#116

In the overcast, the stranger sits with a dog. Rough slat of the bench against his back. And his eyes, in pages, patient. Day three: Mittwoch, miercuri, Woensdag. But four: a man ha. Thursday. The evening after.

Name her Meredith, Anne, Elaine. She is thin and small and swollen. Sreda'. The ground on which she stands. Inkpot eyes. And laughter at the bar. Push friends, have her dance! Drink tickets in the MC's hands: "No use, but shake it mamma!" Yeah. Mutter on her motor, largesse. Point, Square, point: on the Border. And Stephen: the smoke, is it dangerous?

MAE and Febo's simple studio. Her books. His winks of acrylic on canvas. Laid off, on fire. Insured. Ejected from the libraria. And MAE soon after left him. Singled out in my story-teller's vision. Late, much late, her flames. Her plans. Febo, by his parents Greek, after the sun he said. And the charioteer's child? Spruce and Thirteenth Streets, I remember. It was sunset, evening, dark

#115

Night music. Post-prandial. S1 and S2 in his Kahn Park apartment. Shelves of vertical discs, one disc horizontal and spinning. To Stephen, Square passes the Virid, and Stephen: "Can't light it myself." Subwoofer. Cacophany. Drift. In the exhale, Sqaure says, "Cherche une femme. A bloody soddin' femme." Stephen weezes, "No, he's Catholic." A mystic, maybe (cf. Steiner's book, violet cover). Aesthete, at least - no, ascete. See him still with his cross and medal, his patchwork jeans. A cowered exclamation point swallowed by the city's dark. And Square goes on. "The prophet, the priest, the brother." The name...his name... The record. Vinyl scrying pool. Enochian. (Stephen speaks). "What was that?" asks Square. "Enochian." "Enochian? From where does it hail?" A pause. A strike of the lighter. Burn. "Up." S2 cocks, un-cocks an eye. "Up your arse, you mean Stephen. Ha."

And at 4:00, in the black of the park, Stephen sees on a sleeping form a cross. Glint. Flame in the lamplight. And S1, his voice feeble and raw, "Hey...you! Hey...uh...you!" But the name escapes him. "Hey -" prophet, hey priest, hey father, hey brother. "Hey you!" And, flash, the figure is up. Obscured, cloaked in darkness. Two eyes, a cross. Then gone - gone, in a dash, and Stephen after. Cough, a gasp, cramp. Against a lightpost, he leans. No image. Night horizon. Decrescendo and reboant. Moving north along 10th Street: the sound of two feet slapping against the sidewalk in quick succession.

#114

What touches, touches a hole. What doubles back, intangible. Blake, framed, with photo-stubble. The old self-precatory portraits. The eye's anadiplosis. *Click.* And *click* again. Tongue-tied in what's seen. Collogue and colloquy. The colophon's a number: #115, letters a and b and c. The corresponding album - shelve it. Niduses.

And then, in the afternoon, it rains. Bryan and I are wet in it, a towell shared between. Homos sapient. The plan. What is there / sides hands and roads / and Diotima's ladders? Day 3: The Mysterious Day of Love. Where stephen's flat, derided. Be he truculent or carnal. Auto-ambulating. The v'water needs to wander. Under bridges, out of bounds. Sarah says, day 7, I'm leaving. She has flowers in her hair. And tonight? New moon, I hail thee. Show me how many moons it will be.

#113

Un ouef. Not one, but twain. Two yellow suns. An ouvre. Add and twinge. Mangiare. I am, imagine, Stephen. One-for-two, or one. The bibliopeilon's doubled mirror, two hands on flesh, and s'exclament, "Suffice!" Auto-felictous onomastics. Myth of la nourishing mano.

Which means that I do it myself. No fund for our aural economies. "We grant you know, gratis." That means, I think Stephen, degage. And "apply, apply, apply" them, sons, and they will praise our use of statistics. The weighted shoulder, we self-ephebes. A napsack or two in green.

And on the street, it's Valerie. It's John and Scott, it's morning. Blue shoes, blue shorts, blue sky and rain. The grass. The lure of Aristophanes. Adhere. And there. Return thus in a twinkling. A leather bag, bookladen, hides on me what throbs. And dinner, mind you. Apres-midi. Now's not the time for celerity.

#112

Rain on a paved road. Nocturne. Yeux. Labial consonant, supine vowel. And tiens! Your name spells itself like evening. Wherefore darkness bends toward dark. Questions report and recant. "Value happens to you, Greg." And to you too, mon dear. The proof of head-phones, eloquence. A Roman scholar, business tied and jacket. Tout le monde for you, alone.

Or in the light: St. Thomas Aquinas. Let us read him. Prima pars. Le parc. The soniferous screes of birds. In feet, in famine. The motive case defined. Corinthians 3:1-2. And a field of turbans variopinti. Sein. The early rise, the inkling. The chattering box goes lax. Holy holy hands on free. Diaboli virtus in lumbis est. Light allumes obscurity. And we will come before we parse.

#111

And if I were a priest? I hear Les singing, see John who glowers in folds of white. Red glass and candles. Reading. For sense. My summer vocation. A pupil of the book. Quotes Jeehyun, from Hardy: I am "Out of the frying pan, and into the fire." Gratis. Then be collared by the sun. Word made flesh. My skin and bones: pudentia. Le saucisson. Denuded, contretemps. Recreant. Regardless.

And the boys? La viande. They all add up. A litany. Father's tunic, habit. Pere's elan in toto. Be blessed, "You're in all." Not literal like the bed. But tutelage, if they'll hair. Them youth, then habitue. Lissome. In their cups, the boisterous vermicular. Till each will grow up and be fatter. Oh rex is gonne, the son of. Sooth. But Stephen eats his celery.

#110

I am grim today in afternoon. In megrims for the nonce. There is sun, and there is breeze, and my privilege scarpers with the hours. Laches. Leaches. The Schuylkill along Kelly Drive. Approximately water. And the patchwork of towells, consensus of toffs, shirtless grammar on the green. I am chastised in my withdrawal. A coy and haughty hugger-mugger.

Without a prick, what have you? Immured. The lax from moved to moued. Thin and gaum and strung in galluses. A breviary. Erogatory. What is a lithe and wind-tanned body for? The hook of urban elbows, dowdy corners strewn with credit. Philthy, Sean has named it. And where then is Philiapolis?