two very long poems

partypartyparty

I'd put my head up if I thought,

If I thought, if I thought, if I thought,

If I thought it would make any difference.

What chance of that, some chance, half a chance,

Any sort of chance, the possibility...

Fat chance.

Because I'm over here and they're over there,

Where what they do has every single and multiple,

I've stopped counting,

Counting

Affect on me.

On me. On me.

On me. On me.

Me. Me.

Me.

But nothing I do has even the slightest,

Not a smidgin,

Not a tinkle,

Not a wink,

Never ever even nudges,

Nudges along, shifts by anything,

A degree,

A shade,

A shiver,

None of it,

None of it,

None, on them,

And they,

They just go on,

On,

And do whatever it is they choose and I had nothing in,

Except except except

I am the affected, and all the others like me.

Of which there must be some,

Because...

We cannot meet each other's eyes

In every crowded room wherever and whatever it is;

We could be alone together in the Nullarbor,

No trees,

Nothing but you and me,

And somehow,

It's been bred into us,

We would not,

No matter the extent or the matter of our extremity,

We would not could not would not could not

Would not could not would not could not

Meet each other's eyes,

There with nothing at all between us,

Except out mutual,

Individual, situation.

Even it is not singular,

Because we are in it together,

It is shared,

It is not unique,

Ununique,

And yet can we recognise each other in our sameness,

This extremity of intimate,

One might suggest,

Atomically intertwined,

Proximity?

No.

And 'no'.

And 'no'.

And 'no'.

And 'no'.

Because then we would be, immediately,

Adrift as even the Nullarbor and no other cannot make one adrift,

Two even,

Teeming trillions,

Then we would be adrift as Crusoe without Friday to count on,

Living in the seventh day of a six day week

Agreed upon behind our backs without consultation or prior notice,

Suddenly where we were

Always were

Would be and have been,

There.

Got the time on you?

Yes, it is, isn't it?

But there the conversation stops,

Or even if a further million words,

Pleasantries and obscenities,

Ease ease ease, throughout, even after,

There's only what there was before.

Weather.

Whether,

Whether whether

You felt, at all,

In the slightest, or even drowning in,

Momentarily or until expiration, contact.

A mark is left upon your skin,

Skin inviolate marked,

By such a thing,

Which you turn a blind eye or to,

Or why have one,

Or two?

There'd be no point would there,

Except that mark may not be

The dusty irremovable slime of another's skin that touched upon,

Your mark might be

The worse/better better/worse worse/better

Better/worse worse/better better/worse?

Of weaponry penetration, something sharp,

Ichor drawing,

Blood shifting out of its soft shell of you,

Perhaps, if enough,

All over the soft shell of you,

Or if not,

Making you palomino.

Are we that,

Are you an old pal of mine,

Because the way we are talking it's as if we have before,

But I cannot place the face.

That's easily done these days,

The plastic surgeons' bright inflexible knives

And laser more malleable than butter or flesh,

Heated to flow,

Making such changes as are wished for,

Until the unseen becomes so

And the liver within must decide if this is

What he/she she/he really meant,

Or had in mind,

Or saw in a photograph of someone else

So happy in their flesh they'd never change it,

And perhaps,

If such thoughts cross such beauties' minds,

Be appalled,

If such beauties' minds have depths to encompass appallment,

Have been appalled, disgusted,

Less than secretly,

Overtly overtly clearly so,

Flattered

That someone, anyone else could want to be their manque,

Until, I suggest, they might meet,

And then no mirror might prepare them for

The shock of recognition that is not that at all,

But recall recall recall and flight,

To the nowhere Nullarbor there

Even if you haven't moved a millimetre

Or by the slightest muscular shiver suggested you might.

Oh,

Mirror, mirror,

Taken down from the wall,

Made flesh and horrible in its perfection,

Shatter shatter shatter before I must,

Because there cannot be two,

Not a two of us,

Or more,

The copies more perfect made so by

The third party's perfecting skills at flexing steel

And focusing malleable laser light to intractable carvery.

