JEANNE LANCE

SILENCE ON SATURDAY

"One way to break the hold of the other is to assume it's yourself."
-- Barrett Watten

Looking for the necessary, the real, repeatable. Presenting this statement to find the person to speak to. Some parts of a photograph jump out at you & the others are flat. My work is private & contained. Don't attempt to make a conception of what I do, because pleasure is beyond daily rendering. Later as a result of hard work, central placement might suggest flowering prisms or the flaw of respectability. Who am I? An exile, a woman inside the passionate force.

We now proceed to the plot, its abode, the need to awaken each moment to music. . . that creation is built on nothing. . . the formula to forget tired feet.

People want to go to houses that are pretty; my chairs, the wastebasket are dirty, patched things. Someone is judging me through the mess.

I could move away from oblique edges. Work myself to the center & experience the intensity. We need a determinate sentence. (Everyone is trying to escape.)

The young need me & I need the old. Often a detail eludes me, causing trouble. People regress into doorways. (The state of things being more interesting than their condition.) Sometimes I am desperate, staying in all day with these feelings.

Leaving our caverns for a predetermined point as sentries. Refusing to be different--this is what we are & place ourselves in--not arrogant, seeking redemption.

No desire to talk to him, selfish & obtrusive bully. Enjoying his company precludes telling him the truth. Go on, get out of here. I thought I could get away from your voice among the plants of my living room, all flowing into my bedroom. (When I abandoned the inner dialogue, the heresy subsided.)

Food corrupt & the afternoon empty. I continue to think of him (myself). Think of another, my lover. What a lot of treasures are stored in this room.

The drama of fall plays itself out. This is the directive: voice, measure, a dance, or a song.

Peace to you & love. That was what was unfolding: the communal. Often I lie in bed all day encountering a change. Out there I thought "stay with me," but I couldn't say it.