A Dialogue / The Aleph
a pound fer yer thoughts — a penny fer the old guy:
tis been six weeks since the old binter left,
no more thoughtful than the change
in my sickly pockit;
how bout yerself?
been reet. been reet.
just get the feelin that maybe she
ent really gone;
an i spent long enuf
thinking about the old binter that
sometimes she’s relly there.
The Aleph on the wall comes first:
And all around in the room, people
Enter and exit, stage this and that,
Set up for some song and dance.
Times like this I wish I were deaf.
an its not like she sed nuff’n—
one day it were all sunny shinin an cutesy
roun the back an et; then she were done,
never did hear
nother word.
o I saw er:
i didn’t pay no time ner mind
no penny fer that old binter
aftah she did’t’yh.
fank, fank. an i wish i were strong’n’like’tha:
but n’i know if the old lass
came round bein crass and showin off
i’d be the first to chuck a coin in that old whole’n’all.
got no self respek. no chance. can’ help’n’m’se’h.
My eyes are drawn back to the Aleph.
It’s the only one here who is solemn:
The rest are gargling absinthe, and
Sniffing a powder I know isn’t snuff.
Sometimes think I could have made
A good corpse. Better not to breathe.
notter mention, she’d’a bin talkin too much to that fecker.
like an’as if I warnt there. so much fer love!
so much fer a state of romanz!
feck’er. i sed: feck’er. which’n fecker
you sed she speakin to?
fecker’n wi’tha funny eye. ’e got that eye
tha’s feck’n’d’all. an i know the cunt—
feck’er got a rite ’orn for the lassie.
an i say so. been thinkin on that one. cunt’s ’ungry’n’al’f’r’er’fan.
jus say f’k’al. no worth it. binter’s gon.
an yer rite. iss’a sham. not a fam no’wort the time.
eh’s tima’ledditgoh. or yer’k’ledditgettay’.
an then yr f’ck’d.
In the Aleph is all of spaced time,
And only I can see it twisting like
Candy cane like epigram like rite
To raise the dead. But, no. Then,
Yells, I am resurrected to the bells.
Seeing my days on crud-encrusted
Earth in Technicolor lens and flare.
bezzusarolliewouldyfam. sick us one. fuckusacig.
ye.
y’n’d’a’fag’t’feckaway’t’rancid’n’tha. all ’em leave.
y’d need one but mate. think. ’n tha’s’it.
tis wha’td’is. ye. but not wha’could be.
yns on the binter still?
am’n’al. am’n’al. wha’s’e got’n’tha i dont?
an mate its no tha. its no tha.
tha’s just it. tis tha’n’all.
an a but i gave her time. i gave her my all for two year’n’al.
two year. two year’n’al for her to just turn her eyes away an
two year’n’al for her to treat me like a feck’n’fool. an i am.
a feck’n’jit. fel.
All I see is the Aleph. It draws me
Quite slowly into its world. And, yet,
Even beyond this parlour of aether,
This world of fuck’d-up dreams:
I am stronger than the Aleph. It haunts
My daylight hours, it makes me a
Foolish folk in this room of drawl;
Even in peaceable, less noisesome
Moments, I sit by the Aleph, dreaming
Like a drunken butterfly of what time
Might be. And it is time to break
Such idiocy: for you are just a silly girl,
And I am a fool of a man. But even
A fool can dance around that which
Temptation lies out, like spoiled food,
Like a meal of rancid flies and mulch;
I am a fool, but I shall dance hereafter
And for all time without your sly finger:
For it shall not draw me, tho it draw
Many a man. The Aleph is my future,
All my dimensions contained, withall.
My strength, God-gained, peaces
The clamour of obsessive pacing;
Up and down, tasking and displacing
A certain lust turned now to displeasure;
And my leisure is not to ascertain
This burden’d lust but to contain
A nightmare’s seat at the crown
Of all dimensional congregation—
So in this masterful degradation
Of sin of thought I stand affront:
The Aleph has enough to confront.
an tha’s my part. an feck’t’al.