Is it because I have backed you into a corner

That you are still listening to me,

Because, I must confess you are creeping,

I might say sprinting for the tape,

The record-holder's tape for having heard me out.

More and you will need must need must need to follow me in,

To canapes and more of our host's bulk-buy wine,

(At least he eschewed casks)

But even so,

This liquor loosens neither brain nor tongue,

Though from yon distant queue,

It brings, and constantly so,

Many a bladder undone.

Though,

Is it still done to eat and then

Search for tongue's root with manicured finger,

A temporary tonsillectomy that makes the gorge rise

And half-digested canapes with it,

Giving as it would,

And does,

I've long since avoided them,

Toilets at parties the scent not of honest shit and piss mis-aimed,

But expensive food not Eritrea bound,

Too far for that,

Consumed here on a short-lease plan,

And returned,

Circuitously to Einstein's conundrous reality,

Atom to atom, quark to quark,

Not a spark more or less at end than beginning,

Allowing of course,

For the make-up of the deity that deigned,

Then,

Now and forever,

To create us.

Like this.

Look, that queue stretches,

Becoming less defined as it goes,

Some sort of social diffidence,

I suppose,

But it stretches half across the room,

And if we we we are not careful,

Like a snaking tendrilous thing it will sweep us up into it,

And we will appear,

To that mythical objective observer,

To be part of its make-up,

And not just creation in general.

Step this way,

A little, to avoid that fate.

It can't be accidental,

I must consult a linguist,

Or is it only an English phenomenon (though that is Greek,

Not all to me, nor you I see),

That fate and faith should have

Almost exactly the same sound in mouth and ear

But for what concludes 'mouth',

Though not 'ear',

Upon the page that is,

Not in your,

Or mine,

Or your,

I reiterate,

Mouth nor ear,

Depending upon who here is inter- and the other,

For the breath of the utterance,

Non- interlocutor.

Is that Latin,

Or is Greek your thing?

Flush not,

There's enough going on of that at the unseen head,

Apexical in pyramid form upon the throne,

Of distant queue,

Behind the closed door to a room

Still the smallest in most of our homes,

Leaving out the linen cupboard,

Though some of those in some places one can walk into,

I'm told.

With such a linen cupboard one never would,

Of course.

Of course.

Such linen cupboards speak either of obsession

Or the more likely hypothesis of wealth.

Which is where we were when when when?

When I started,

And we were not yet in this tight corner it appears,

Against my particular intent, you have backed yourself into,

And me,

Drawn in after you,

To stay heard above the din,

I've followed you,

For no reason other than that,

Been drawn in by you to be heard by you,

And myself too,

Over this din,

Through it,

No way around it,

To hear myself,

If not think,

At least,

Speak,

In this,

Our conversation.

What a thing speech is? Or is it all things?

The deaf would demur,

I suspect,

The dumb too,

That speech is the sole wonder of our world,

Holding all in by definitions,

Grammar,

Expositions,

Understanding.

They'd say (see again, though you can not actually 'see' it,

How language holds us,

For what would the dumb truly say - nothing,

But mumbles,

Shambling mumblings,

A shamble of mumbles)

That their view and cognisance and sharing and exposition and exploration of the world and all its many more than seven though a case can be made pointing portmanteau-like to any arbitrary number,

Wonders wonders wonders,

Is different but no less embracing and whole,

Whole,

Than the enlanguaged.

Us,

Though you've been silent long enough for me

To rather specifically wonder,

Are you of them,

The deaf, the dumb,

Or are you merely struck so as can happen to any of us,

Just momentarily,

Removed?

Did you want to go to the loo, perhaps,

And that daunting queue

Has caused all your internal organs to constrict

Around your bladder,

Tight tight so it might not leak,

And you fear even opening your mouth,

Your ears even,

Might cause a flow to go,

And this corner then would,

The evening thereafter,

Perhaps days after,

Be shunned,

For its inconvenient scent,

All too redolent of public conveniences

Best left shunned except for the most urgent of private ends?

