The Empty Town

A chronicle of loneliness.

As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,

Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

-W.H. Auden

What I Saw Today

"If we imagine the eyes as navigational devices, we do so in order not to come to terms with what seeing really is. Seeing is like hunting and like dreaming, and even like falling in love. It is entangled in the passions - jealousy, violence, possessiveness; and it is soaked in affect - in pleasure and displeasure, and in pain. Ultimately, seeing alters the thing that is seen and transforms the seer. Seeing is metamorphosis, not mechanism."

-James Elkins, "The Object Stares Back"


Today I saw a movie. Today I watched myself hurt a friend. Today I took photos of empty streets and manikins for my assignment on Community. Today I wanted to see my parents, but instead I saw Jesus. A man walked by and told me that he was flying, because he was not on the cross and his arms were outstretched. He was strung up next to some animal bones on a fence, caught by a wire around his waist.

I took pictures of him, and wondered if he could fly away.

I Find It Hilarious That I Am Screwed

I went into the Ceramics Lab today and, lo and behold, the four six-inch ants that I had been lovingly crafting all week long were completely bone-dry. This means I can no longer alter them before they hit the kiln. It means I have to start over again to get the eight I was trying to make. The plastic looked as if it had been moved, too.

Did I mention this is all due Monday, and so are my prints for Photo class?

At least the amoebas are having a grand old time chilling in outer space.

I refuse to explain myself.

The Sleeping Woman and Other Nonsense

The most beautiful woman I have ever seen is in my Ceramics class. She is not a student. She is not the teacher. She sleeps, with her eyes closed, on the top shelf of the cabinets, in the back left corner of the studio. You can see her, from the collar bone to the top of her head. She pushes her neck out from over the edge of the cabinet. She is peach-colored, with a spray of white shooting from her neck to her eyelids. Flecks of pnemonia blue dot her complexion.

Above her perfectly curved nose, above her gently sloped forehead, is the abnormality. Her skull is caved clean in. Chunks of it sit inside of her empty head. She doesn't notice. Never will.

She sleeps quietly on, waiting, as she has been since Prometheus and Epimetheus took clay from the riverbed and carved all of us.