1
Spring, 1989
Under my toe, in front of the accelerator pedal
there's a newspaper with an article about the fall of the Berlin Wall
and I'm taking my car to have its oil changed
at the quick oil change place which is next to the old shopping center, which is next
to the new shopping center
at the edge of town.
I'm filling out the form, and I say it's a 1970 Plymouth Valiant.
"That car is older than I am!" says the girl behind the counter.
I'm sitting in the waiting room, and next to the pot of free coffee that's been on the
burner too long, there's a stack of books for sale, many copies of the same book, and
it's called "Chronicle of the 20th Century", even though the 20th century isn't over
yet, and it's marked down.
And I ask myself, how can there be a book called "Chronicle of the 20th Century"
when the 20th century isn't over yet. Then I remember, there was someone in the
news recently who said this was the End of History. Maybe that's the reason.
Finally the car is ready. I put my coffee cup into the free litter bag they hung on the
knob of the radio that doesn't work, and I put my credit card receipt in there too. I
start the car with the broken key. It still works because the other half of the key is still
in the lock.
And maybe history has ended, maybe they're burying the century before it's dead,
discounting it. But a 1970 Plymouth Valiant keeps on going forever. Even though the
odometer turned over a long time ago.
by Erik Nelson, 1992
2
As you drive past on the highway, the house is in your blind spot.
As you walk in, there are rooms to rent upstairs (pay once a week in cash) and downstairs,
A door of an apartment with glass panes top to bottom, papered over
Except for the two bottom corner panes, where two cats have scraped away the paper to
make windows.
As you walk in the two cats walk up to the windows
Like the eyes of a drunk man waking up.
The upstairs neighbor came down to visit the man in the apartment
And found him unconscious in front of the TV set.
The neighbor knew the man had AIDS and feared the worst, and called an ambulance.
When the paramedics arrived, the man said “Go away! I’m fine!”
And one of the paramedics said to him, “no, you’re not fine. You have pneumocystis,”
And the other paramedic said to the neighbor, “well, we’re not going to kidnap him if he’s not
willing to come with us.”
And they left without him, and he argued with the neighbor:
“I was sleeping! Can’t you see there were pillows under my head?”
”I’m the one who put the pillows there.”
And so, we remember you, the way you cheerfully served us drinks as we watched movies on
tape in the living room with pictures of Marilyn Monroe.
But when your face turned red and
you made wet coughing noises it was time to leave, so we didn’t have to see you weren’t fine.
And one day you phoned in to say you couldn’t come to work at the hair salon, but you
managed to stay fine enough until then.
We wish we could have helped more, but we all went away, because you were fine.
3
The Muse laments; and asks the question "Why
is this my job, to hang out with this guy
and stare at his perennial blank page
and watch him go through every little stage
that everyone goes through-- it's such a bore
to watch him say things others said before
the same old junk and I've got to pretend it's new
i'd rather go away and do a few
projects of my own that matter more.
I'm tired of always playing second fiddle
to some Narcissus wrapped in his own riddle
I think I have some better things to do
This stuff's not too important to ignore
[written april 23, 1991, revised later en]
4
Nakedness and Real Estate
Chorus:
Nakedness and Real Estate, Real Estate, Real Estate
Nakedness and Real Estate, What is the link?
Verse 1:
Take off your clothes and you're wearing your house
now. Take off your house and you're wearing the sky.
There's fleas in my trousers, there's ants in my
kitchen, there's slugs in my garden, there's planes in
my sky.
Verse 2:
I want to take off my suit with brass buttons so I
first press some buttons on my burglar alarm.
Some things belong inside, some things belong outside
If these things mix together I would feel alarmed.
By Erik, circa 1992
(what was I thinking here?
I hit on something.
I wrote this because I was essentially frustrated that there was a conflict between the
privatization/gentrification of formerly public space and the need to make personal space. Or
something like that. What does it mean? I do not know. But I mean it.)
5
It wasn’t me!
I swear it wasn’t me.
It was another man with the same name
who left town on another train
and went and caught another plane
I swear to God it was’nt me.
File me under “miscellaneous.”
Perhaps I’ll meet my brothers there.
Perhapse I’ll see some others there.
Who but I will know the difference?
The facts don’t really matter.
There is really only spin.
Somewhere there’s a different guy
Who it could have been.
en circa 2003
6
Is it true that truth is stranger than fiction? After all, it is easy to imagine things that are
impossible. But the truth of the matter is truth is more complex than fiction. A work of fictio
has as much as a person can write in however many pages they've got. Reality has infinitely
more things in it than that.
There is no such thing as tellin " the whole truth". If the truth is a rich, thick, soup, then any
report of the truth is what you would get if you dipped a string in the soup and let it dry. If the
truth is the sea, any eyewitness report of the truth is like dredging up a lot of dead fish and
kelp.
Why am I writing this? It's sort of like saying "speak, memory" or "hear, o muse," or whtever
way of translating the first line of the Odeyssey you prefer, if the muse isn't hearing, if memory
isn't speaking quite yet, like a clogged fountain pen or a ketchup bottle. I once went to a show
in a sort of conceptual-art style wherer there was a guy who was getting dressed, but he
wasn't really. He was going through the motions of getting ready to get dressed in every
possible combination, without making any progress but always looking like he was getting on
with it.
So GET ON WITH IT already, I hear you say, begin at the beginning. But I say, there is no
beginning. No place that is the right place to start. Well, start somewhere, you say. Anywhere.
Just GET ON WITH IT.
en july 05 retyped sep. 17 05