orr

Time to shut up.
Voltaire said the secret
Of being boring
Is to say everything.

And yet I held
Back about love
All those years:
Talking about death
Insistently, even
As I was alive;
Talking about loss
As if all was loss,
As if the world
Did not return
Each morning.
As if the beloved
Didn't long for us.

No wonder I go on
So. I go on so
Because of the wonder. (83)

Orr, Gregory. Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon P, 2005.

alameddine

I wake up in my own room. I try to get up. I am unable to. I can't move. There is nothing constraining me. I should be able to get up. I am unable to. I am terrified. I realize I am still sleeping. I am dreaming. I wake up. I try to get up. I am unable to. I can't move. There is nothing constraining me. I should be able to get up. I am unable to. I am terrified. I realize I am still sleeping. I am dreaming. I wake up. I try to get up. I am unable to. I can't move. There is nothing constraining me. I should be able to get up. I am unable to. I am terrified. I realize I am still sleeping. I am dreaming. I wake up. I try to get up. I am unable to. I can't move. there is nothing constraining me. I should be able to get up. I an unable to. I am terrified. I realize I am still sleeping. I am dreaming. Life is a repeating pattern. (95)

I wanted to write an endless book of time. It would have no beginning and no end. It would not flow in order. The tenses would make no sense. A book whose first page is almost identical to the last, and all the pages in between are jumbled with an interminable story. A book which would make both Kant and Jung proud. (118)

Alameddine, Rabih. Koolaids: The Art of War. New York: Picador, 1998.