Just nod your head, or shake it.

No,

Best not,

Same affect possible I'd guess

From the strain visible upon your lips

And granite-taut cheeks that dare not wobble.

I wish I could help,

A catheter would do,

A bedpan in a pinch,

Perhaps a champagne flute,

Though all those are questions of your own,

Delicacy,

In situations such as this,

That are not,

You might be surprised to hear,

All that familiar to me.

God,

If they were, I'd wonder what curse was upon me,

Let alone you,

Poor darling.

I came here alone,

And by now, I conclude,

You did, too,

Because no-one has come to rescue you,

Spirit you out of this tight corner,

Unless,

Of course,

Unless unless

Of course of course,

You know the soul behind that closed door

Holding an entire queue enthralled by its blank closedness.

The former, the latter,

Is that the cat, the specific puss,

That's got your tongue,

Or is it too much smoke,

Filthy habitualisers who do,

That's made you refuse to open your mouth to it

To me to any generality?

I shouldn't have started this.

I regret it even sooner rather than later,

The attempt at intercourse,

Any kind,

All kinds,

The reach,

The move,

The shifting towards another.

It's, I can see you understand,

Implicitly have grasped what I'm saying,

Have been all this time and time and creeping clenching time,

That now's as good as any,

Clenching releasing,

Releasing clenching,

To part as friends do and have done forever and just now,

Gone gone gone and "did anyone catch his name,

That fascinating fellow? What did he say he was off to do?",

Next week,

Or was it last month,

The task ahead, or the task done,

Map the Nullarbor,

Tree by tree,

Scant distance by immensity,

And place by place by place by where they never were,

But yet?

© Michael McGennan, 1 May, 1999

against the day

that day when the end of the day is the end of all days,

and day's end is not dusk at all but dawn,

when none of the promises come home to roost,

exposing the promisers as charlatans, cheats,

long-tailoring beliefs for the day that's ended all days

but done it in not quite the way they had in mind,

or anywhere else,

though they never stopped telling nor tithing,

triply tithing,

towards it.

What profits then,

when prophecy proves unproven,

and the evidence is there and all about that it is so,

and not so,

right in the immediacy of the blink of an eye,

a steely eye now weepy (will it rust,

or is such prophecy stainless

as assorted virgins and avatars have been said to be

and proved so by tortuous reasoning that unhinges at its base

if anyone can find it later, so tortuous is its guising?).

But,

back to the eyes,

steely and weepy then,

the immediate proof of now to come then,

and never thereafter because then will be the end of all after

as well as everything else,

what will those eyes see in seeing that it is not so,

palpably so not so,

as their own individuated prophet said it would - not might,

no possibility allowed,

all certainty - but is proving not

before their very eyes,

what then in the final inescapable now of no hereafters?

Socratic the dialogue,

or jejune,

to discuss such or anythings as all comes to end,

this new beginning,

dusk become dawn with no intermediary night,

no darkness,

neither grey nor pitch,

what worth words then in the surrounding crush of event,

ending event,

beginning event,

what use a word in this beginning,

any word,

logos or obscenity at the conclusion that unroots all certainty,

confirms it in the same instant,

that at the end there is the end,

even if the beginning is as clear in it

as the day that has concluded without night,

there's no finding night upon the running to a finish of this day,

this day that has,

at the point when it should,

if it were a well-behaved day,

fitting in to all that had ever been known or considered about days,

become something else altogether,

Armageddon or night,

not with whimper nor bang,

more with less,

an event eventless eventually arriving

in the instant of it being missed and not noticed having slipped away,

a commonstance as if every day in Creation

had been quite the same as this,

but none quite so validating and rug-pulling for the believers,

the un-so,

and the rest of us waiting on the day

before putting our markers down

when it was clear which may the wind was blowing,

well,

here it is,

and there's no wind,

not so much as a zephyr,

and our markers are useless

in hands alternately tightening and hanging slack,

so that so many markers have fallen to the ground

the unscrupulous collectors amongst us could gather them up,

claim new identity,

or merely corner the market in markers against the day.

