book of discarded telegraph codes

tears of john fante

the heart is an industrial neighbourhood,
clean,
well-constructed,
seemingly occupied
by those,
who are at work,
men at work.
dusk will find nothing here
apart from empty bottles
and orange peels.
men at home
will sit with their families,
auras of what happened to them
will fill the cushioned armchairs
and
cigarette smoke will be
the incense of the evening.
that is the heart of john fante
who deserts it,
he is suspended over the neon signs,
too romantic to be real,
with an orange in his hand,
self-contained,
self-amused,
a monument to big time art,
his voice is somewhere between the walls of this house where I am
standing now
and it is such an authentic voice.
oh
how this man must have cried
and how bitter must he have felt,
I feel
it was a sin
to torture such a real man.
16 III 2014 12:38







March
'time is a big lie'
read a leaflet pinned to a wooden post
as a shop window behind it gathered dust
and tried to catch every one of them sun beams
to have a nice little bouquet to greet spring.
as it was coming
almost nothing felt like it existed for sure,
hopeful mornings,
nervous afternoons,
tiresome evenings,
days that tasted like anger.
time has become something dubious,
an improper means of measuring change,
you see,
we wanted change,
we desired it,
and we have forgotten times and times again
what it's like
to kneel before sunlight,
kiss the inside of its thighs
and make sweet love to it.
but for now
we are cursed,
sitting in dark cafes
sipping on our thoughts poured into small china cups,
slapping every minute in the face,
feeding on hatred for all this.
it will fade away
and until May
many things will have become memories.
many things that we crave,
many things that we hope for,
many small things
to make us whole again.
16 III 2014 15:06






the deaths of fifty cowboys
lily hats are what's left of fifty men.
they are from different towns,
different manufacturers,
but
they share the same lily white
and
the dark brown leather strap,
and
this is all very nice
but,
this is not what we expected.
there is no rust of dry blood patterns,
the hats are not cramped
nor stepped upon,
there might be a speck of dust here and there
but
that's not a problem at all.
the deaths of fifty cowboys looked too hygienic and clean
to be accepted,
the bullet holes were neat and clear-cut,
master shooting really,
and
this is not what we expected
from so much death,
i mean,
they deserved to be treated seriously
as individuals they were,
their deaths are just so big a number
that there is nothing interesting about them.
Cambodia killing fields,
Holocaust trains,
Transylvanian pales,
ridiculous names of heavy metal bands,
these things are popular, common, widespread,
in each household there are devils tied up to posts,
their hissing and spitting and cursing
part of everyday routine,
sad devils
hostages to humanity,
fifty cowboys laugh at them from their respective graves,
the laughter
soaked up in the substance of vinyl records,
grey paper black letters pink background,
a gunfighter reaching for the gun,
the move forever under our eyelids never fully closed,
the glimpse of the cowboy's eye a poster of a memory,
the hair of fifty cowboys the hair of people in the street,
a dream of self-esteem
a dream of dignity and precision,
clean lily white hats,
daydreaming of death
with meaning rather than form.
27 III 2014 19.26