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Wednesday, June 4th, 2003
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6:19 pm
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11
[exit pursued]
Anywhere but straight back to that matter, back to wherever, an open book, between where to go and what to do.
Get clear away where the narrow mind was the easiest reach.
Another thing I had originally intended to do was to meet the decision, a small glance, sharp.
My way sat biting at the far end and wondering what to do next. If the side-roads and the trail would not deliver neatly, I knew an agony of wasting time. My chance could go roundabout or I could go back to Avingnon.
The last did not count my luck.
With a heavy heart, barely cobbled and stinking, we stopped dead, shaking.
The slash of the past--it was my first thought, a sort of sharp elation for the road.
[my tracks--the brink of forward--blinding]
Purple aubergines, berets, and the Bentley. I fancied the street, and in the alley, where one had her top down, I was grateful for the utterly pitiless planes that hung lifeless, their long shadows on the verge of the ribbon-road.
And there, waiting, I took my place in the queue.
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| Wednesday, May 28th, 2003
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7:45 am
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Then fell my standing steps and I remembered last night, somehow without a get away, utterly average and filled up with everything in my handbag.
I had only posed, explaining my heart and my handkerchief.
Poetry laid beneath my nightdress. My fingers slipped into where I would be able to put the book back, my eyes flame and curious.
[Does anyone see the lair of wondering, where all this tightened?]
And I don't feel too good this morning.
An abrupt impatience, alone now, vanished for a moment.
The girl was a scarlet hand in loose linen, an enormous ruin--normal, safe and happy, alone with the dark.
While slanting across the floor, I said, "I'm finished, my little nothing, the puzzlement and suspicion."
I had no possible genuineness, my eyes brave but quite violent.
Escape memories suddenly took it again, indifferent.
Whether because I helped in that little calling, with a long fifty yards, I snatched that blessed touch, as I saw emerging from the door, the first gesticulating sleeve, grimly making the bargain there.
I slipped. I stumbled wildly, not half automatically.
It was hours after the blackout, but I whipped off the screws with my nailfile and raced my hands forward again down the slope. Down with a rush along some intact surface.
My trail still hummed in my heart.
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| Thursday, June 13th, 2002
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12:50 am
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10
[charity chased]
An empty room, dredged with sounds of long, uncomfortably wrapped sleep.
A nightmare that was going to stick to the dent, his little pile of ash between the night's adventures.
Turmoil was I going to get.
I took off my frock and my skin tingled hard, then the green dress--uncrushable and familiar.
Hair, somehow, would get away from Louise and we would shake my enemy off. Though I felt thwarted again.
Whatever dark, small things I had, the night glanced round to see that nothing was unlocked.
The door was waiting, the inevitable morning.
I said, "You ought to know ruined."
Or followed me down.
The smoke in blue fronds sat in silence, but I was intensely on the other side of us, positively ungiven.
So I watched.
The coffee smelt flat, my cup ordinary, familiar.
Suddenly, memory bit my lip, utterly gone, well aware.
The stuff of which heroines are made deeply resentful sat at the golden distance, making plans.
Every brain was numb, and I should know by now, you, my girl, must be mad.
Vile and legitimately afraid, I had to get know-how.
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| Thursday, June 6th, 2002
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10:12 pm
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Another bed.
I saw the glow, and I murmured.
The voice that answered the dream, it said, "You can't get what you won't leave alone."
[an eye, my hand, this room]
Don't you want to know who you are?
I start to scream placidly, and my lip couldn't see my mind's fuss.
In the darkness, I'm a lucky leech, like a lover. Somehow to be afraid, I remembered that I had a bit of sight.
Chance happened about when I arrived.
To explain, I turned towards the pillow so that this would wait till common sense wanted me. Murder, I thought, would risk anything, now that I was still and curled up with the other you.
I'm going to ground out the nothing, settling down my own vague surprise.
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| Thursday, August 2nd, 2001
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8:30 pm
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Sheer and still, he saw again the dark flame, a brief red voice, not at all cleaned up for you.
Was I like you, having a drink while they ask for the something we want to discuss?
Have we voice again?
Slightly crazy, I hope my throat is going to tell you I better be silent.
And I saw the next question abruptly: Is it going to feel at me through the darkness, fumble for eyes watchful across the matter?
I said evenly, "This I want to know. Do you have the brief moment of torture?"
[hands I'll not answer to]
Lovely women, as often as not, sharply see better, scream, "Don't worry!"
You and I at the inside, put a hand, without emphasis, on you who am I.
I was true, as you presumably know. I have an idea that gives nothing of nightmare waves.
Out of doubt, a murder once. The second time, I'd get hold of the opening, never piercing the darkness.
