THE REVERSE OF FARNESS


No, I cannot resign myself
to being the inventory
of Federman's miscalculations,
I am not ready for my summary
nor rendered to my final solution.

No, I do not wish to participate
any longer -- willy nilly --
in the fiasco of his fabrication,
that failed account of my survival,
abandoned in an empty space
with an excremental package of fear
in my hands, symbol of my origin
wrapped in the wordshit
of his fabulation, that futile act
of creating images of birth
backward into the great cunt of death,
as I regress towards my expulsion.

There must be a better way
to manifest myself,
to assert my presence
in his exercise-book,
speak my own words,
from the reverse of farness,
and reach the margins
of verbal authenticity.

Yes, I will step out into the light,
emerge, run to some other refuge,
survive, speak out, tell the truth,
I give you my word, resist.

I will abolish his sustaining paradox,
expose the implausibility of his lure,
with stratagems, cunning expedients
that will cure him of his madness,
even if the act of telling myself
sends him to oblivion.

His journey to chaos derailed,
his temporary landscapes frozen,
his visit among the beasts forgotten,
his real fictitious discourse denounced,
I will be relentless, his exaggerated
second-hand tale retold anew,
with the correct tone and accent,
his whining plural voice muzzled,
all his words obliterated, erased,
from Cambrian brainless algae
to his imagination playgiarized,
head crushed against the wall.

I will step out of my reversed role,
speak in my own voice at last,
even if I must outstretch myself
to the unattainable.

But suppose, suppose fatigued
and disgusted he abandons me,
will I be able to become the essential,
and not remain a special event,
stalled words in distress
without a destination,
an historic fiasco within
his hysterical screaming,
obscured by faulty memory.

Yes, suppose he gives up,
dies one morning, just like that,
among millions of unfinished moments,
in the middle of a sentence,
will I remain suspended to his ink-blood,
lifeless voice within a silent voice,
without a story to tell,
my beginning canceled
by Federman's absence.


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