Canto II: The Departed and the Lost(R)

[abstrect-christ]

“Mm- Mmmno.”

“Jos- Joseph?”

 

“Joseph...”

an ambience of alternate currents

left, right, left, right, left-

A wisp then hemorrhage and trickle.

 

“Joseph...”

 

Shadow lifted, I’n cosmotose -- free of primus dimensionalis --

gravitons conduate passing through me, bonding

and clashing with Chimera dew and qaurks that congeal my atoms,

the strings that fibonacci my emotions strengthening like carbon in my veins.

 

“Do- Don’t...”

crimson curves flare and arc in infinitum,

six dimensional and unbreakable --

our super symmetry crystalline, this brane

that breathes through unidentified gills encompasses

the whole of my mass, avarice

subjugating its will;

 

“Don’t!”

The wisp clanks with the sound of meat on tract.

“No- No!”

The deep red consuming my left then right leg, clank continues,

screams and pleads for her life drowning in

the basin of a throat, bloody, I’m muxing

feeling four dimensions impose their genesis

a coronal mass ejection of nuclei

saturating the vacuity with ansbert pollen-

 

“Joseph!”

sweat pollenating the sheets where I lie;

my spine curled sixty degrees in Racheal’s arms.

“It was just a nightmare, everything’s alright;

I’m here... I’m here...”

tears matching my own as I fragment in her luminous fold.

 

I.

“As the new Director of Art,

I am not changing the direction

Joseph your former employer had started

and for that matter I’m also adapting his open atmosphere --

however, I am also a believer in closure;

as a group if you have anything to share

I would like to hear it as would the rest of us, I’m sure.”

“Ah’ fookin’ told ‘im that room is cur’sed...”

“explain Ben.”

“‘at room took ma’ fa’ther t’hree decades eigo,

ah’ve been the janitor eve’r since an’

it’s taken f’ive more wi’ Jos’eph.”

“Okay old man, William doesn’t want to-”

“Shut up ya’ dirt’y cunt! You’re atti’tude is w’hat got im’ there.”

“You-”

 

“Alright, settle down -- both of you,

Ben -- I’ll speak to you privately;

Curtis, you clearly have something to share,

speak and make it positive.”

“He’ll be missed,”

Curtis scoffs Ben’s acrimony.

 

II.

“Ben, you will find I’m very open

to what you have to discuss,”

he sits in his medium blue coveralls,

the sun lighting the seashell office

in the administrators level.

 

“That’s good ta’ hear,

Jos’eph wouldn’t even oblige my th’oughts,”

“well, Joseph seemed like an optimist,”

Ben silently chuckles.

 

“I was reading your employment records,

and it seems you’re more than just The Janitor

one would think you,

at one time in acting -- on this very stage in fact --

I researched some old reviews even,

you had a future in stage acting.

Why become a janitor?”

 

“It wa’ in me teens and twenties ah did have

a’spirations f’r actin’, even wi’ the knowledge’ve

past s’uicides, ‘n me thea’ter of choice;

‘vironment was healthy ‘til me fa’ther,

the thea’ter h’ouse art dir’ector wanted t’ move clos’er

to support me ‘n stage level.”

 

“The room he moved into was the same as Joseph’s?”

 

“Aye, months had passed an’ he became a’ggressive,

ea’sily disa’greeable, me mother felt the mos’ blows

wi’ her face.”

 

III.

Clifton Foster deceased at 45

Known for his imagination and harrowing theatre productions Happiness In Four Seasons, Republic of the

Departed and an adaption of Hamlet. Playwrite, poet, and stage actor Clifton Foster acting as director of art

for the Elizabeth Marie Theatre for twenty years has suffered a fatal pistol wound to the head.

The shot was heard as rehearsals for the current play at Elizabeth Marie, Friederich Durrenmatt’s Romulus

The Great, was underway. First on scene was Clifton’s, actor, son Ben Foster, 20, who is lead roll in

Romulus The Great, Romulus.

