Rachel Vigier and Kim Larsen* will be reading at Brooklyn Reading Works this Thursday April 20th at 8 p.m. The Old Stone House on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.
Tomorrow: an excerpt from Kim Larsen’s work.
It’s what I have left to offer you —
the ripple of a flax field in flower
the flow of a river slipping to sea
the weight of a whale flipping over.
Say it’s images from a life left over
or the lust of memory
wanting its place of origin
before the blue fades, before
the heft and swiftness disappear.
A lunchtime crowd trickles to the steps of Federal Hall
while across the street a man in a tan coat stops to pat the bomb dog.
“Why shepherds? Can he do anything else?” The dog,
ears perked, sniffs, stands at the alert and sits down. All the tourists,
zoom lens extended or pocket cameras held high, look for the best shot.
The street worker sweeps butts into his dustpan
drags away the bin as the Hercules unit points down their guns.
A woman in a blue coat waves her hand, signs for lilies
from the guards at the Exchange. A man with a limp thumps his briefcase
against his leg. The keeper locks the dog in a cage and walks away
as someone stands on George Washington’s pedestal.
For a moment he’s declaiming Washington’s address to the troops
then becomes another tour guide stealing attention
from the stranger across the street preaching Revelation
“my name my word shuttedth and shuttedth.” Everyone walks
or sits or stands. It’s the law. The sound of pipes falling
echoes. Metal on metal rolling down the canyon
against the syncopated roll of corrugated metal rising from the back of a truck.
What happens if you shift your gaze to a small hole? The doubting Thomas
of Wall Street rises but it’s OK to proceed slowly, person by person.
Here’s a tourist with a cigar in his mouth, waving and coughing.
Here’s an orange-and-blue striped shopping bag strolling by.
Here’s a boy running round a pole as Mom and Dad study a map.
(Everyone’s always trying to orient themselves but it’s a proven fact
the map’s distortions are real. Just try to place yourself somewhere.)
And here’s a man posing sadly for himself. Flash. Oh look he wants another. Flash.
The sun keeps shining and you keep asking what’s here at this corner?
Until the body tells you to push off. There’s daylight elsewhere.
No one wants to tease out layers. Just keep stacking and stacking,
building and tearing down, building and tearing down
where George Washington keeps watch until today
when someone somewhere in a cell well hidden finally confesses
first to himself then to country “I didn’t mean any of this.”