Up from my feet, I clawed at the whole world. Nothing could be easier.
My hands in a futile little shadow buried me, but I was only hands and eyes. In the silence, I must have been drowning.
My eyes, at any rate, slowly found the light of early morning in the darkness.
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| Thursday, July 26th, 2001
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6:48 pm
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9
but the dawn comes soon...
High over the streets, eyeless broken lines clothed with an uncanny history still strange enough, satisfy the need for quiet company.
With faint, creeping melancholy, the window watching and enjoying my lonely dying, at length took my past and read again the songs of long ago.
Then I shut my eyes, trying to cut back the glint of scarlet darkness.
I went down to face where I had to watch the ruined shapes of whatever was right.
I would wait and see if the ghosts really did undress, frock and shoes at once.
I must have turned to look at the light, but my watch had forgotten again, and to my left the beginning of a cloud was chill and clear and silent.
I put on my shoes.
[my hands wake up properly, then quietly, but nobody seemed to bother about it]
I supposed the people were used to nothing tangible.
Wishing I had deserted my feet, no sound sat out there long enough.
[my vigil in a cup; the cloud at last like the dark face, slackened, trembling]
Extinction in the wind, and the day was cold, pleasant and unbidden.
All too soon, the wish for a stretched moment, waiting for something.
Me, my hands found you again in the known anywhere, with an undertone of a locked room, the remains of a towering buttress.
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| Monday, July 16th, 2001
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9:24 pm
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At length I'll go deeply and dreamlessly, feeling my mind washed.
The pale green dress felt singularly heavy and shining upon the unpleasant, upset me.
[considerably it was the memory of crazy, nasty things]
I sang over the bruises as I brushed my hair.
And as for the cloud cast there, the fresh problem was certainly simple after all.
The conversation meant eventually that I could do nothing for a stranger.
The last sane thing to do was to forget, lightly.
[along to an idea I'm sick of...]
I'm ruined and deserted, a wonderful, eerie mind, asking if you'd be happy.
The mirror perfectly, particularly sudden, but you needn't let it see.
Louise put on an upward, wondering thing, lied cheerfully. "I want to be you."
It sounds terrible.
I suppose I was lucky for one night, at least. The prisoner I said good-bye to quickly was out of time.
But when the light seemed good, I wanted Louise, for a moment, to somehow empty, so quiet and beautiful, the thing I refused.
Except for a little twist of road deepened behind me, the trees grew wilder and rose in a deep diffusion of black shadows, long before seven-o-clock.
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| Thursday, July 12th, 2001
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9:13 pm
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The heat today began to move, a guidebook.
[a few moments, another cigarette, and some excuse]
Now I could ask him why. If she did know, and if he had not told, perhaps it was possible, I thought.
[but yesterday when we had seen beyond the corridor...]
I should want my sunglasses.
My plan would have to wait, for I thought I was saying "Mind if I come with you?"
The voices did not sound intimate between them and I.
Have you ever been beside her? You get swept away watching the marvellous Louise.
According to plan, idly she got out her clever little knitting.
Half-naked men tried to read between my eyes. Perpetually, with sudden murderous fury, I blinked away. After that I was a damaged record, my hair clean of memories.
But I sat, wishing I could do it over and over again.
"Louise, it's time."
But we sat apart from ourselves.
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| Monday, July 9th, 2001
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8:43 pm
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8
i am i
All things did not sleep. I was stopped slowly, and the shadows I put on felt pretty.
I went down there looking as if gay and silly.
Lighting one cigarette, she looked lovely, suddenly sorry, telling me lightly it was lovely except for the smells.
I hope for another upward glance, but we smiled at one another.
I looked 'round me, caught, perhaps fearsome, absorbed, nowhere but imperturbably at breakfast.
Louise would be capable of remembering the decisive in the dark.
"I'm in charge," came Louise's voice.
I shook myself and poured another cup of iced grape juice, tired.
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| Sunday, July 8th, 2001
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3:28 pm
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I was left with a nightmare.
The blue marks turned dark where I remembered it, clasped it over my fury.
I found that Louise proved the dream, contentedly tempted to break penance over coffee and a picture by Brangwyn that she had seen, not even thinking.
I just sat and drank black coffee, and the thin cat said "good night."
Louise still persisted and brushed through the motions of getting to the edge of my mind.
I wrapped 'round the corridor, and the act of an urgent whisper was the voice of...
[you! here! a sound like the click of a lock]
The bathroom--my brain had forgotten about the bathroom.
There was the barest angle to my hand.
Scratch the panel, I would. Then I stopped, my hand half-way to the desolate moment.
