After Magritte

Either there's no pattern anymore or the pattern's so large it hovers around and beyond my own ability to see it. This is not an embarassing confessional. I meant to tell you about how my madman brother jittered and stomped to Balkan punk until the tips of his needs-combed hair were dripping, until he sank head down with his back against the art gallery wall, his hands gripping his shins. That's what I meant to say.

I danced, too, it's not as if I'm a split-nosed un-stuffed kangaroo pocketing dust in the closet. I got down. I stomped, shook, revelled. And I drank the whole bottle of Jameson, although I didn't mean to. This confessional is not embarassing, it's only like the other three pages I wrote yesterday, slightly sad. Either the pattern's destroyed or it blurs my vision, like spray from Buckingham Fountain.

It's a warm thought to have a bottle of Jameson in the house, promising a warm belly to further fuzz the mind after it's been worn frizzy grading papers all day. Tonight, for instance, would be a perfect night for a drink, warm and slow, sipped from a clean glass, rare in our house. But this is not a confessional, it's a longing. Either my vision blurs or my mind erodes patterns.

It's always been the music that shakes the soul. The words only attempt to house an impression. My fingers spit them out without consulting the brain. Like now. This is not a confessional. This is not a confessional. This is not a confessional.