The Visit

after St. Francis and the Sow



Francis comes over to visit and there is none of the Spectacle
before and after him, mob frenzy in madness in dance parading
a black crowned man to his death, a dark child with burnt world 
on its hand.  The horde waits for him in patient hunger,
hollow ecstasy.  Father! Father! they call out to him.  

Father! Father!             From a distance

he touches them, oh he touches them
 as he once touched the sow.

the roles we play

Linda, who said she can't leave New York there's just so much theater there, said I see her when I could, when she's back, there, or here, or wherever it is she is referring to, as home.  

She said why do I not leave this place.  I said why do you return.  I did not ask do you feel like a stranger here?  I do.  Every time I return, the place has something new.  And I get lost:  the streets

have a habit of changing names.  The landmarks have the habit of changing faces.  Old places disappear, always something new.  When I first saw Linda, she was not 

the picture of the name in mind.  She was otherwise; and warm and bubbly; meticulous about each step of the process.  I was not surprised.  Long years in the theater have a way of creeping

itself into the skin.  In a workshop she tells the participants the cliche among us they may not yet know:  we're all actors playing our lives in roles.  Linda says we are friends, we are lovers, we are

wives, we are children, we are mothers.  One time she whispered I am feeling cold: I think I might be sick.  She asked for a pill and I gave her a glass of lukewarm water with it.  She curled herself 

on the couch, like a fetus.  I turned off the lights and closed the door.
What are we when we are alone?  What role do we play in front of the wall?

dear hans

in less than forty lunch conversations, surely we will agree.  although there hasn't been any disagreement to begin with.  in the first place.  there will never be any argument.  between two people who refuse.  seeing the same wide array of hues:  such things:  diversity, plurality.  the multiplicity of lenses with which to view reality.  for instance.  take any fantasy.  and let lilia draw hers to recreate it.  give her a piece.  of manila paper.  some crayons.  and when the paper tears, the wrong crayon used, refuse the explanations.  insist on phenomenology.  how things are, as perceived.  as the way it is.  how we both see her:  treading on eggshells.  how she is asked.  as again.  as again.  as again:  what is your awareness?  

we do not interpret, hans.  keep your memories of munich. 

we do not insist personal realities.