Beginning with a Line by Paul Celan...
Beginning with a line by paul celan
Ask: Where did the way lead when it led nowhere? Say: A life spent perpetually waiting for someone to come. Ask: Is this today? Say: This country is all destination now. Ask: Has the ivy crept higher up the flagpole, a full staff spine sprouting grey ribs? Say: I miss someone. Forgetting is normal, graveless fuel for air. Ask: Can you wrap all the truncheons carefully in gauze so they won’t see me again?
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Say: I was aware of the truncheons visually at first, like the iridescence of a wasp peripherally, before feeling venom. Ask: Were you aware of the bruises before they appeared? Say: Always somewhere between wounds – the last never heals before the next comes as inevitable dusk. Ask: Is this chalk dust so fine you’d call it smoke? Say: There is one chimney left and it’s covered in creosote scabs. Ask: Does the memory of fire make you feel safe?
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Say: I’d like to change so much more. Ask: How do I knock on the door of a closed society with no door? Say: There’s something to be said for continuing effort. Ask: Can you turn this ossified frost that scraped my skin into the soft snowfall of a violet winter morning? Say: Enough temperature and pressure turns molding clay into a building material, a feeling in the body into an edifice. Ask: How long does it take for cold tumor to become landscape? Say: If you want that ice gone you’ll have to take the sidewalk too. You’ll have to take it. Ask: If you can’t drive an electric suicide machine on a crosswalk, how will you know where to outline the silence? Say: Out of many bricks one tall chimney was built, e pluribus unum. Ask: Is chimney the right word for a tower to infinity? Say: The brick in my hand has nothing to do with scarcity, with velocity. Ask: How did you make heat without warmth?
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Say: I tried to burn the truncheons, black as the milk of daybreak. I tried to bury them. Ask: Is apocalypse just a steady state universe? Say: The forgiveness of the last age was thick and white, a little less new each day. Ask: What is the difference between chalk dust and ash when there was no pleasure to burn in the first place? Say: Not everything burns. You couldn’t coax a spark here. Not even a flicker. Ask: To add a little more nothingness, is it the spooled up centrifuge or cremulator this time? Say: I wish I had old tattoos so I could assemble the particles of ink into a bystander and remember it was a flower. Ask: Do you always sound so mournful when confused with a witness? Say: Darkened love letters writhing and licked, ready for the ascent. Ask: Can void be owned like history?
reveille
Say: I woke in the empty pit of appetite. / Ask: Was the dim light enough / to steer by? Say: I woke as a thing dressed / in skin and hair. / Ask: Can we rehydrate this ash and call it fuel? / Say: I woke famished, the noonday sun’s toil. / Ask: Were you all night a shadow waning? / Say: I can taste it now / —my former self. / Ask: Can steam be a sunrise? / Say: My pot boils heavy, fingernails rising to the meniscus. / Ask: Will you tell me the story—my favorite— / with the fruit ripe, the children / lost, and the chalkless climax? / Say: I long to imbibe, feel again the skin break and flow down my neck. / Ask: Are you sure the name for this is biography? / Say: I will grow large today—fill into these many limbs. / Ask: Can you picture fields rising to shoulders, the buds greening? / Say: I lick them, but dust happens, like sucking talc from teeth. / Ask: Do you remember the wholeness? / Say: The emptiness, the opacity, they’re really getting to you. / Ask: Will I still be able to sing my name? Say: Place this mana in the damp bed where your tongue was. / Ask: My vocal cords, so long unused, will they still engorge? / Say: song is an eyebreath turned / inward. Say: Breathe.
masquerade as
Say: My face is an illusion / hidden behind the reality / of a mask. / Ask: Do you wonder how I got here? / Got this name that isn’t mine? / Say: You pulled me by the eye holes / from the darkness backstage / into full production light and now it looks like work, / commerce, build, job, punch in, punch out, PFML, premium contribution. / Ask: Was this your intention? / To go from past time to associate professor? / At what point did you know / this had gone too far? / Say: I found blood / works as an adhesive for things light as feathers. / Sometimes face cover is a requirement, / like at the place between death and afterlife. / Ask: Why do you name your performance Sacrifice / and your mask Ritual? After, like a shed skin, will you taste the material? Will you consume this velvet or papier-mâché? / Say: Reboot. Clear cache. / Everything is a cycle. Round like the ribbon / knotted at the back of my head. / I have an MFA, but I’ll be your helpdesk chauffeur today.
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Say: Call me Ephemeral, / like the name I used to sign in here. / Ask: Is this the instance where you tell me / everybody names their masks Metaphor? What’s identity anyway? Can you please explain the issue you are having? / Say: A pastiche of personae / knit into a garment, / like a long shawl, / that wraps around the body, / weaving through bone, / in and out, / joined at the ends / making a figure eight oroborus. / Ask: Did you know that your issue is very important to us? Can you please use small words and include browser details, screenshot with inspect element? / Say: I am taking control of your screen. I am doing penetration test. / Insert a hiding spot. Insert enjoyment. / Ask: Did I already say relax? / If reality is a reflection, / do you get to wear the algorithm / on the construct of your face? / Say: Every mask is a possibility. / Every face a lie. / Every lie a mask.
AR Dugan is author of the chapbooks Wanted: Comedy, Addicts (Cathexis Northwest Press, 2021), Call / Response (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and has an MFA from Emerson College. His poetry can be seen in a number of literary magazines and reviews, recently in the anthology Wild Gods from New Rivers Press.