to the satraps
and armies of the Achaemenid Empire. The road
led inexorably to Rome. I felt bound to tell
that tale as vividly as I could, even if it were
to mean calling upon reinforcement from the dead.
From Gibbon, bastard though I was to his high
patronage. That night, at home, I removed the
magnum opus from its vault. Yet when I opened
the cover, I saw the chain had been displaced
and torn a small section three pages deep at
the center of its base. I was aware it had always
been impractical. to emplace the heavy chain
therein. Observing the damage, I suffered only
the soft sting of perplexion, the absence of
concern. I promptly surrendered the book to the
local library, without a thought. Let someone
else claim its wisdom, for a dollar or not. The
following week, I told my pupil what little I
knew of the purple clad, from the genius of Octavian
to the command of Theodoric, and all was to the
boy's bombastic glee. In the time since, I have
kept the chain unadorned upon the bookshelf,
in plain and present view, that I might take
it in my hand sometimes and let it drift between
my fingers. squeeze its gleaming scales, absorb
the magic of their warmth, the energy of time
anchored, of influence returned, petroleum wells
and spark gaps, the constellations of an organizing
eye, an amulet that testifies in perfect silence.
Why?