Fatalville, Ark by Franz Wright

Fatalville, ARK

To you this world’s the other world. The first transparent leaves wind-blown to spreading green flames—how strange everything looks all at once, my room looks different, and I am afraid of it. You’ll never guess why the universe just turned into somebody’s name, the morning light a look of love: a single double-nostriled blast (40 mg per). A single white rose glows on the tabletop, filling the room with the distant and close to inaudible voices singing from its whorled earlike depths, the connection nearly lost … What can you do but walk toward it? I cross the room for several years staying one step ahead of the avalanche and resisting attempting, at each star-filled canyon’s ledge, flight. I reach the bed at last and lie down, like you entertaining no need whatsoever to open my eyes, to move my hand, or pronounce another word, ever. Let someone else give it a try, and they will, too. My friend I never met, I think you would agree: the deans are never going to let that cow go. I don’t wonder how many more of them there are these days, all those masters of the art in their early twenties, just like John Keats and Hart Crane! We don’t have to think about it anymore. The poet will come, no matter what they do.