For that is the only certainty about the great day coming,

all believe,

even the unexamined and those who have not,

they believed,

examined the idea themselves,

all of us have known that the great day was coming,

and expected it,

gloried in it,

and depending upon the special claims made for it,

wished to be there when it did,

or perhaps ideally already in the grave

where such things as Hellfire might not lick,

nor Gabriel's horn's notes penetrate.

But the true believers,

wherever they end their individual days,

they,

of course believe, it is a tenet,

the religious are always playing tenets,

netted and faulting,

that they will be there on the day in question,

though they never do - question its coming.

If it does not where does that leave the believers?

Amongst the unbelievers which is the believer's most gutting fear,

that the belief the faith the commitment

the sacrifice the loss the forgoing might

all have been to nothing,

worth no more in virtue's weight than

the drunkard the whore the philanderer

the careless the casual the actively sinful,

all of them,

their sins cumulative,

in making the day that ends all the days

be the day of ratification,

the day of congratulation

at having backed the right hoarse-voiced prophet,

imprecating imprecating imprecating

and then caught with the choir boy or the easy girl

or the questionable individual,

those prophets,

implicated in their own gloss,

which is the need to have sinned to apprehend

most clearly the path to righteousness,

'aid me Samaritan,

do you have a sister?',

because, we must fall as far as any has fallen

to rise further than any has before,

any except of course,

the one that is greater than all of us,

or the two or the three or the 144 thousand,

however many it is the religiouses elect to be among the elect,

elected,

unsuspected,

rising rising rising higher than clouds,

further than stratosphere,

stretched out beyond the stars,

unseeable,

but not so far it cannot be seen by those with eyes to see,

eyelids closed,

who can guess,

the believers all in their separate camps unbridged

even by the night that does not fall

on the day that does not end but is the end,

and then,

even then,

epitome of nows,

not thens,

the camps will remain as they do,

believers and believers, unbelievers bivouacked beside.

Divided.

Who are the followers,

these discrete camps separated by not much more than a breath,

teeth-skin,

or a million miles walked around the planet's perimeter

if it had such a thing,

sphere's having neither edge nor boundary for us upon them,

who's a follower then when all is arrival,

all departure,

and there is no place to go with all places become

nowhere in particular and everywhere in general,

who'll follow then,

which prophet's voice might hope to cut through

the distance that's untravellable,

immeasurable - why,

all of us,

brother,

sister,

victim and oppressor,

all of us,

as always,

desperate and demanding.

So take those cards,

them held so tight against your chest,

that heaving chest,

that thudding chest

as your heart does the work it's a lifetime accustomed to

but nothing could have prepared it for this task,

transition,

take those cards and lay them where they always should have been,

except you never wanted anyone else to have that much on you,

any idea of your own next move,

intended or merely indicated by how they might fall,

those cards held so firmly that they never would

until such time as the aforementioned organ ceased,

and you yourself gave up your animating ghost,

gave it up but always expecting to have it back,

at least the animation when the great day came,

that much,

and scrubbed clean and in the peak of youthfulness with it,

take them,

are they shaking in your hands,

they are,

aren't they,

take them,

the currency they had is useless now,

it always was,

take those cards,

yours,

yes yes they remain yours,

and place them on the table.

Face up.

