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Dan Raphael |
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How many trees does it take to change a lightbulb Wherever I look, wherever Im standing, I am certain a tree has grown here. And where my trees are now, where this house will mold into the ground, will be covered over by people sandwiched between air made solid-- there's not enough surface for all our feet, not enough air for all our lungs so we learn to breathe through our eyes, through microwave vacuoles exchanging lost memory for cell-phone and satellite beams Like a tree, I cannot open a book, throbbing in my hands like 2 pounds of meat, meat I used to feed and talk to. Taking weeks to finger-whip a square meter of air into something narrative & particulate, something light enough to change in the fall, after 50 washings, after 3 months of negative rain taking away every question mark: the way some trees inhale their leaves so they don't crumble to the ground, so the seeds of potential usurpers have no place to hide while still unborn and vulnerable Shade on a seedling is like a pillow pressed on a babys face. Baby-mart had a 2-for-1 sale. I know this baby is a test, and one of us is a hologram. Everyone in my family has a star named after them. We have our ashes sealed inside trees that will live forever, trees that havent been discovered yet, not until we can go past the bio-chronal monotony-- life is just a vector--what and where are beyond our function. to know more would kill my body and brain. something would escape. maybe it can find a place to grow. When I get too close my head hurts its been so many days without a solid object in the sky, without pointed illumination we are suffuse, we are gray the shining inside me has drained its own batteries & tapped into other circuits: a sudden brownout of memory, a flickering in my wrist on the steering wheel, without a clock or compass, without landmarks that don't repeat i dont know how many homes i have, how many mirrors ive mistakened for tv screens, how often ive walked out of one door, and kept exiting: doors that open before i touch them, doors that want to be pulled when i push, doorways im not sure how i got through, often having to duck, putting my hand through first to find the light switch:. every light bulb in my world is 60 watts, every time a light is turned on some light is extinguished, the ratio varies by hour, when the horizon beyond my yard is unevenly stained plywood, when the night takes advantage of my dream state decreasing my outward pressure so the darkness concaves parts of me--from dimples to lacuna-- what seems a blemish is an indentation, what seems a blackhead is a window i forgot the airplanes, i forgot the birds, the flowers that marched like clockwork, hovering meat, rain that remembers dissolving, old cars with armored windows, how the heat I cant see gives the dark squiggles of texture and aroma, a pocket to sink my hand into, a loose seam where fingers go exploring |