Ghost-Love: Natives of a Dwindled Sphere

 

“If it cohered,

cohered to you, if you were there, to say,

‘Oh, it is not the way we say it is,

not that.  Oh no; that way isn’t the way.’”

–William Bronk-

“We keep coming back and coming back

To the real…

…straight to the word,

Straight to the transfixing object.”

–Wallace Stevens-

“Fleeting,

they look for rescue through something in us, the most fleeting of all.”

–Rainer Maria Rilke-

“No, we had come too far for that belief

and saw ourselves as ghosts against the real,

and time and place as ghosts; there is the real.

It is there.  Where we are: nowhere.  It is there.”

–William Bronk-

 

            If the real continued.  Continues, without us.  Without.  Tree, bird, house, river.  If.  As if.

 

If it cohered.  To you.  But for a moment, now here, where we are, if you and I cohered, making what is between us, what is real.

Eyes and what’s seen.  Hands and their touch.  Ears and the music, the noise (the silence).  And so on.  The real.  It is there.

You called?

I called.  Call.  Am calling.

“If it cohered, cohered to you, if you were there, to say,”

Where we are: nowhere.

Not the way we say.  I say.  You say.  Not the way it is.

There is the real.

We say to the angel.  The halfling.  The between.

“House. Pond. Flower. I. You. Platypus.”

“Oh, it is not the way we say it is, not that. Oh no,” you say.

But the word is.  There.  Transfiguring angel.  Figure marking the between, made between.  Nowhere.

Fleeting, transfixing object, what you say we say I say, what we write.

Straight to the object.

“that isn’t the way,” we say, “not the way we say it is”

But it is there.

We keep coming back and coming back

As if it cohered

We

To things.  Transfixing objects.  You.  Words.  Fleeting.  Now here.

We say to the angel, the between, “is it there?”

Half-cohere, half-cohere, wholly transfixed by the object, fleeting, in-between, being made?  You.  I.  It is there.

Is it there?  Where we are?  Now here.  Nowhere.

Half, tri-partite even.  Thus now then.  As if.

 

The fly is bothering me.  It lands.  I am thirsty.  It is gone.

 

You made an object.  It is there.  I am looking.  While I am looking there is paint, form, shape, rectangular, drips strokes runs splotches.  From here I imagine texture.  With my fingers, it is there.  Where I am.  If it coheres.  Between, meeting point, figuring angel.  Ghost of the real.

I smell.  I smell you.  Between my nose and you and me.  Nowhere.  The connective stroke between w and h is awkward, unmatched.  We have to make it.  Make it work.  Cohere.  Happen.  Fleeting.  Fabricate.

It is there.  Between my eye and the page: “wh” “Nowhere” is there.  Cursive broken.  Either way.  Visual puzzle.  Ancient.  Reader supplying breath breaks tone punctuation.  Reader punctuating piercing, when I listen, ears to your lips, to your voice, I perforate, puncture, separate, we make.  It is there.  Angel.  Between.  As if it cohered, me to you, if you were there, to say “Oh it is not that way” as I punctured it, broke it down, chewed to fragments.  Fragments (fleeting) it is there.  Hands, voices, bodies, where we are, suture, stack, come back and come back, house.  Conversation.  Fence.  Pool.  Kiss. Nowhere.  As if.  Angel.

In a perfect world…”Oh it is not the way we say it is, not that”

“No, we had come too far for that belief”

Fleeting fleeting fleeting and coming back coming back

	here

 

 

There is no coming back, either to nowhere or now

But the word.  Transfixing object.  Painting.  House.  Yard.  Bed.

 

Squirrel on the trunk, I swallow, skitters away.  Not there.  It is not the way I say it is, not now.  Except this: if you go straight to the word, it is there.

 

Painting, photo, body, voice – transfixing objects – if it cohered, cohered to you, if you were there

If I was, I am, now here.

You are not.  Now you are.  Words, the real, I keep coming back and coming back, writing

You are.  You are.  You are.

 

I hold the page close.  I look.  Youareyouareyouare, I puncture, punctuate, I wonder if it coheres, cohered, if you were there, will be, the words are, the page, a barely thing, ghost of a horizon line held straight to the eye, nothing between eye and edge, very little, almost nothing, but I see, see something

It is not the way we say it is, oh no, not that,

but we keep coming back, coming back, saying again, each time new, different, again, same words, written they are there, angel, we are, we are, we are, nowhere, now here, if it cohered.