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singing to no one in particular there are birds that sing with two voices blessed with a divided larynx were they people they could hold two conversations simultaneously and both turn out right in the end now i am expediently perched for precisely such an attempt except that there is no interlocutor similarly gifted and the two songs are not aimed at each other such an animal is split in the middle by an impenetrable plane cutting off its left hand voice from its right hand voice and the heart from the heartless yet also singing side but if we possessed two hearts our blood would flow against itself so stay as you are a useless warbler whose two discourses addressed to the void receive no response to either making peace the old emperor isn't necessarily evil he only hurts us when there is no other recourse to chastise the unruly and to maintain order the going rate brings the order within his grasp the lawns are neat the thoroughfares straight scrubbed bone-white and lined with cypresses and the court falconers will soon succeed in their effort to keep the pigeons in formations remember delia how desperate we were having lost each other at the war-torn train station augustus has put a stop to mishaps like that human folly is fleeting but the order endures now that you are a cypress i always know where to find you should steel clang again in a state where not a single life is wasted every citizen can aspire to a tiny monument in his miniature memorial garden they say the halogen sun is never eclipsed over it we are his dream come true he must be dead tired by now yet what glory it would be to watch the pigeons marching abreast in such a peaceful space pins on the map i could surely use an auxiliary life running alongside this default one such as being a ufo junkie someplace in iowa where i would spend my rural evenings connecting dots on a map and marking them with certain special pins bought on the internet a particular brand never to be profaned by other uses the source kept secret perhaps i would also keep a row of file cabinets in a sealed garage having exiled the old buick a battery of drawers which i am not going to tag farmington centerville or guernsey a simple code would do just as well one can never be too careful even though the key is well hidden and the one from the map room too some extra copies of the clippings i would perhaps paste on cardboard sheets in a meaningful design even at work while filing the claims i will knowingly look at the sky now and then and when they finally pull a plug on me in the local infirmary there will be no time left for the lifelong confidence to expire before me if only i could steal some certainty from that extra existence elsewhere powerless to solve the mysteries accosting the brain at every step with nothing to pin with this place on the map slowly sliding away from under me the destination i you arrive in a town where you will spend the remainder of your life the lawns are browned by frostbites and leaves on sycamores shrivel the view from the church parking-lot presents a hydrangea hedge still in bloom and teeming with chipmunks the soundtrack hijacked by blue jays the stained glass of the lancet windows shimmers with a hymn intoned by the throng inside the sky they beseech is watery and low and the lake is within a stone throw from wherever ii you have picked it at random simply by counting seven exits from the last stop unwilling to tell one hicksville from another you were looking for a place to lay down your burden and this one happens to have a red courthouse tower seen from afar with a clock whose frozen hands almost touch midnight without specifying a day or a year must be the late seventies judging by a decaying steel mill the very fish skeleton of the existence as such iii speaking of which remember hitting a fishmarket some sixty miles ago where in front of your eyes the deft piscator gilling a black bass produced a brass ring from within the creature's bowels never having thrown it in the lake you could not have been the addressee or perhaps the fisherman was a classics dropout armed with an aged joke he may be using it as a shibboleth to sort out the locals from the commuters with a harvard diploma to better avail himself of their monetary situation iv come to think of it none of those locals seem to be in a hurry to greet the new settler except for the presumed jarrers of the stained glass the locals are paramount to the entire scenario you will secretly award each one with a name of somebody once loved or simply met elsewhere it has been seven exits but the true one is now found as to the doctor the matter can wait one will turn up eventually but the verdict is immutable still the life was a burst of joy v here under the unresponsive sky on their soil saturated with rust you will settle in a rented hovel with a porch facing the lake not necessarily placid it owes you nothing like the sky let it be simply a space of water and the clock on the tower at the edge of time will mutely chime while the natives shuttle to and fro their secret names unknown to them smiling you will sit on the porch with a dead laptop and type blindly lifewasaburstofjoylifewas |
| © Copyright Alexei Tsvetkov |
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