This town has its mouth around an exhaust pipe. A billion cubic inches of poisonous gas to fill every last alveolus in its cancerous lung; the urban tumour grows and pulsates and glows and flickers; acidic, insidious and toxic virus spread. I don't live in this city: I am outside it, I am above it. I am of greater things than asphalt and alcohol, I am of higher places than crossroads and gutters. I am not storm drains or telegraph poles. I am not made of bricks and mortar nor of glass and steel. I am flesh and blood and spirit and soul and the city is rotting from the inside out and I'm taking it with me.
Sidewalks slick with decaying rainfall reflecting geriatric streetlamps and zoetroping traffic headlights flashing spectral rhythms over block after block after block after block after block animating stills of movement taken from snapshots in old newspapers all brown and grey of men in hats and horseless carriages and Cadillacs and Toyotas and women in shorts and haltertops and policemen and criminals and human roadkill asphalt jelly spread over their cartoon gridiron pavement home. Exulted triumph in demise. I am discord and disarray. I don't live in this city: I pick it apart piece by piece.
Great castiron battleships sail between rooftops threatening salvo fire from guns as big as a man in batteries taller than the tallest tower to shatter glass and lay waste, razed, reduced to piles of cinderblocks in crossroads. Fear. Far away fear. I don't live in this city: I approach over the ocean: storms and ships fighting in the harbour and on the river and in the ports and spilling on the streets. Thunder. Grumbling first. Growling. Growing. Groaning. Grating grinding great sheets of metal crash collide crackling flowing disintegrating crumbling grumbling growling mumbling humming one last rumble gone. Fear far away fear crouched catlike over the ocean. I do not live in this city: I come at it sideward.
I'm not here. Not really. I don't live in this city. Call me a ghost if you want, I won't mind. Call me a spectre, a dream, a spirit, anything. Just don't say that I'm really here, because I'm not. Everybody knows me, but everybody knows that I don't exist. I am not tangible nor am I corporeal, nor visible in any real sense. I'm a feeling. An intuition. I'm that little hand that pulls your stomach down into your crotch. I'm not here, not really, but you can feel me. I don't live in this city, I stalk through it. I'll find you. Hide away in your sunny days and your happy children, but I will find you. You can't hide from your fear after you've given it a name.
Name a street. Any street. Name it after your great patriots, your great artists, your great liberators and your great oppressors. Name it after your great rivers, your great lakes, your great oceans or mountains or forests. Name it after your saints or your gods or your devils and sinners. Name it after your love. Name it after your loss. Name it after your conquest and your defeat. Name it after nothing. Make something up. What do I care? Streets don't need names. Streets have names for convenience and for ego. Wouldn't you like a street named after you? Who wouldn't? Or a square maybe? An avenue or a boulevard? Streets don't need names. Streets are named after nothings and nobodies. What's the difference what a street is called when there's nobody on it? Empty things don't need names.
Empty glasses rolling on empty tables and empty chairs upturned in empty rooms. Empty houses in empty suburbs and empty echoes in empty theatres. Empty books on empty shelves and empty records in empty players. Empty apartments and empty hotel rooms and empty taxicabs abandoned on empty corners with their doors open swaying in the breeze like empty flags. Empty shops with empty registers and empty bars with empty bottles. Empty rivers and empty bridges and empty ports with empty ships. Empty promises and empty platitudes and empty meetings and empty goodbyes. Empty coffee cups and empty pastry cases, empty refrigerators and empty cupboards. Empty hellos. Empty I love yous. Empty words. Empty of all meaning. Empty nameless, empty saturation. Empty city. Empty hearts full of fear. I don't live in this city: I empty it.
The city has its lips around that pipe and it's gulping down carbon monoxide like white milk from the teat. Everything crumbling and falling and buildings coming down slowly at first then so fast you can't keep up. There is death everywhere. Death and fear and beauty hidden within. Somewhere deep inside there is something beautiful and shining: under the city there is light within decay. I don't live here, but I come when it's bright and resplendent and I bring cannon and battleship and I bring storm and I bring chaos and I regret nothing.
Snowdrifts and skylarks glittering. Peace and beauty and the absence of fear. I walk around and see things so nice here sometimes, so good to take in. It breaks from the grey. If the sun catches a building in the right way, or the snow piles up on the riverbank, then it seems like I forget myself for a moment. I close my eyes and feel the city move around me and let the wind carry my fear away. That's no good. I need fear. I'm nothing without it. I need to remind myself to stay dispassionate and disinterested but sometimes the sunlight and the snowfall take over and I'm overwhelmed by light and warmth and love and wonderful things human beings are capable of when they forget that I'm here and I almost smile. But then it only takes one. One small slipup by one small single self and I close my eyes and I feel the city move around me and I let the wind carry my fear down every street and infect every heart with the cancerous virus of despair. I don't live here, but I'm always asked back.
