E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 176



The oddoddman in     oddity depends     on
A pension     salary deduction
                        Minting of Pennsylvanian pennies

The odd man depends     for birth cries     the
Birth of a nation     on cinematographers     who
Photograph geometry as geography     depends
On a standard and echo foundation

Oddity odd without pity     needs myth of  city     de-

Territorialization     tergiversates     ends in ecesis

Urban tin hat ecologue     Eburation
Ivory lipstick
Slapstick




E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 177



Verisimilitude verity     ready to wear imagery     cherished

By those who keep their noses to the grindstones     by

Voyeurs after Jamacican slot machine voyages     by  Bavarian
Paperhangers     vox populi
Gamblersin casinos who wage in the manner of  Pascal

Image iconic not ironic     a copy or effigy     simulacrum
Or twinphantom  or mirror     non-representative
Or mimesis
Imitation of an action or
Imitation of no action

            In the beginning was     a bird
Signifier or word    fantasy    belief     lie     could be
A
Black winged red bug whose red head slants
As
If
An anteater

The origin of the image

C-
ould be an unkempt unkind universal     an
Unlivable
Unknown pretext     or

Rainbow highlights scattered on purple and blue

            The actual unknown
Becomes a known     a known multiintreptable  an
Actual unknown     becomes a known linguistic unknown
We    then    have a poem

Love becomes a cobalt feather on a cardboard lip





E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 178


Love  is

Bars over a lower floor Venetian window

Bars

Slime greened by canal water
Turned golden by gondoliers who are tenors

Or a five act play about an
Infanta

One must train     be socially constituted
To give significance to    peacock spots     on
Angel's  wings
No training needed to taste vodka

The image replaces the event

Seeing
An angel drinking vodka
Can be alinguistic perception of
A younglong  blackhaired barefooted girl
Herding
Pink young pigs
In Italy

Or legerdemain




E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 179


            Adjustment
To the improvisations'     emanations     emancipation
Unstablizations

That arrived when     the standard was wanted and expected
The aria's

Grace notes     balsam     beech     boxwood

No longer among conceptions     but among trees

In a forest     In a forest
The past with its green hair    absinthe

Would locate us
In a forest
In a forest of symbols

But we you and I    are
In a forest    of semiotics
Balsambeech     boxwood

Linguistic realities are our trees




E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ 180


Caliope
Silent Caliope's gold enamel ivory eyes
Closed

            Silent chryselephantine

The chopin shaped hands     of a pale moon  ca-
Ressed

            Caliope's legs and twilight haloed spokes

Only sounds heard     cantatas of gargoyles
Stone oratories      of stained stone saints     we

            Clung
Clung as if what we clung to     had existence

We clung

To

Our predecessors     the fictions      of our identities

Our hermeneutics     a fiction    of

A fiction

            We knew    the fictions     our supposed identities
Would
Separate

Us

We did not     talk     about
The improvised      the surmised       fictions
We believed to be our identities

We talked     stalked      balked      about
Beckett's writing
Rothko's paintings


We never attempted
    the experiment
Of understanding ourselves     


Understanding our relationship     we refused
Refused
In Brussels


We
Will
Separate