ROBERTA FLACK
Resolve to be more actual. At present, there is a man with an open wound in front of this coffee shop. He is bleeding and difficult to avoid. There's a crowd of people around him, all ambiguously homeless, sharing a cigarette and 40 ounces of beer between them. It's just before 4 p.m.
The wound—or, less likely, the man—attracts the attention of those walking into the shop. It's uncommon. People look without pausing, though the image must be with them until they get their coffees and find seats and think about how girls with small heads look understandable in brimmed hats, or how thick-rimmed glasses make people with overbites look like they'd be encyclopedic about something singular, like jazz in Harlem or Kubrick's childhood, or whatever other revelations are possible in this brief space, until the image escapes the part of the brain we use. I think the image is still up there, for good: this guy is bleeding from his face. We will dream about blood.
Last night my dreams were unsettling: intruder dreams. There was nothing I could do to stop the intruders or the dreams. I kept thinking (in the dream), don't look at their faces, as if that would neutralize the metaphor. There's no unconscious neutrality. In dreams, control is fictional. That's what makes the mind a frontier, I guess.
The wound is above the man's right eye. It's really deep, which is easy to tell since the skin around it is filthy and brown. There's an eye of pink inside the cut. It looks like his eye is sinking into its socket, because his forehead is swollen and an inch of it is separated and jutting forward. Blood is pooling below and around his eye, I think some of it is under the skin. What happened to this guy? I passed him an hour ago on Haight Street, where he was laughing. Laughing.
Now I'm looking at him again. The blood is drying, maroon-ing. Recurrence makes it impossible to avoid the process of omen.
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The wound—or, less likely, the man—attracts the attention of those walking into the shop. It's uncommon. People look without pausing, though the image must be with them until they get their coffees and find seats and think about how girls with small heads look understandable in brimmed hats, or how thick-rimmed glasses make people with overbites look like they'd be encyclopedic about something singular, like jazz in Harlem or Kubrick's childhood, or whatever other revelations are possible in this brief space, until the image escapes the part of the brain we use. I think the image is still up there, for good: this guy is bleeding from his face. We will dream about blood.
Last night my dreams were unsettling: intruder dreams. There was nothing I could do to stop the intruders or the dreams. I kept thinking (in the dream), don't look at their faces, as if that would neutralize the metaphor. There's no unconscious neutrality. In dreams, control is fictional. That's what makes the mind a frontier, I guess.
The wound is above the man's right eye. It's really deep, which is easy to tell since the skin around it is filthy and brown. There's an eye of pink inside the cut. It looks like his eye is sinking into its socket, because his forehead is swollen and an inch of it is separated and jutting forward. Blood is pooling below and around his eye, I think some of it is under the skin. What happened to this guy? I passed him an hour ago on Haight Street, where he was laughing. Laughing.
Now I'm looking at him again. The blood is drying, maroon-ing. Recurrence makes it impossible to avoid the process of omen.
ROBERTA FLACK's WEBSITE
ROBERTA FLACK on WIKIPEDIA
ROBERTA FLACK on AMAZON
