- Vol. 10
- Chapter 10
[TURN LOVE UPSIDE DOWN]
Turn love upside down,
you don’t get hate, you get
indifference, or shame;
there’s lingering, a sense of
not wanting to remember, and yet
not daring to forget.
Dreams, having missed the train,
are scattered along the platform,
shivering, whispering.
Turn regret on its head,
you don’t get forgiveness,
you get lethargy, pure absence;
there’s a theology somewhere
in the middle, neither shifting
to the right, nor going straight ahead.
Expectation, having moved
out of focus, is role-playing
as a fugitive,
hiding, wintering.
Turn the totem pole on its back,
you don’t get promises, you get
the dispersion of the tongues of Babel,
a diaspora of metallic corpses, of staggered
announcements, of the magic of prose.
There’s reticence behind every sign,
luring from above, menacing from below.
[TURN LOVE UPSIDE DOWN]
Art, having blindfolded the artists,
is declaring independence, riding
on the self-delusion of colours,
dissolving, conjuring.
Turn words sideways,
you don’t get a breathing space,
you get the chance to winnow
the chaff from the grains;
there’s hard work to be done,
labour of love, the burden of living.
Faith, having become secular,
is turning up the heat on history,
not accepting the four-wheel Elysium,
demanding, persevering.
And then there is a moment
where speaking comes to its limits,
and yet beyond the boundary
lies not silence,
but a wordless conversation
that constitutes all things.