i woke up sweating, my air-conditioner a moaning block of ice, moving not a breath of air. It took an hour to thaw. In the meantime, I took a piss, started the coffee and folded the futon. And here I am again with you.
Little quiet movements. Stirrings of a moment; the subtle rustling of the bedsheet, a familiar half-sleeping pillow-sigh, the quietness of bare feet on a polished floor padding softly away to another room and back, the clink of spoon in cup, the long sipping sound of the coffee's first taste. It is the intimacy of the mundane where nothing is so valuable that you must question your possession of it, or doubt your right to be here. But precious, immeasurably precious, it is; this moment, now.
i have discovered Italian operatic lyricism, with all its grand existential questioning, its sweeping despair and its ever twinkling hope. When I saw American Beauty I felt at the end like I had written it. It is that way with these untranslatable songs. Of course most of the words do have English equivalents, but it is poetry, and poetry is at best a feeble attempt at releasing to flight the configuration of a breath. So I must listen to the feeling more than to the meaning, which is, after all, the best way to hear a poet. Like the movie, the meanings within these songs sound uncannily familiar, though I have never heard them, yet somewhere in me they have always played, played. Play.
And my worn-out chair continues to sink, low now like a hassock on the floor, and reaching up to the keys, I type like a midget mad Beethoven at his piano, deaf but for the meaning. I hope.
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