It occurred to him this
morning
while reading how thousands of WPA artworks were bundled up by the
government
cut out of their wood
frames and
sold at auction for four cents a pound
that he rarely placed his speakers in an attitude of weather or within hard detailed loci
they didnt throw shadows
stand
in wind
sweat
under heat
his dialogue or rhetoric didnt require
a crucible of weather not aridness
humidity warmth or cold
he didnt say Edward
Bulwer-Lyttons infamous it
was a dark and stormy night or it was
a chilly morning at the piers along Long Island any more than he would have affixed the parasite of date or year
the human condition only requires being human
either now before or in the
future
maybe Neanderthals werent loquacious
perhaps posthuman humans wouldnt be
loquacious either
yet they were and
would be
succinctly human beings despite the weather or circumstances they
found or will find themselves in
they communicate to talk
debate challenge argue
agree disagree that is what is important
thats
what he sought to affect channel
weather and surroundings seemed to
him as window dressings not psychological settings
there was no functional difference
between a carved wood spoon and a fine-wrought silver one
during college he befriended a gentleman
bum who carried an heirloom silver knife fork and spoon ate from dented
cans thrown away cardboard food containers in a rude alleyway near the veterans
hospital in Miami
evening time its swarming life was
sparked and lit by the neon lights undulating from the faces of businesses which peering
into its maw from across the street
what businesses or the colors he couldnt
say
the liquor the bum preferred he
could
Rose his wife who left him while he served in Vietnam he
could say
that he was fucked up and morally
bereft and wanted desperately to end every disagreement by killing whoever
disagreed with him he could say
that he carried his badly beaten
body to the Emergency Room robbed of
his silver he could say
he couldnt say what the
temperature was that night
what
the air smelled like
or
now the weight of the old mans body across his shoulders
he couldnt say
the doctor said he died
he still had a hard time saying
0900, Twosday,
1 9. 15
1354, Twosday,
1 9. 15
