II.
1.
Clare is the “rootless”
“cosmopolitan” nomadic . . .
the extension à 80s Euro
cocaine ennui jetset
to its Ballardian xtreme,
rootless center
of a disintegrating, metamorphosizing
(“corrupt” per H & N),
CULTURE.
In every place the nomadic
“Clare” shows,
there are recognizable markers of
place
smeared across the landscape
like oils with a pallet knife
Clare, who “never sleeps”, is continuously
falling asleep –
on trains and buses, in taxis and
waiting rooms –
asleep almost as much as awake – continuously
in motion,
continuously weary
Paris à Berlin à Lisbon
narrow
streets wind up and down,
hillsides,
stairs, levels, paths,
lines
of flight
Moscow by 747
(TRANS
SIBERIAN EXPRESS SUNG LI STATION)
Beijing
Tokyo
labyrinth
levels
arcade
line of flight, like Harry Lime
in the sewers of Vienna
by
ship to
ààààààà
San Francisco
(“the
biochemical event of seeing”)
blindness, motion, and vision. impermanence
and flux.
2.
Australia
going
to that arid place at the end of the world
“my
bag? traveling separately.”
The Y2k of self-consumption
The horror of open space
cesura
terrible things have happened
happens in the worst of times
down into the tunnels
down
caves, canyons, valleys,
mountains –
When we touch the earth, it will
kill us.
Dreams and visions
Creation and theft
The unbearable sadness,
the unbearable ugliness of
creation
“You can’t just decide to die.”
“I don’t decide anything. I just
let it happen.”
3.
They have become addicted
to their catalog of images.
They wandered in and out of lost
worlds –
feelings and figures emerge
from a lost past – their dreams
become black holes of isolation –
they suffered finally from a
complete loss
of identity reality.
