Paco Peña

 

I had to leave the theatre
part way through the performance
because ...

I am so ... envious



I need to stand
and to sing
like him
in the State Theatre

man standing
there
on the stage
there on the stage
there
on the stage
a man

sound rising ...
out of his mouth

Is he the only living being in the whole eternal universe?

And now I am
standing,
I want to howl in the dark
in the State Theatre

(On one breath with arms raised)
 I am howling ... my shadow stitched to the desert floor I have swallowed the night in my lungs 
the desert moon is glowing I am a tree stars now for eyes and I am howling 
and the rat-a-tat beat of my own heart to the lift--

I TOO AM ALIVE

"Excuse me" I say very seriously and very intensely to my very serious and very intense companion, 
knowing he will understand, very seriously and very intensely I say "I have to go" 
and he replies "Oh yes of course."

And I rush from the theatre to the cloakroom
the attendant looks disappointed that I am leaving
she calls my coat an umbrella.

I turn away.
I struggle across thick red carpet
through syrup air
push against my own likeness
in glass door heavy
I stand alone on the wet concrete
gulping down the wind and the rain

(On the out breath)
 Ah the night    

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             Writing

Photograph by Zoe Christianson

think of lettering 
angles and curves 
upon the page
writing something flat
with the plainness of saki, 
tasting of paper
imagine a tender stem,
an untouched neck
a breath on the nape of meaning
- and tilting the tea-cup 
                     I bring it to you
                     completely emptied of thought
there is a bird piping
there are conjurors on the skin-thin water
the mineral smell of hot weed
                    the daub, daub, daub of land on the weak horizon
                    in tidal sands again and again in each erasable print
sun-whitened skeletons and delicate maps

nothing is required except to proceed  
into a distance I understand (Cameron. 2009)

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