What's to be seen there,

what's to be read,

what future scanned,

this day of all futures redundant except the one that is none,

the day without end,

the conclusion without ceasing,

the end beginning,

what guarantees are there for you or for any of the cardholders,

good all over the planet,

and the universe too,

wherever credit holds for being a consistent payer and a solid risk,

what's written on the cards then

more than too many numbers and an expiry date

that looks like a very sick joke

to anyone who's focusing on such things right now,

this great collection day,

when all credit's become what credit always was,

the staving-off-by-invitation of debt,

staving and inviting over and over

in a dance of death cycle lit by the glowing promises

of futures without expiry dates,

when anyone could have told you,

prophet or physicist,

there's no such thing as such a time when things are not,

only a then of compressed nows already transforming into was,

is and will be in a soup of simultaneity?

Surely you learnt that at your mother's knee,

had it confirmed in the interiors of lovers,

wherever they welcomed you to darkness,

and never forgot to throw it into conversations

leaning on the bar in public places

or shouting it from the driver's window at some lout

driving past you on a freeway or a tight country back-road,

gravel and grease,

spray and exhaust fumes in your face?

You knew it then,

how could you have forgotten it now?

You know you haven't,

that's it,

isn't it,

you have the full kitbag of knowledge

that this was always going to be,

the is that is right now,

this is,

this instant,

this stuffed-full immediacy of inescapable nowness,

this day of ends without end?

How will you use it then,

how will you draw upon your well of the known to enter this unknown,

how will you?

With covert look at your cards,

or another's?

With ritualised calling upon shared private myths

that only now when they are most needed seem

to shatter most into ineffectiveness?

With withdrawal into a private space teeming with others,

all avoiding each other's eyes

for fear of meeting them and falling upon each other

in a cannibalism of inconsequence?

None of that,

none of it:

you are bigger than that,

big as the day itself,

that you've been planning for as assiduously as Napoleon on Moscow,

and Hitler ditto,

but third time lucky,

eh?

That's your thinking,

isn't it?

Think again,

for what it's worth,

think again and ditch thinking,

there's no absolution here,

in thinking.

Thinking's done,

it's another thing now that'll get you through

- if anything at all will,

it's not thinking.

Moscow's best seen in brochures.

You'll be forgiven for believing,

that's the hardwire,

the bit put in whatever the snaky serpent might try,

because he/she/it too relies on the wire,

the hardwire that belief is whatever it might be

because belief has to be or there's no going on,

there's no pushing forward,

there's no throwing in the towel either

when everyone knows the towel is always retrieved

because that's the nature of humanity,

in the individual or not,

we believe because we have to,

there's no escaping it,

there's no snaky blandishment equal to it,

it's undoing anyway.

Belief's not a want,

not a desire,

not a sideline,

not an option,

it's there because it's there,

and we clamber up it

with whatever aids to the venture we take on as necessary,

even those we refuse to accept as being too easy,

too cosseting,

too trial sidestepping,

whatever is our own nature,

but the clamber must occur,

clumsy or smooth as each clamberer might be,

because it's there,

the absolute unevadability of belief,

we clamber to its best vantage point to take it in,

or like a mountaineer at Everest's peak,

have all the world beneath us,

and not have to see any of it simply

by raising our eyes,

the entirety of the Earth's mundanity

reduced by mighty elevation to the area of our soles.

So you'll be forgiven for believing because you have no choice in it.

But is that enough,

is it,

for we who must if we are anything at all,

inheritors or mere spectators,

we must have a role,

self-appointed,

or otherwise outside designated,

we must function else we cease,

without apprehension of a role,

we finish,

that's hardwired too.

That's the rub,

that's the unguessed-at wished-for

hidden message of the cards blazoned on their surface,

it's the going on that counts,

it's the moving through that reckons,

it's the being that is the end and start of it all,

conclusive as genesis,

all encompassing as anoesis,

don't think about it,

there's nothing in thought,

the thought of it all alone not worth the thinking -

there's only belief,

benighted as the day without night

that comes as the cards could not fail to show it would,

cards crystal balls feathers chicken bones auguries of every kind,

all wrong,

all right,

there is an end,

an end,

an end,

and in it,

no end at all,

all at end,

ending all,

all ending,

with the end that isn't,

the end that is.

© Michael McGennan, June 1998