“There was nothing there and everything. There were no words of love and no words for love. There were no words. He was in his and she was in hers. And hers was everything when hers was in his. But his was nothing when his was in hers.”
Tag: texts
“Roman Clair” (VII)
“Because he had to do what he had to do, he couldn’t see what he wanted to see, and he couldn’t see what he wanted to see because he had to see what he had to see. But she could see what she wanted to see, when she wasn’t doing what she had to do, and he was seeing what he wanted to see.”
“Roman éClair” (VI)
“He didn’t notice when she came in because he wasn’t there, but when he was he clearly noticed, but pretended not to notice, that she was clearly there. He pretended not notice, so that no one else would notice, that he had clearly noticed that she was clearly there. But she had clearly noticed that he had clearly noticed, and she was clearly there.”
“Graham Cracker Crumbs” (XII)
“A song”
I know you are threadbare and worn
with the weary strike of iron
ringing the notes in your name,
And even the tireless minstrel
is tired of his own insistence
on solitude’s graceless strain.
Yet it had been enough,
and the mournful sounds a song,
Had we but moved without motion
in motion through the dawn.
“Roman éClair” (V)
“Her hand was writing before he was writing, then her hand was writing when he was writing and he was writing what she was writing. And his hand was hers. But hers was not his. Then his hand was writing, and her hand was writing, then hers was not, and his was not.”
“Roman éClair” (II)
“He said what she knew and she knew what he said but she couldn’t say what she knew. They walked thirty steps and said thirty words and counted each word that they stepped. He stopped when she stopped, until he could no longer stop, then he stopped, but didn’t say what he knew because he couldn’t say anything at all.”
“Roman éClair” (I)
What are those? said Alex. They are papers for my English class. Your English class? said Alex. Yes, said Blurtso, the teacher showed us a book called, “Romans éclairs,” by Bernard Teyssèdre. It contains a series of one-paragraph novels. One-paragraph novels? said Alex. Yes, said Blurtso, “roman” means “novel,” and “éclair” means “lightining,” therefore “lightning novel.” Would you like to hear my first one? I’d love to, said Alex.
“She looked at him because he was looking, and he looked back. Then she spoke when he wasn’t speaking, and he spoke back, and they both listened. Time stood still while it passed, and no one saw what they were seeing when he spoke and she spoke and they both listened. And no one heard what they were hearing when they were both hearing.”
“Graham Cracker Crumbs” (VIII)
“I cannot offer”
The hills do not know me
and the waves erase my name,
I cannot offer the gifts of the earth.
I cannot offer the broad mountain and wild rose,
the moody sky and its quarreling clouds.
My hooves are frightened,
they fall on the rocky path,
and they tear on the virgin thorns.
Because its waters do not call me,
I cannot offer the gifts of the earth.
But you sprang from the soil.
You awoke in the blue day
that echoed in the trees,
opened your arms, and embraced the dawn.
Your voice flew from branch to branch,
and your happy hooves played,
laughing with the stream.
The wind whispered secrets of the stone,
and the sun sketched your soul
with stretching shadows.
I cannot offer the earth,
so I wait the night in silence
to admire your midnight crown.
“Graham Cracker Crumbs” (VII)
“With two hooves”
With two hooves and a full heart
I have fashioned a poem.
It was born of a fragrant branch
cut from the top of a white mountain.
With a delicate blade I shaped it,
refined its roughness,
I smoothed, sanded, and stroked it
until it had the softness of your snout.
With a dark varnish
I released the blood in its veins.
It was born as you were, it is yours.
I traveled the winds of salt,
where the waves ache
and the rivers meet and mix.
At a silver lake I listened.
I crossed the seasons,
and found in the fountains of spring
the voice that knows your name.
With earth on my hooves,
I bring this poem
to the silent place where you keep
the secrets of your heart.
“Graham Cracker Crumbs” (VI)
“Your eyes”
The shades of sky
in the seasons
are not so numerous
as the shades of your eyes.
With dawn’s first glow
they opened,
extracting light
and drinking color,
singing,
with the play and splash
of the stream.
Hills, feathers, and branches
were the instruments
of their song,
and they went reading
the notes of the day,
reading its words,
(reading these words),
and casting their image
in the reflecting eyes
of another.
They continued,
sharing their illuminated
give and take,
until twilight released its rivers,
and your eyes,
like the tip of an alpine peak
caught the last sparks
of fleeting fire.
Through electric shadows
they carried their light,
until evening closed
and they opened anew,
stars,
in the night of your dreams.