the formlessness
that I mentioned somewhere
created for us boys the necessary distance
but it was also to provoke others
with their 'no good boy' prejudices:
the language one elicits by 'being different'
and thus in turn the others ongoing stupidity sorted them out
while my friend's chauffeur
shut the door and we drove off..
wanting to be unlike others
to nearly sing the text I was reading to the class
between tears and laughter then
the goodness of a drawn-out orgasm
boys bragged about...
and wanted always more
and again and again then again
even in another language:
Lisbon while still under dictatorship
the blackness of the suits
unsmiling faces,
we went up to the Castle and looked west
into the sun
or the monks waiting walking naked into the Atlantic
so different from the monks that instructed in religion
and the boys who skipped class
and went deep into the dark forest
even on short winter days
the snow seemed always warmer
yes, the formlessness,
but as my father said, it must be pleasing to the eyes
it must be painterly, artistic, an unforgettable face
you would want to get closer to
to discover talk then walk and then discover fewer words
wasn't that the reason French, each word
that made us boys travel and travel to France
drink wine and discover more
inside that language
more than we could at home...
please! shy away from all form;
how many funerals and always that dark suit
and a darker tie !
but then, all that form and that very same constrained culture
destroyed itself, Jazz in the church for liberation dance
as if there was not a bombed out church near by
but the very same words
come back, always meant to come back
a warriors god never gets away from the living
no war is ever lost except to the dead
and so they shape once again everybody
to suit the old old fashioned form
the only one, the legal form,
law's unseen terror
walking in darkest suits