Mostly Moving - Excerpt From: 200 Pages of Poetic Writing

Excerpt from: 200 Pages of Poetic Writing
by Barry Doupé

from MM05, released March 2020

----

All of the blue skies. All the flowers in the world all coming up all at the same time, all in the same place. All of time happens at once. I’m going to buy all the roses on earth. Are you going to buy all the roses on earth? Yes. A giant yes. A big question mark. A big door closing. I’m too big for myself. Footsteps in all directions, going nowhere. See something that you’re surrounded by. The place where all places meet. The most distant object, ever. Sometimes images marry each other. A pillow lighted by a moon beam. My imagination is bleeding. My soul sat down in the shade. My soul never bathed.

It starts to rain. Rain falling at the edge of the world. Rain on an orange pretending to be colour. Rain becomes the memory of all rains. A garden becomes a memory of all gardens. A rainbow cut in two had blue sky in its centre. Torn by the rain. A disturbing shadow strangulated at the centre. I wrote a poem about the rain. It was called “Rain.” It was fantastic.

Wherever you go, there you are. The world was just as it should be, only bigger. I can’t be any happier. But then, I keep getting happier. Bluer. Say the alphabet with your hands running in cold water. The silhouette walked out of the mirror. Between one self and another. Two people walk straight into each other. The world that is, is the only world that is. You can’t walk past a trillion dollars. We’ve seen ourselves through each other. We will never see each other naked. We hurt ourselves when we become naked. Putting into something that which is not there. Paint a common object a really bright colour.

Even if you are not in a relationship, you are. With yourself. Turn around and face yourself. Describe yourself. Explain colour with your nose. Explain one sense with another sense. You can mean the opposite of yourself. Can you mean the opposite of yourself? To stand beside yourself. To stand beside what? A balloon of yourself. The world is in a relationship with itself. One idea against an idea. A poetic idea of poetry. Language communicates itself. My hole was made for me. Two men are almost facing each other. They form the same thing they are. A thing. It does not matter what kind of thing. Just an ordinary thing. Linking seeing with thinking and making.

This rose was white before I dipped it in blood. Falling in love is similar to falling out of love. We don’t love to die. I have to die a little. And after, I have to die a lot. kill me very realistically. A good person in a bad movie. A bad person in a good movie. How do you want me to see you? This pebble perpetuates its own memory. Imagine me. Place my face. What does the world really look like? You haven’t seen a woman’s body yet. A work of hands. Everything was supposed to be beautiful. I can’t believe how many things looked beautiful. There was nothing between my mouth and my stomach. remember thinking and almost feeling. Was I ever that young? What is all this blood? I love, love.

Don’t shout. I can only shout. Let them know that love can be cried out. What does the scream of a butterfly sound like? I don’t want to scream. But I did. After that, I found it relaxing to scream. What is love? What could it be? Love is power. Beautiful people have beautiful feelings. Love comes through the gap in the logic of the Universe. Love and death. What other subjects are there? I want to see the ocean. I want to love a person. When will I see a train? It’s tomorrow, isn’t it? I saw and I didn’t see. I saw the idea. I’m eating a strawberry and a raspberry at the same time. I happen to my life at the same time things happen to me.

The waitress wasn’t just a waitress. She was a person in her own light. Where does food come from? I can’t remember. Which flavours belong to which foods? I can’t remember. What colour is the sea? What colour should the sea be? I can’t remember. Become a light under yourself. Moonlight recollected by daylight. Rip up my doodles. I have not created you. I know what a penis does. Is it okay for men to be naked? Am I going to look at myself again? The truth is a question. To be or not to be drunk, that is the question. What gives things a face? That is the question. How do you open a door? Your questions have questions. A question that every man has to answer. I have to answer the question of my own life.

I tried to figure out where babies came from without asking. You draw yourself crying. Time becomes part of life. Delineate. I was on my hands and knees looking for a crying baby in the carpet. Everything that happens, happens twice. What time is the best time? The rose peddle touched the elephant's toe like a baby. Like the reflection of a baby chicken’s foot on black marble. I can only touch me through your hands. Your little finger moves me.

Wherever life touches us most directly, that’s where you’ll find me. This place that can’t be touched, it’s real. You can say something like that? Touched by a rose. I’m pouring myself back into myself. I feel like myself again. An open object. Two hands barley touching. It was my sister. It was me. You are a flower. You are my flower. The flower which must not be broken. Give yourself to me. Your physical body doesn’t matter. She keeps herself to herself. Bubbles are real. Bubbles are real before they burst. Fruit is real. Fruit is a thing that is most like itself before it dies. I’ll remember you. I’m rubbed all over. I don’t need ears, eyes hands or legs. Hold my other hand. If your hand is on your knee, you didn’t put it there.

