Incantation

I am the whis­per the whisperer the shy of voice the pause that becomes a cadence I am the word between the words after the rise and before the fall I am the dead air that even in own­er­ship of silence beats with a heart of pos­sib­il­ity I am the empti­ness in your lungs between in and out and in again (in and out and in and out and out out out) where I live in the space between there just there between breath­ing for dear life and gasp­ing for the sheer fall and the whatever comes here­after after all this is all or noth­ing of some­thing divided by everything.

Inhal­a­tion. To inhale. To be inhaled.
Exhal­a­tion. To exhale. To be exhaled.
Expect­a­tion. To expect. To be expec­ted.
Real­isa­tion. To real­ise. To be realised.

I am the stifled giggle the unwise side-swipe the pas­sion­ate curse in the heat of the verse or the hil­ar­ity or such vul­gar­ity or not maybe not maybe I have gone too far this time oh what the fuck­ing hell might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb so yes the sud­den vul­gar­ity in the blaze of the moment and the next moment that I didn’t even didn’t ever see com­ing this or that moment but usu­ally you must under­stand and you will and you do that I speak politely as I was well brought up to observe and adhere and obey and stay quiet at all times except.

I babble insens­ibly between your verbs and unleash fever into the side of your neck while act­ing the embar­rassed vam­pire I pull your ear to my mouth and clutch at straws like phrases until I find the one that breaks the camel’s back and now right now right this frozen minute (stop all the clocks) I am the startled punc­tu­ation you find hid­ing behind cush­ions and brushed under car­pets I am a broken record an unspooled reel a scratched disc a cor­rup­ted file so I jib­ber and I jab­ber and I crack and I fold and I splinter and I shat­ter and I shout and I scream and yet and yet I feel no need to speak no com­pul­sion to com­mu­nic­ate I don’t suc­cumb to the com­mon pur­suit to co-exist in conversation.

Breath­ing. Is simple.
When you know how. And why.
I open the door. Step out­side.
Lock myself in. Behind me.
Then bite my tongue.

Comments: 16

    got me

    com­pletely

    x

    andre | 04.22.08, 16:20

    It’s so easy to be com­pletely swept up in this…

    K | 04.22.08, 23:05

    won­der­ful. i espe­cially like the pic­ture this draws of find­ing exclam­a­tion marks down the back of the sofa.

    m. a. | 04.22.08, 23:35

    ‘a scratched disc a cor­rup­ted file ’

    Me likey.

    And likey me.

    NAGA | 04.22.08, 23:53

    Can I ask, is this a stream of con­scious­ness, writ­ten in a flurry of fin­gers on keypad, or a care­fully craf­ted piece, words metic­u­lously chosen?

    [either way, a won­der­fully rhythmic, enchant­ing concoction]

    camille | 04.23.08, 04:21

    Andre — That’s praise indeed …

    K — Wel­come, and if that’s your reac­tion, I’m very pleased.

    m.a. — I usu­ally find them down there too, along with a couple of ques­tion marks and some mis­placed apostrophes.

    NAGA — Likey com­men­tey. Thankee.

    Cam­ille — I’m not usu­ally one to reveal my work­ing meth­ods, such as they are, but I sup­pose this was a bit of both: a stream of con­scious­ness that was hacked around with in vari­ous forms (prose, blank verse, one unbroken stream of text), before being craf­ted into this cur­rent form.

    An Unreliable Witness | 04.23.08, 07:13

    Hmmm. You seem to be unhealth­ily obsessed with the pas­sage of time. I would see someone about that.

    Ani | 04.23.08, 08:43

    Top stuff. The shift between para­graphs without punc­tu­ation and those with is very effect­ive. There is a great rhythm to the piece too. Very frantic but mes­mer­ising too.

    jem | 04.23.08, 10:11

    “the unwise side-swipe” I might have to steal that!

    blueseaurchin | 04.23.08, 15:06

    Yes, that has been my reac­tion to quite a few of the posts I’ve read of yours. It was finally time to pluck up the cour­age to com­ment though :) I could get entirely lost in your words…

    K | 04.23.08, 20:36

    I was think­ing about auto­matic writ­ing, and then I read this. It might not be auto­mat­ic­ally writ­ten, but my god it was hypnotising!

    goddamright | 04.23.08, 20:58

    Ani — I am def­in­itely intend­ing to see someone about that. When I get the time.

    Jem — “Frantic but mes­mer­ising”. This could be a new strap­line, I think.

    Blue­seaurchin — Steal away. My credit rates are very reasonable.

    K — Ah, don’t worry about hav­ing the cour­age to com­ment. Most of the nat­ives here don’t bite. Well, okay, some of them drool a bit …

    God­dam­right — I’ve always been quite inter­ested in auto­matic writ­ing. In the­ory. In prac­tice, how­ever, whenever I’ve tried true auto­mat­icism (which isn’t a word, surely), what emerges from the key­board or pen is a com­plete and utter load of rubbish.

    An Unreliable Witness | 04.24.08, 09:12

    How is one sup­posed to read this out loud without gasp­ing for breath? This post is a health haz­ard Mr Witness.

    Ariel | 04.25.08, 23:04

    I have to admit, I haven’t vis­ited you for a sig­ni­fic­ant period of time, but I am so glad I did tonight. I am your Unre­li­able slave! x

    ELIZABETH | 04.27.08, 00:50

    Rel­ev­ant and brilliant.

    Carla | 04.27.08, 12:07

    Ariel — I agree. It’s an abso­lute health haz­ard. I am think­ing of put­ting a warn­ing on the site, advising people to always have oxy­gen at the ready before tak­ing the plunge and read­ing posts aloud.

    Eliza­beth — Wel­come back. And, um, well. I don’t go in for slaves. Not really. Not since it was slavery was abolished.

    Carla — Wel­come, and thank you. Par­tic­u­larly if you find this post relevant.

    An Unreliable Witness | 04.28.08, 11:37

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