proofrock revisisted (MSPA-related)

Si j’avais plus d’esprit
Plus de courage que maintenant
Peut-être je me senserais différement
Mais, quand-même, tant pis,
Tu me fais tourjours rire, encore surire,
Et, voilà, je t’écris.


Let us go then, you and I,
When the wireless passes through the sky
Like a comic drawn upon a tablet;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted pages
The memories of ages
Of restless hours in one-hour cheap one-liners
And crappy websites with gruff old-timers:
Sites that <blink> like a tedious meme
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

On the forums posters come and go
Writing of Sweet Jeff and Hella Bro.

The dusty wind that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The dusty breeze that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the dark of the night,
Lingered on the grit that builds in gutters,
Let fall upon its back the fumes from passing trucks,
Slipped by the balcony, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft September night,
Curled once about the block, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the dusty breeze that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to draw and to delete,
And time for all the works of mice and keys
That copy and paste the question like it’s meat;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the eating of bread and cheese.

On the forums posters come and go
Writing of Sweet Jeff and Hella Bro.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?”
Time to stop emailing, avoid the screen’s glare,
With wrinkles and sunspots making my skin less fair —
[They will say: “How her hips are much too thin!”]
My daytime jacket, my hemline pressed against my shin,
My frock rich and modest, but accessorised with a diamond pin —
[They will say: “But how her cheeks are looking thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all: —
Have known the artists, comics, websites,
I have measured my lovelife out with sweaty nights;
I know the avatars dying with a dying fall
Beneath the videos from youtube lite.
    So how should I presume?

And I have known the men already, known them all —
The men that fix you in a skin-tight dress
And when I am unguarded, sprawling on a pin
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin?
To spit out all the heartbreak of my days and ways?
    And how should I presume?

And I have known the legs already, known them all —
Legs that are long and muscled and lean
[But in the moonlight, rippling with an unearthly sheen!]
It is cologne from a shirt
That makes me such a flirt?
Legs that cross firmly beneath a table, or walk stately down the street.
    And how should I then presume?
    And how should I begin?

.  .  .  .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through busy streets
And watched the litter that falls from hands
Of dejected women in sweatpants, waiting for the bus? …

I should have been a plastic bag
Caught in the branches of an urban tree.

.  .  .  . 

And the evening, the late night, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by typing hands
Asleep … tired … or it expands,
Stretched on the internet, here between you and me.
Should I, after cheese and bread and wine,
Have the strength to force the moment to terror divine?
But though I have meditated and breathed, meditated and prayed,
Though I have seen my breasts [not quite yet sagging] drawn upon white paper
I am no prophet, and this moment is no great caper;
I have seen the beauty of my youth begin to taper,
And I have heard the ghost of agèd bodies see my perfect figure: “I’ll reshape her.”
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the wine, the whitebread, the brie,
Among the polished silver, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the internet into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am River, come from Serenity,
Come here to tell you all, I shall tell you all” —
If one, settling his arm upon his knee,
    Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
    That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the forums and the updates and the analogy attempts,
After the literature, after the wine cups, after the heartbeats gathered in my chest —
And this, and so much more? —
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if your strife scenes threw the thoughts in grist units upon my screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling his arm or slowing down his drawl,
And turning toward his laptop, should say:
    “That is not it at all,
    That is not what I meant, at all.”

.  .  .  .  .

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear frumpy clothes that crease and fold.

Shall I refuse to do my make-up?  Do I dare to eat a brat?
I shall wear baggy t-shirts, and loiter in a parking lot.
I have seen the tree sprites playing “catch-me-you-got-caught”.

I do not think that they will play with me.

I have watched them dancing merrily on the leaves
Rustling the branches of the leaves blown round
When the seasons blow the foliage green and brown.

We have lingered in the temples of the forest
By wood-nymphs wreathed with orchids from the mire
Till email inboxes rouse us, and we expire.