When you look for things, you look for me. When you dream, you dream of me. This is a dream. Inside of a dream. I love it. All dreams have a sexual meaning. Except the overtly sexual dreams. A thing that doesn’t represent a thing. It’s its own thing. A little boy dreamed of being a big boy. I had a dream last night. An accident and a miracle at the same time. Things become bigger through art. I feel myself shrinking into myself. Playing two saxophones at once.

I’m interested in my death. My death feels like all of the deaths. Widen the walls of my thoughts. I don’t hate life. I hate life without bubbles. I was looking out the window and the sun hit me in the head. What I said couldn’t have been said, unless I was struck on the head. The story might not be the true story. I’m a mystery. You can’t solve me. The best place to bury a body is in another body. In your own body. Don’t hurt me. Destroy me.

We know the sound of all the sounds. Different objects sound like different things. Beautiful cars sound beautiful. A bird sounds different than a lion. Two trees falling down at the same time. It sounded nothing like the way it looks. The sound of the sound, of the sound. My shoes are talking to my coffee maker as I sleep. The voice is sex. Noise is really music. Raindrops on roses and a brown paper bag tied with string. There is nothing outside of creation. A butterfly is not as crazy as a taxi cab. See. Anyway. I'm not sure how deep mysteries are. I want to know the thoughts of God. He took his voice away from himself. His head fills the window. The clouds turn white again. Why?

Something's happening. Something very important. Something weird is happening to time. What makes a boomerang come back? My mind does something that isn’t different from what a pencil does when it rests on a table. There was something in the image that made no sense. Hey, look at that dog. Isn’t that something. The moment of perceiving something without the something. I want you to pretend to be your dog. Reject his own soul. I want to be like a dog coming out of a lake. Unwalking and walking. Dogs think like dogs. He smiles the way dogs smile.

Using only one hand means you only half believe. My hands are too heavy to touch you. Your shadow is faint. Start searching for the other half of your shadow. With half his hands. Cut a piano in half. Make a chicken laugh. Try and take a half step. Just try and take a half step. My window is closing. I’m trying to go but I’m gone. I am in a dark place. The darkest place. Riding coloured horses. I’ve heard babies cry. Never give yourself up completely. Take a half step. To it, against it, with it.

You’re teaching babies everything you know and babies are teaching you everything they know. If you know where you are you know who you are. My voice is carrying your voice. A real conversation in real time. The baby sitter bought a dog. Her horse went missing. The voice of a crawling baby is not the same as that of an old man walking with the help of a stick. Babies look like babies. I think of you as a thought. Several fallen feathers. I want to touch the word humour. I want to touch the word zany and playful. What can you do with too much? A hand and a hand and a hand and a hand.

Blowing out candles is beautiful. All the colours you can’t see. It’s beautiful. The blue of the sky was almost beautiful. Beautiful people looking beautiful. I’m hiding behind a trash can because it’s windy. Obviously it’s beautiful. I wonder why it is that I find something beautiful. What is reflected back to us about ourselves in those things we find beautiful? A beautiful woman is going to decay. I know that death will be beautiful. Ugliness is beauty at rest. Kids don’t know that mountains are beautiful. You have to explain it to them. Tell me how to look pretty. I am a fact. Like rain. Like fire. Like the air. I have seen every part of my body. Art can do things that other things can’t do. I can look in a room and tell you what’s going on inside a room.

Rodeos exist because you want your hat to fall off. What is available to want? Brush strokes cover the surface of a piano. It was the first time I came in contact with non-functional movement. I don’t know what I want from the world. I want love. I want to reverse everything. Now I’m an artist. If I touch a rock instead of somebody's head, what have I done? I touched this, and now you’re touching it. What is the reverse of the known? I know that nothing can be known. I don’t know if I can die. Touch a piece of art, and then wipe the wall beside it. Painting's greatest fear is to become the death of an object. Turn to your death and ask it. Your death will tell you that you're wrong. Your death will tell you “I haven't touched you yet.”

The body is the first secret. You can read the moonlight. You can see a face as you see it. What you’re seeing is what you are. Life. I can’t be a genius because I don’t look like a genius. I want to be the gas that expands to occupy all of your emotional space. No one can stop me now. Not even myself. The giant is not a body. The giant is a space. My body doesn’t feel like my body. One guy ties another in a knot. Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they're not. You’re walking down but you feel like you’re walking up. The faces are pointed in the wrong direction. Push my feelings into you. You’ll feel good.

----

FIND BARRY
Website | Vimeo | Instagram