Maria telling me that in the convergence of the lifeless and relentless many passions would. My friend Maria participated in at least one of the summer eclipses. The tongue dreams my friend Maria alluded to. The song my friend Maria ended up writing near the closing credits. My friend Maria said no not right now maybe in the fall because of. My friend Maria said head games come in all sorts of, all kinds of. My friend Maria in the black spot of an eclipse. In the blank second of an opposing hour. In the invisible corner of an otherwise rain. The hirsute and unnerving summer my friend Maria had heard rumors of. The summer rain in which my friend Maria will have left her softer sneakers.
One Summer Continuous Hot and Glaring #3
We would drink and argue and smoke up and argue and argue and smoke up and orange thoughts with lemon smears would occur concurrently and crimson weather with feathered edges and the redder angels without noise and once she made pork chops in a gigantic heavy and weathered pan and once around 3:43 am and once I heard You aren’t even in the running said possibly outside the window possibly on TV and once made a stir-fry and drank icy mint juleps and we would smoke up and argue but we didn’t employ overly personal or demeaning or stereotypical or cheaply advantageous insults and the redder angels without their conventional fur and the redder weather without noise and drink and smoke up and watch feverish television roiling with its fevered noise and a few wonderful and feverish films and while pork chops browned and while chicken sizzled and while drinks were poured and while ice melted and dripped down our legs and concurrently the orange and redder thoughts and argue and argue and the terrible hours and the fevered hours and the reddest expanse of the noisy angels during the more lemony hours and the chicken on the chopping board and several pieces and the ground meat she sizzled in the gigantic heavy pan and pink to gray and gray to brown and around 3:43 am and argue and argue and naked and overly personal.
One Summer Continuous Hot and Glaring #4
There were these nights that summer. Then further nights. And the forgotten nights. A few miles outside Memphis. The nights I’ve attempted to forget. The nights that felt as if they’d already forgotten me even as I walked through them. The humid stark nights and the nights that emptied out into larger and more terrifying nights like thoughts flowing toward later and more terrifying thoughts. And something else entirely, always something else. I crashed at her place more then a few times and her at mine too. A few minutes outside the city. Our longest talks on those nights with us in bed and the ceiling. Our most private moments with us in the kitchen and the windows. Our most careful moments with us swimming and the radio. She taking a course on ancient China that summer, and me asking about their empires, where they went to or what remained of them in the books she read, the tests she took.
One Summer Continuous Hot and Glaring #5
But was any finalizing outcome forthcoming? One morning in August we went to this neighbor’s pool and they were in some European town or another and took off everything but our underwear and listened to their radio and made mojitos from their supplies. But was any finalizing outcome forthcoming? I listened mostly to old music, Ray Charles, some of Dylan’s super early shit, a few scratchy blues records, the singers’ voices like water dripping from leaves after the rain has already passed, and also scary Russian music, glacial Russian music, the harsher more radiant side of Shostakovich, eerie Russian symphonies like angelic flickers in the dark summer sky. But was any finalizing outcome forthcoming? There was an old man at the café, a homeless man, his shirt and hair were filthy, he used to come in once a week, and I’d see him open little plastic packets of ketchup he’d gotten from some McDonald’s or Burger King, and he’d eat the ketchup on the café patio, his hands trembling, his beard stained red. But was any finalizing outcome forthcoming? That summer, I got a tattoo. I took a road trip to New Orleans and got this Asian dragon tattoo. That summer, I watched a film about a night that never ended and I read about a book about a sun that never set, but only hovered near the edge of the horizon at midnight, waiting to return. But was any finalizing outcome forthcoming? The gloves with gnawed fingers on the café table, an early Bob Dylan song playing in the back, possibly the kitchen. But was any finalizing outcome forthcoming? The midnight sun at the edge. The man with shaking hands opening small red packets. The hands raising each packet to his lips. The moon never setting. The café never closing.
One Summer Continuous Hot and Glaring #6
I asked her what did she like better, Confucian thought or Taoist thought. I asked her when did they start to build the Great Wall of China. I asked her when did they complete the Great Wall of China. I asked her what would a Chinese farm have looked like a thousand years ago. I asked her what would a Chinese palace have looked like two thousand years ago. And sometimes she was on the phone with me. And sometimes she was in the room next to the one I sat in, dyeing her hair. And mostly it was Taoist thought, though once or twice it was Confucian.
~ ~ ~
Q #1:
Where was Petra von Kant born?
Q #2:
What was her first homosexual encounter?
Q #3:
What was her first heterosexual encounter?
Q #4:
What was her favorite Jean Genet novel?
Q #5:
What was her favorite line from a Douglas Sirk Film?
Q #6:
How did she die?
Q #7:
What was found on her body at the time of death?
Q #8:
What was found in her body at the time of death?
Certain Intermittent Effects
She started writing one day and she started writing one hour and she started writing one night. Her hand in an empty house. Or rather a house empty except for carpets and furniture and a few stray dishes. This was the fourth day of June, 2002. What is writing? It might be a red thought followed by a series of intermittent violet effects. Or a lemon smear in a circle of quivering red sensations. Or an isle of desire in a turbulent lake of nausea. She began writing her dreams, especially the ones with gaunt cheeks and extravagant hair. She started writing down her dimmer memories, especially those that took place in hotels with dirty carpets that lingered too long by the highway. The fall she spent in Baltimore, the night she lost her shoes in Tucson. She could ask her boyfriend about his first sexual experiences and when he was at work she could write those experiences down in great detail. She could write down her own first sexual experiences. She could write down what she wished her first sexual experiences had actually been instead of what they actually were. This was the seventh day of May, 2008. What is writing? A soft noise followed by a softer noise. A red light intrigued by a redder light. She could write the same word over and over again, a random word picked from the dictionary. She could copy scenes from famous novels but add her own name for certain words, such as “rain” or “thunderous.” She could find her copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh and write out the dream dreamt by Gilgamesh’s spiritual brother Enkidu, the one involving the dark house of death where the dwellers eat clay, and she could extend the scene, making the house larger and larger until it took in entire nations, entire empires. What is writing? A red smear in an empty house, an isle covered with bird shit.