My hand and I.
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| Saturday, July 7th, 2001
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7:12 am
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Two days: how much a refuge?
I took the time, feeling more than I could stand.
The cat ran and stopped just as the clock struck the hour.
Louise would be quiet, drinking the day out of you, very pleasant, very ordinary, remember?
Me, I watched sharply, commanded the crowded time. I sat, joined to Louise in her room.
[the inevitable came to make sure I see the good broiled alive]
I pushed the edge of the fearfully long knitted shapes, but, oh Lord, if you leave out the fish-net nylons, the colours just look not quite right.
Well, that's all beginning to change.
[a cool sponge, my pale green dress]
The mirror saw something about the eyes and the corners of the mouth--the trace of fear in a drawer. What did it amount to?
The terrible little confession, smoothed, faintly dusted over with powder. Thank God for cosmetics! This evening had not come to that, I'm sure, for the small get lost in nothing.
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| Friday, July 6th, 2001
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5:22 pm
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7
never
We were carefully expressionless; the mirror was watching for a mistake.
I met you; I told a few lies, and I managed to suppose the opposite from "yes."
[something made me hard, still, white, and there was a stretched-too-tight, enormous answer I could see slipping soundlessly down my heart]
I forgot my left hand.
Is it very bad when you find out? I'm afraid I thought it couldn't do any harm to tell him.
The terror was back in me.
It's that you can't tell the words were ludicrous.
[would it help to know the time?]
You see, this needn't have happened. I might be undesirable, frightened in the mirror, still snaking away from the terribly important.
How can I help it? Hands move convulsively. And please, please, it won't happen again. A secret, silent.
A moment sang up, deep and golden.
"All right," I said.
I'll cross your heart. An agony, I cross my heart.
There was beside me the mirror, but in my eyes I could feel the bruises.
I blame you, for I was silly, abruptly mad. The small voice is quite hasty.
Louise hardly spoke.
The mirror crouched beside me, queer.
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| Thursday, July 5th, 2001
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9:11 pm
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I knew that I'd murder myself with the unpleasant cold panic again, and at the same time come to fantastic charity. I might be cursed, and these things spiralled stupidly when he came down with his wings in flames.
"Well?" I said.
And his voice beautiful, gloriously angry, "Someone once forgot to be afraid."
[and I knew the street that leads to a whisper, the way to my eyes]
I said I wanted to know. I shook off meeting him again.
In the square, I prayed, in time for satisfaction. That's it, is it? I saw the sun once again, then my eyes really did swim with tears.
I'm sorry I dropped a little anxious thought. You were casually out of sight, and I was bent on sacrilege, curled up breathlessly and wondering.
As we tore the open space, I saw out of the tail of my eye, our maze of luck.
I breathed until two minutes later.
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| Sunday, December 10th, 2000
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8:17 pm
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The question was intolerable. I was some memory of doubt still in view.
Did he say I only was--under the circumstances--an ironic truth?
The long, narrowing mistaking was not imagination.
[violent intentions on bright, flaming beds of flowers]
Then the little danger of betraying a soft voice.
[didn't I see...? it certainly is... where's your...?]
Charmingly my mouth smiled, wrestling with no more resistance.
Was he self-absorbed, moved by attention?
Behind me, he laughed.
Ugly and dumb, the questions I still had looked down at me.
Yes, likely to his twisted satisfaction, I was still lying the way I would, to be small and dirty. Though I suppose I was a rotten liar.
And now take me towards the shallow chance to imagine, to think of nothing but how to get back to remembering his voice.
Mortally afraid of the moment, he had told me then.
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| Thursday, December 7th, 2000
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8:45 pm
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6
escape?
Excuse the mournful eyes and slightly shaking fingers.
I stood in my slip with an abrupt impatience, eyed and torn, perhaps not right.
I cannot help the something else in my mind, protesting in the same words, dragging me away to hide in the cathedral like a rabbit suddenly afraid, again.
In the sunlight I was back to the chessboard.
Somehow I heard behind me, "Please. I must go now, but I just wanted to ask you the usual questions."
I said icily, "You knew me."
In spite of myself, I wanted to say, "Why do you stall weakly for time?"
[he's the rabbit in the garden]
I could hardly make a scene when I would lose myself among the other angry eyes.
I only couldn't tell you where was this...
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| Monday, December 4th, 2000
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9:29 pm
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Little quiet and green coolness lay like fronds of silence...silence...silence.
I sat down, fallen, and tried not to think of it, nothing except quiet and alone.
[aren't you I?]
My eyes...a man...the temple.
So quietly I heard him frowning, reluctant, constrained.
God wasn't there on my eyelashes, his eyebrows.
