Van Stanley

The

allegory of today is the fashion of yesterday.  The
canvas’s face no longer requires a hieroglyphic.  The
poem is as useless as the precious hand-bag’s name.  The
quest for ultimate truth is held in the upstairs parlor on Tuesday nights.  The
woman tying ropes of linen by the window will ask: Can I get you something?
     & you will say: Yes, the ultimate truth.
     & they will laugh & call for the silver platter to be brought in
     & you will see the array of items & you will stall without coyness for the correct choice
     & their faces will flush full of the blood of embarrassment
     for thinking you were in on the joke.  The
truth is in a lacking of correct choice.  The
least of affordable lessons will be learned, by you, enough for generations.  The
gaminess of the words are due to that they are shots in the dark in the brush of the mind.  The
truth is: your shaken voice behind the microphone is adrenaline—
     not nerves.  The
dictionary must be read as if each numbered definition were as one.  The
epicenter of contradiction is erotic.  The
Origins of Language according to Magritte: every cloud in frame
     completely in frame
     & the pedestal on which to fantasize about them.  The
dodecophonic gall of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht is erotic,
     as the chromatic is erotic,
     as Stravinsky’s export of melody to rhythm is erotic,
     as Pressley’s shaken knee is erotic.  The
average marathon runner may hear
     Verdi’s Requiem as much as three times before the finish line.  The
pauper, salaried one dollar per second
     endures thirty-two years & emerges a billionaire.  The
proof is of something.  The
liberated self, perhaps.  The
prompt: litany.  The
stream beneath the vessel at hand: the
inner voice: the
graphemic bruises suffered by balled white sheets of paper: the
countless photographs of text: the
patient invention of the subject: the
word: “and thus so”.  The
definite article.