point b

Haiku on the subject of law

Point B

You get what you can from your good sense of humour but if I’m being objective I have the wrong kind of sense of humour. That is not to say I don’t have a sense of humour but more that I see everything as the wrong kind of joke. I find it difficult to see the differences between reality and art, for example. Which doesn’t seem particularly important. It really isn’t very important. But when you are standing in front of a painting of a lily covered pond and you think you are drowning, lilies slappin against your face, then you know you have problems. Unimportant problems.

“This is fuckin brilliant.”

Well man I wish it was, I wish it was. I can look at your eyes and I can see you really are having a fucking good time.

“Mate – your eyes.”

That’s him talking, not me. But I’m looking at his eyes. And it occurs to me that when you are in extremely close proximity to someone and you look directly into their eyes for an extended period of time well they are not unlikely to end up lookin back at yours and some of the time not all of the time but some of the time this would be the desired effect so you’d be forgiven for thinkin that this was the desired effect so I forgave for thinkin that was the effect I desired but end of the day, bottom line, it wasn’t, I wanted to look at his eyes to see that he was having a fucking good time and take him at his word, but lo and behold now he looks at my eyes.

  “Fucking brilliant isn’t it?” he says all stressing the consonant.

I am Lacan, I am Foucault. Bollocks. I fuckin don’t know a thing. How can I know anything, when everything I say may be something he is saying, and everything he says I assume comes out of his mouth.

  “Greg,” I say, “Greg, I’ve got to get some air, man.” He follows my eyes across the room. Shit, “Alone, Greg. I kind of want to be alone.”

Has this music always been playing? How long has this music been playing for?

“Yeah, wicked.” Like I’m going to have the best time in the world. Like I’m not, immediately that I’m alone, gonna curl up like a foetus and pretend I’m a curled up foetus.

What’s happened when it’s reached this stage, when every joke is an old joke just because it’s a joke and jokes are old? Like I looked across the fireside last night and Fergus looked at me.

  “Your eyes,” he said (why is it always the eyes?), “the fire,” he said, “reflected off that guitar,” the guitar that was by my lap, “reflected in your eyes.”

It was a genuinely romantic moment. I wished we were in love but we were not in love.

  “Beautiful,” I say, all of a joke, “nice manifesto.”

What is the shit I talk when I am sober, I suddenly wonder – is it as bad as this that I am talking now? Are there people somewhere in the world that do not listen to what they say? Maybe there are people in the world who simplesay charming and clever and accurate things. But it occurs to me that every word I say requires an immediate doubletake.

  I step outside of myself, kick myself in the face, and return to my shattered body with its kicked face.

Fergus grunts in annoyance. It’s not his fault that he’s a poet, that what he says is poetry. It’s not his fault. Why am I making fun of it? Why am I belittling it?

  “You can’t say a fuckin word around here,” he says, “Fuckin A,” he says.

I’m sorry, I want to say, I’m so sorry. It’s me that can’t say a word. You’re alright, I want to say, you’re alright. Pity me, I want to say, for this.

I wake up with my clothes and my skin smelling like woodsmoke. Nice enough smell. My skin and my clothes have also been dyed the colour of woodsmoke. I could be a soldier, perfectly camouflaged in a burning city. If, er, the city was made of wood.

  Such points, as these, such points. Point B. Second end of a straight line. At point B, which is waking up, reeking of last night. At this point I have these two feelings which stick with me for days, weeks, ever. These two feelings are: one

I am no different from anybody else ever and must never consider myself different because that suggests, even if it is in self-deprecation, that I consider myself better and I do not believe myself to be better in fact, but worse…

You can see where it all falls down and how quickly it all falls down. How can I be so arrogant as to be self-critical? I ask myself, critically… The circle appears to be endless. But there is another feeling also, there is feeling two

                       I am so unbelievably lonely.

The two feelings connect and disconnect seamlessly. Like magician hoops. Thus I am led to believe that one I am no different to any other human being and two that I am unbelievably lonely and thus three: that every human being is unbelievably lonely. This falls down pretty much straight away.

I am left smiling to think that at least we’re all in it together.

: 29 Jan 2009 16:14 |  Tags: Story |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem