From Jersey City (Dub Version)
The island of.
“The island of Manhattan, will be lost, to the rest of. continent by the. leanest system of subaqueous. tunnels in the mind. the methodology of travel. will be revolution, for then the ferryboat will cease. to be the only means of discussion. between New York and Jersey City. the implications of this to Jersey City. can hardly be held in hype. for the linking of Jersey City. to the metropolis. of the Eastern establishment. by means of river tunnel. will practically make this. Jersey City a part. of the big city across. even the most pessimistic will be at a loss. to figure the advantage. this will impose on Jersey City. what its result will be upon reality. can be ascertained by what already. measured has taken place. for none unfamiliar with the real conditions. here will esteem the steady fall. in values during the past century. due to tunnels . . . Jersey City, backdoor. to the West enter the real arena. . . . is it wonder. that land in Jersey City. demands opening. of the McAdoo tunnels under the Hudson. will bring to this thousands. of homeless and. of corporations perfect municipality, the aura of despair, that has been rising, with every cycle, of time?”
Tu No Le Recuerdas
Is it you? Is it you?
-Nicholas Mosley
Atocha, together: wearing the gaze of a spectator who has just seen: nights, swifts crisscrossing the square where the white-thighed woman, moaning: athletically, palms upturned: altogether now, as presence itself, with both eyes, one motion: and offered these words—am from, my little, because of— six tiny English flags before a bracing Spanish wind: headlights, battering the bedroom wall like track marks: in Catalan: yet our language has a different way of demonstrating, presence: a third: but would you like to?: as a gift, petite, weighing no more than a rabbit’s foot and silken to the throat: manifests, itself: yes that, token: later stroked me on my windbreaker sleeve as we sat, studying the television: like this, a show horse: so how much did that cost?: because he was willing to pay for what they valued, from Massachusetts and so forth, a state just north of: essence itself, taken, by numbers: afterwards, pale haze rode the restaurant tables past where the Africans: in theory, a deferral: and that one? the other: tires, India ink, the declaration rudely stamped on your passport: was from the older sector of this city, near the port and graffitied seawall: forgotten, my little, nothings: another, on the far side of the bar, were drinking inexpensive sherry, nattering on about: smoking? yes, deeper, please, until he’d torn it: still, apart: in the pension’s lobby, two Iranian businessmen, hirsute, calved like cannons, paced, ogled, anticipated: the next one, marked with a blue stain, or birth-mark, in Catalan: when later he struck my forearm as we lay, ignoring the television: I was willing: bound, not spent: past that, because of what’s left, yet another from the provinces and his brother, hungrier, extending his filthy penis, whispering: receive this, ready or: whatsoever you do not remember, beneath the shadowed light, dawn, whatever burns within it: released, not paid for, the sullen end of: bent, over the edge of the bed I stumbled and slid, my fingers groping between the: sound itself, open window, from which the narrow street descending was completely: shattered, absence: what the guidebook implied: and all that you are leaving: rambles, my little forgetting, improvisation, nothing: lost, took notes, decided to return in a few years when: the figure itself, in two parts, one motion: listen, traces: mouth open, palms upturned, professed these words: hurry now, the train, pregnant with fugitives, is departing:
Double Agents
His name was: STRIKE
My name was: SANCTION
His name was: RAVEL
My name was: SANGUINE
His name was: TEMPER
My name was: CLIP
His name was: QUANTUM
My name was: TRIM
His name was: MODEL
My name was: NOTE
His name was: PEER
My name was: PUZZLE
His name was: CLEAVE
My name was: DUST
His name is: CUSTOM
My name is: AUGHT
Originally published in the Fall/Winter 2001 issue of Fence, as part of The Black Took Collective’s Call for Dissonance.
