Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Guayaquil Guayas Ecuadoria

‘…Gallium Schoenoprasum, algebra is dead…’ bawled someone off in the distance. The day began then began again, the first time not nearly loud enough. ‘…beware of the dogmen of Menai Isle of Anglesey, they have razor-sharp teeth…’. The voice said things out of order, interrupting itself when need be. It came from nowhere and everywhere, quipping and letting go with whatever came to mind; faltering on jury mast and landmass, vowels and constantans, making sense where none existed before. ‘…Guayaquil Guayas Ecuadoria…’ the distant voice echoed, ‘…Guayaquil Guayas Ecuadoria, Schoenoprasum is dead...’.

He read about a family owned café in Guayaquil Guayas Ecuador where the proprietor’s wife made oxtail soup in a double-boiler, bits and ends of oxtail, skin and flayed meat churning and rising to the top of the simmer. She skimmed off the oil and fat, ladling fatty curds of oxtail and sinew into outstretched bowls. He ate in silence, the proprietor’s wife lording over them, her husband making the sign of the cross above his breastplate. He wanted to go there, to the café Guayaquil Guayas Ecuador, and eat bowlfuls of oily fat oxtail, his lips greasy with oxblood, the proprietor’s wife eying his suspiciously, her feet skimming the eating-room tiles in hobbled taps. He oftentimes dreamt that he was anywhere other than where he was.

He broke the stick in two, and offering the other half to the boy said ‘…whack the ball with the flat end…’. Taking the stick in his hands, the round end saddled in his palms, he threw it into the aqueduct and walked away, the alms man beside himself standing aside the aqueduct, the sun setting slowly behind the rushes. The rector’s first assistant lived in the Wadenswil Haus in Lebendigkeit before moving into the basement of the church; where he stayed for 27½ years, resigning his post when he could no longer raise his arms above his head. Oftentimes he slept behind the church, covering himself with torn burlap, the moon bellowing yellow murder into the bifurcation of his head. Before awaking each morning, which he did promptly at 27 minutes after seven, he would roll over and over, the burlap collecting dead rotten things, then coming to a stop at the foot of the embankment behind the church free himself from the orgy of sleep.

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"Poetry is the short-circuiting of meaning between words, the impetuous regeneration of primordial myth". Bruno Schulz
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