Police have concluded that Clifton’s death although suspicious was a suicide. Attempts at reaching family for

comment have been made but neither wife or children have spoken to the media since Clifton’s death. The

red vales in theatres world wide morn for both Clifton and his family.

- Frederick Cobb,

Nov. 21 1958

 

 

 

Jefferson Library, having told Curtis

to handle calls and requisitions:

 

Sorting through news archives,

I type “Elizabeth Marie Theatre + suicide + murder”

and the Eintech Powertech produces

fifteen paper prints,

Joseph, Jonathan Rudd, Adele Roux,

Alesandro Conti, and Cyrus Gaillard

all having provided crime scene photos --

articles were of a ghosts bearing in the nature of art,

the ghosts echoed like Cheroptera’s in Krubera-Veronja,

Walter Miller,Vicenty Torun, Erik Richter

and Nevine Rankin-

“William.”

“Mr. Delaney, this is detective Maginty.”

“Hello detective, how’s your afternoon treating you?”

“Moderate -- the information on all cases of suicides

at the Elizabeth Marie Theater has been

made available to you at your leisure.”

“Good to hear,”

a click is heard from Detective Maginty’s end.

Actress Nora Greene Found Dead, Suicide

Nora Greene, 41, known for her roles as Queen of Aragon in The Excellency of Her Sex has been found dead in her

change room from a rifle found among her belongings at the Elizabeth Marie Theatre. Greene was discovered the

morning after she had told the staff she was staying the night to practice for her current role as Queen of Braganza in

the current play In Good King Charles' Golden Days.

The move from Horowitz Theatre to the much smaller Elizabeth Marie came as a shock to many of the young actresses

fans, critics and theatre arts director after ten years of acting on the Horowitz stage and by all appearances the move had

invigorated Greene. "I can't see her doing this… she was always so chipper and upbeat, even in the face of her current

divorce," said Clifton Foster the Arts Director for Elizabeth Marie, who found her body saturday morning.

After a quick investigation Senior Detective Alistair Finlay said, "after looking at all evidence and interviewing all staff,

we have come to the conclusion Nora Greene has committed suicide". There will be a ceremony held at both Horowitz

and Elizabeth Marie Theatre in her memory, fans, critics and star alike, including son Christopher Greene, are expected

to attend and pay their respect to a stage actress among the high echelons of theatre.

- Harry Friedman,

Sept. 5,1939

IV.

 

 

A Canid’s exhale -- lungs self immolating --

feeling every crank as pistons

dry and rust.

 

A wolfish howl halves the night,

the pistons slow then seize;

feet splinter as pressure distorts

leaving the achilles neonate

to drown in puddles of

marrow, sinew, and nail;

 

midnight wings unveil char,

flexing to ascend their mandibles

in an arc then descend

lashing natures internee,

knocking me from my tibula’s fulcrum

into a street that turns to dermus;

 

fingers clenching clumps of hair,

mounting my head at a tip as more

clutch my sternocleidomastoid’s,

deltoid’s, bicep brachii’s, brachioradialis’,

serratis anterior’s and obliqous externus’;

fingers boring to penetrate like talons in

a Peromyscus, some fading to the street

as they collapse my anemic tibula’s --

 

the screams!

Like familiar Aera in the night,

a necropolis of the living;

they mantra:

“Supplicium... ruo...”

 

as the midnight wings repeat its camber

out of the street lamp and down,

hands immalleable, like an arrow

fixed for a sternum-

 

“Fuck...”

a whispered breath and sigh

knowing another sleepless night is to come.

 

by Jeremy Swyck

(3/14/11)

[tonyv]

Here I am, getting around to part two. The constant shifts in setting keep me reading wondering and wanting to know what comes next. Are they suicides or are they murders spanning decades? The theater is the connection.

 

I've extracted these lines and am highlighting them:

 

... feeling every crank as pistons

dry and rust.

 

A wolfish howl halves the night,

the pistons slow then seize ...

 

They could be incorporated into a poem in itself, outside of the canto series.

 

I'll read and reply on part three soon. I must know where the next one will take me ...

 

Tony