I wear
personality like a rumpled linen shirt.
And, also,
seersucker.
And, also, I
sweat profusely.
And, also, I
am almost forever impersonal.
And, also, I
am a poisonous man.
And, also,
antibiotics.
And, also, I
should base longing in the image:
And, also, a
dirt bike chained to a No Parking sign.
And, also,
the small brown bird Junco native to Virginia.
And, also,
imploding with song.
And, also,
an empty swimming pool.
And, also, a
teaspoon of blood.
And, also,
infinite war.
And, also,
breast implant bombs.
And, also,
feigned epiphany.
And, also,
for Prague.
And, also,
alleys of foaming lilac Kampa.
And, also,
chandelier St. Vitus.
And, also,
brown snail Vyšehrad.
And, also,
TV tower brainwash.
And, also,
the circus work week we tumble like juggernauts.
And, also,
no metaphor for.
And, also,
staggering desolation of Sunday train stations.
And, also,
the old foreboding.
And, also,
clouds muzzle the city.
And, also, a
skullcap of smoke.
And, also,
coffee coffee.
And, also,
occupy your pants.
And, also,
the unspoken rivalry of friends.
And, also,
the emotional uncertainty of men.
And, also,
aardvarks.
And, also,
death.
And, also,
forever July.
And, also,
fast fading.
And, also,
words we hope testify to life.
And, also,
silent failures.
And, also,
this ink spilled everywhere.
And, also,
of course, rain.
And, also,
run out of town.
And, also,
brown moths hatched in cabinet rice bags laying eggs in every warm
corner eating a hole through the
shoulder of my hound’s tooth jacket
devouring like words the page my
uneasiness.
And, also,
cruelty.
And, also, a
seesaw catapult cracked my baby teeth.
And, also,
salt peanuts.
And, also,
Beech-Nut snus.
And, also,
jumping jacks in your back pocket.
And, also,
scars show you care.
And, also, I
am scared.
And, also,
underage somewhere.
And, also,
change you can believe in isn’t.
And, also,
Frankenstein alcohol.
And, also,
discombobulating wind.
And, also,
hatred weather.
And, also,
an unfortunate tattoo.
And, also,
copied on VHS.
And, also,
minidisc.
And, also, a
lesson here somewhere.
And, also,
your vanity pulled down.
And, also,
don’t quote me.
And, also,
Derrida.
And, also,
Deleuze.
And, also,
unnecessarily citational.
And, also,[1]
And, also,
vanishing breath.
And, also, mystery.
And, also,
energy.
And, also,
absolute freedom.
And, also,
formal perfection.
And, also,
chestnut trees wave green flower-monogrammed farewell
handkerchiefs over the Jewish cemetery.
And, also,
doubt about everything.
And, also,
iodine.
And, also,
non-committal.
And, also,
switch-blade comb.
And, also, a
pomaded pompadour.
And, also,
the forced blindness of carriage horses.
And, also,
silly putty marketing.
And, also,
doo wop radio soprano.
And, also,
write like a man fast as I can I’m gonna.
And, also,
glue horseshoes.
And, also,
pants the gypsy.
And, also,
talent and the individual tradition.
And, also,
gritty sobriety.
And, also,
shot glass egg yoke.
And, also,
new words for technology and terror our contributions to language.
And, also,
if it hasn’t been done perhaps it’s not a good idea, the Nazi-hunting
poet said over cigarettes in a powder
blue linen summer suit dapper
fantastic.
And, also,
life is a crapshoot.
And, also,
that’s disgusting.
And, also,
when I meet my past I will pump him full of cracked iPads.
And, also, a
broken belt-loop.
And, also, a
$3,000 wig.
And, also,
bloodshot irises in the window box watercolor air of May morning
when I refuse to take pills for
hypertension.
And, also,
the afternoon I put a television in a phone booth.
And, also,
staggering Saturday Blue State streets with a trumpet and a toilet
seat.
And, also,
losing the feel of people.
And, also,
meek freedom.
And, also,
watermelon elephant.
And, also,
sorry, Tennessee.
And, also,
the double four-pronged plug fishing lure my father hung in the
shed remnants of a bluefish feeding
frenzy in the ‘70s after he was in the
Guinness Book for longest free dive
ascent under ice having dropped his
faulty tank returning to the surface.
And, also,
my parents were married in 1968.
And, also, a
Ukrainian worker writhing in dirt fallen off fifth-floor scaffolding
silently raining through trees.
And, also, a
pewter locket.
And, also,
only if.
And, also,
sunset Petřín pulsating like the shaman-torn voodoo heart in
Harrison Ford’s high-point performance.
And, also,
deep green June humidity road to the library tunneled with vines
sweaty denim.
And, also,
these miraculous puddles of thought.
And, also,
the temptation of farthest possibilities.
And, also, a
race in the Vltava, small sailboats called Optimists.
And, also,
words are sometimes like sails.
And, also,
better yet nets.
And, also,
surf casting from light into darkness.
Stephan Delbos
