drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and now, now we run and we retch, we stagger and we stumble, and we begin to fall, to fall and to fall –
Infected, we are falling and falling –
We are falling. We are falling –
We are falling in tears –
In tears, the tears –
We are weeping. We are weeping –
We are weeping all the time –
Always, already weeping,
here. But in the Occupied City, it is twenty minutes past three,
now it is twenty-one minutes past three,
now twenty-two minutes past,
twenty-three minutes –
In the Occupied City, the minutes and the hours, the days and the weeks, the months and the years will pass. But in the Perplexed City, the Posthumous City, between two places, the minutes and the hours, the days and the weeks, the months and the years will not pass.
Here where it is always, already January, but where January is not January; here where it is always, already 1948,
but where 1948 is not 1948;
here where we do not age –
In the Perplexed City, in the Posthumous City,
it will always, already be twenty past three –
But still we watch you age, watch
you age, and watch you forget…
Here, where it is always, already twenty past three –
Here, where it will always, already be grey –
Into the greyness, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling –
I am falling, I am falling –
I am falling –
Falling –
Here, into the Perplexed City, the Posthumous City, this city that is no city, into the grey place, this place that is no place,
we all fall, away from the light,
from the Occupied City,
we all fall, into the earth and into the sky,
we all fall, fall, fall –
From your city, into our coffins …
Twelve cheap wooden coffins –
Your city, our coffin …
Here, here –
In the snow. In the back of a truck. Parked outside the bank. In the sleet. Under the heavy damp tarpaulin. Driven through the streets. In the rain. To the hospital. To the morgue. In the sleet. To the mortuary. To the temple. In the snow. To the crematorium. To the earth and to the sky. In our twelve cheap wooden coffins –
Ash for hair, soil for skin, among the flakes and the sod / We defy the fire and the rake, the spade and the grave / The grave in the earth, the grave in the sky / In the abyss of the sky, in the abyss of the earth / Your earth, your sky. Not our sky, not
our earth / not here, not now /
Now into the heights, we
fall, into the depths …
These twelve cheap wooden coffins, in which we lie. But we do not lie still. In these twelve cheap wooden coffins, we are struggling. In the greyness, we are struggling. In this city, we are struggling. We are struggling and we are weeping, weeping the words:
Where is the law, we ask as we fall, from being into non-being, as we struggle, between one place and no place,
as we weep, where is the law?
In the Ab-grund, in the Un-grund, the without ground, the non-ground / Here, other voices in this other-dom will speak this other-place with other-name –
In this un-place, in this un-city, between two places, in this other-dom / There are no swallows, no swallows fly here / Here, we shuffle across the carpet of their corpses, up and down, their bloated chests, their barren wings / Here, where their still eyes accuse us, yellow / Here, where their empty beaks stand open, yellow –
In this place of no place, we lie. It has a name
and it has none. So speak it,
now speak it: Caesura –
Between us –
In this place – no-place / un-place – this place called Caesura, named Caesura, this place that takes away our breath, this place that leaves us weeping. Always, weeping. Already, weeping –
You are deaf, you are dumb and you are blind,
so you cannot and you will not hear us,
cannot and will not help us,
will you …
In the Perplexed City, the Posthumous City, in Caesura, always, already –
You will not help us, will you, dear writer?
The first candle blown out –
Always, already, out –
In-caesura, in-difference …
Beneath the Black Gate, in its upper chamber, in the occult circle, her white face falling and her red robes flailing,