"I'm sorry."
I didn't mean that. The truth wouldn't have stood looking at me.
I felt like a schoolgirl--tears behind my eyes, rude to perfect strangers.
I have been kind but off-balance.
"Hadn't you better have a cigarette?"
He handed me his perfect remedy--it ought to be a match for me.
His look was already matter-of-fact.
For a moment something familiar interrupted outside of my head. Yes--it was just that I was surprised because I should have been more careful.
[I heard nothing]
I was thinking of poets you meet half-way from there.
My heart, almost indifferently, knew now--I was alone, acquitted.
He threw away me.
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| Saturday, November 25th, 2000
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6:21 am
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A man's voice jostled me. My lax eyes made a grab for the culprit.
With a soft-voiced apology, I said quickly, "It was my own fault."
[it's terrible to go, aware of earth's matter, flour-white in the shadow, enormous]
The hand on my arm began to pull me down. I don't want to mind.
I was only waiting for his winged heels to come.
"Why don't you want to see the other things?"
This is the way he put out a tentative hand.
[the other things can wait]
For him, I'm sorry, though.
He was still but smiled at me, cool in his head.
"I'll just go and sit about the porch..."
In the end, I watched him look for the forbidden entry and realized that he had spoiled my day, so decided to complete it as quickly as I could.
The stinking heat was terrific--stagnant pools.
I stood for a moment gazing up. The cicadas were mad; the heat came out of the ground in waves.
"No," I said firmly.
Under the lime trees, I felt considerably better. I could still not face, out of self-respect, part of my crumbled, tiny temple.
It was like being miles away from anywhere, hot-white within.
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| Tuesday, November 14th, 2000
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9:39 pm
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5
bloody
Whenever the strange things, dry and invisible in the other, were like thunder, we stood near the edge.
Louise soared above us, cutting the sky.
On the under-sides of the slow shadows, the lazy light stirred to betray you.
[the river never moved]
Louise heard and gave a queer little sigh, flung a quick look at me, and flushed.
"It doesn't matter."
I'm glad again, and I could sense a curious body beside me, tense as I waited.
We talked about the Romans.
I knew better than to force the air up against it. Stealing was irrational, and I can't explain it. It was just the way I told myself unpleasant things, a frustrated mother-complex.
I kept my eyes casual, well out of sight.
I know the better the day, the better the deed.
"Look, there's he."
[look! the terrible barred shadows of the little sunlight]
We emerged looking into the pitiless sun, forward to the edge.
A man came to my side, not haunted by the things that had been done here, his eyes shining.
I pointed; he leaned.
[do you suppose we could see bloodstains?]
I moved back, the shadow almost unbearable. I heard behind me, the monotonous, cool bloodstains.
I closed my eyes.
There was a murmur of talk in French; a camera clicked.
For once, I was proved wrong, for below, I heard.
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| Monday, November 13th, 2000
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7:54 pm
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A look, and with a sudden burst of honesty, "It's not so much understanding, but I'll try. Are you sure Louise?"
"Quite. What time are you coming back?"
I'm not sure Louise looked towards the glowing glimpse of charity. We won't tie ourselves down.
You go on and look at your remains in your own time. When you come back, don't bother. You won't want to come back much, anyway, long before that, panting to the door of triumph.
[it waits, and it gets to know]
"It's barely twelve now."
Louise took the key, and she was looking at me curiously. "I thought the creep was afraid."
Louise was already rummaging, looking at me. All those impalpable defences gave an impatient tug, and we went down towards the bank of the river, under tall trees, harsh with the shrilling of the cicadas.
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| Friday, November 10th, 2000
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8:23 pm
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4
old
The next day eased out to the perimeter.
Louise sat beside me; the cat crept, swaying.
Resounding through the heart was a white, powdery ribbon of an unfamiliar, dark, precarious life.
Among the faces, here and there, the heat occasionally hung like bravery, but for the most part, breaking.
My thoughts had known, though I suppose they fought.
I said, "In winter, I remember my Latin grammar."
[they weren't going to believe the little Louise]
I hate to interfere, but I could hardly avoid it.
I said, "What's the French for 'breakdown?'"
"Depannage...Haven't you got used to my stuff by now?"
I bore down, intending to ram my hand hard into Louise.
[I'll never get used to that]
"If he'd seen, we'd never have done it."
Despicably easy to bully, I eased off the idea. This must be what was following us, triumphant even in mirror-image.
I was trying to think, but I had too little to go on.
It was dark outside when I thrust the problem aside, and, with concentrated care, Louise began to do something for me.
"Ask what time the bus gets here. Will you stand up to that, do you think?"
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