Friday 29 January 2010

The Road to Passaic

Parts 1-4:

on the number 30 bus of the Inter-City Transportation Co.
anonymous tins of food wimpled softly
the ashes of the late world wimpled softly
the tarp wimpled softly
a set of tracks suddenly appeared and wimpled softly
like something trying to preserve heat
like the last host of christendom
like certain frescoes
a set of tracks appeared and wimpled softly
I pulled the buzzer-cord and got off
that ashen scabland wimpled softly

*

the sky a sensitive stain of sweat
the bridge an enormous photograph of wood and steel
the river an enormous movie film
in the glassy air of New Jersey
a good business in STONE, BITUMINOUS, SAND and CEMENT
Passaic seems full of “holes”, he said.
The boy didn’t answer.

*

I walked down a parking lot
that monumental parking lot
like a grieving mother with a lamp

all that existed were millions of grains of sand
trembling like ground-foxes in their cover,
like shoppers in the commissaries of hell

the future is “out of date” and “old fashioned”
such futures are found in grade B Utopian films
and a paperback called The Road by Cormac McCarthy

*

In those first years Robert Smithson was so rich in color. He sharpened a quill in the smokestacks and the 1968 Firebirds and the barrows heaped with shoddy so it would be possible to see how was made oceans, mountains, New Jersey peopled with realistic waxworks of raw meat. When he rose and turned to go back the tarp was lit from within. The ashes of the late world wimpled softly, like squid ink uncoiling.

1 comment:

JAH said...

This is lush.

Abi