Great castiron battleships sail between rooftops threatening salvo fire from guns as big as a man in batteries taller than the tallest tower to shatter glass and lay waste, razed, reduced to piles of cinderblocks in crossroads. Fear. Far away fear. I don't live in this city: I approach over the ocean: storms and ships fighting in the harbour and on the river and in the ports and spilling on the streets. Thunder. Grumbling first. Growling. Growing. Groaning. Grating grinding great sheets of metal crash collide crackling flowing disintegrating crumbling grumbling growling mumbling humming one last rumble gone. Fear far away fear crouched catlike over the ocean. I do not live in this city: I come at it sideward.
I'm not here. Not really. I don't live in this city. Call me a ghost if you want, I won't mind. Call me a spectre, a dream, a spirit, anything. Just don't say that I'm really here, because I'm not. Everybody knows me, but everybody knows that I don't exist. I am not tangible nor am I corporeal, nor visible in any real sense. I'm a feeling. An intuition. I'm that little hand that pulls your stomach down into your crotch. I'm not here, not really, but you can feel me. I don't live in this city, I stalk through it. I'll find you. Hide away in your sunny days and your happy children, but I will find you. You can't hide from your fear after you've given it a name.
Name a street. Any street. Name it after your great patriots, your great artists, your great liberators and your great oppressors. Name it after your great rivers, your great lakes, your great oceans or mountains or forests. Name it after your saints or your gods or your devils and sinners. Name it after your love. Name it after your loss. Name it after your conquest and your defeat. Name it after nothing. Make something up. What do I care? Streets don't need names. Streets have names for convenience and for ego. Wouldn't you like a street named after you? Who wouldn't? Or a square maybe? An avenue or a boulevard? Streets don't need names. Streets are named after nothings and nobodies. What's the difference what a street is called when there's nobody on it? Empty things don't need names.
Empty glasses rolling on empty tables and empty chairs upturned in empty rooms. Empty houses in empty suburbs and empty echoes in empty theatres. Empty books on empty shelves and empty records in empty players. Empty apartments and empty hotel rooms and empty taxicabs abandoned on empty corners with their doors open swaying in the breeze like empty flags. Empty shops with empty registers and empty bars with empty bottles. Empty rivers and empty bridges and empty ports with empty ships. Empty promises and empty platitudes and empty meetings and empty goodbyes. Empty coffee cups and empty pastry cases, empty refrigerators and empty cupboards. Empty hellos. Empty I love yous. Empty words. Empty of all meaning. Empty nameless, empty saturation. Empty city. Empty hearts full of fear. I don't live in this city: I empty it.
The city has its lips around that pipe and it's gulping down carbon monoxide like white milk from the teat. Everything crumbling and falling and buildings coming down slowly at first then so fast you can't keep up. There is death everywhere. Death and fear and beauty hidden within. Somewhere deep inside there is something beautiful and shining: under the city there is light within decay. I don't live here, but I come when it's bright and resplendent and I bring cannon and battleship and I bring storm and I bring chaos and I regret nothing.
Snowdrifts and skylarks glittering. Peace and beauty and the absence of fear. I walk around and see things so nice here sometimes, so good to take in. It breaks from the grey. If the sun catches a building in the right way, or the snow piles up on the riverbank, then it seems like I forget myself for a moment. I close my eyes and feel the city move around me and let the wind carry my fear away. That's no good. I need fear. I'm nothing without it. I need to remind myself to stay dispassionate and disinterested but sometimes the sunlight and the snowfall take over and I'm overwhelmed by light and warmth and love and wonderful things human beings are capable of when they forget that I'm here and I almost smile. But then it only takes one. One small slipup by one small single self and I close my eyes and I feel the city move around me and I let the wind carry my fear down every street and infect every heart with the cancerous virus of despair. I don't live here, but I'm always asked back.
I don't live in this city. I just walk around it, on its slimy pavements and through its skeletal alleyways. I don't live in this city but I can smell it rising from the cobblestones. I don't live in this city but I can feel it breaking wavecrest rooftops over my head. I don't live in this city: I inhabit it. I have become its streets and its buildings, its pipes and its sewers, its arteries and its senses. I have become every pair of feet on concrete and every pair of nostrils sucking down exhaust fumes. I've become every heart breaking and every conversation flowing and every couple fucking. I am every apartment and townhouse, every parking lot and office block, every bar and every whorehouse and every junkie scrounging for change. I am flesh and blood and spirit and soul and I am the fear that rises from the street on dark nights when it rains. I am the fear that men carry in their hearts. I am human, all too human.
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