One Of The Last Great Realizations Is

There Comes A Time When You Realize That Everything Is A Dream, And Only Those Things Preserved In Writing Have Any Possibility Of Being Real.

I'm A Frotteur, Someone Who Likes To Rub Words In His Hand, To Turn Them Around And Feel Them, To Wonder If That Really Is The Best Word Possible.

I'm Tired Of My Life, My Clothes, The Things I Say. I'm Hacking Away At The Surface, As At Some Kind Of Gray Ice, Trying To Break Through To What Is Underneath Or I Am Dead. I Can Feel The Surface Trembling—it Seems Ready To Give But It Never Does. I Am Uninterested In Current Events. How Can I Justify This? How Can I Explain It? I Don't Want To Have The Same Vocabulary I've Always Had. I Want Something Richer, Broader, More Penetrating And Powerful.

We Dash The Black River, Its Flats Smooth As Stone. Not A Ship, Not A Dinghy, Not One Cry Of White. The Water Lies Broken, Cracked From The Wind. This Great Estuary Is Wide, Endless. The River Is Brackish, Blue With The Cold. It Passes Beneath Us Blurring. The Sea Birds Hang Above It, They Wheel, Disappear. We Flash The Wide River, A Dream Of The Past. The Deeps Fall Behind, The Bottom Is Paling The Surface, We Rush By The Shallows, Boats Beached For Winter, Desolate Piers. And On Wings Like The Gulls, Soar Up, Turn, Look Back.

Certain Things I Remember Exactly As They Were. They Are Merely Discolored A Bit By Time, Like Coins In The Pocket Of A Forgotten Suit. Most Of The Details, Though, Have Long Since Been Transformed Or Rearranged To Bring Others Of Them Forward. Some, In Fact, Are Obviously Counterfeit; They Are No Less Important. One Alters The Past To Form The Future.