I know it’s not going to change overnight.
I won’t wake up tomorrow to find that I am, in fact, the one you want.
But then I realize it’s already happened once.
I woke one week ago to a world drastically altered.
I barely recognize this place anymore.
Can I be presumptuous for a moment?
Does this not feel wrong to you too?
Like a much-anticipated film but The Stand-Ins have replaced the cast?
Number 5:
The hardest part for the artist
is the realization that his work isn’t as important as he thought.
The understanding that it might not be able to provoke any kind of change or
at least, not the change he wanted.
To put it another way:
It turns out that it might not matter how many words I know that start with f.
Flaky fried fish for Friday feasting follows familiar flows: forthrightly, freeing fleeting figments from far flung phases of fellowship with the fille.
I still find your hair
(it’s everywhere)
random sizes as though cut by a novice hand
or perhaps
as though it were a hip new European style,
“It’s not quite layered…”
That’s the way all the beautiful girls in Spain are wearing their hair these days.
Please, don’t stop learning your cartwheel.
You really are close.
Don’t stop reading little books in the park as your dress gracefully flutters.
Don’t stop speaking to those who can help
on behalf of those who cannot speak to them on their own.
Don’t stop eating fruit in places where eating fruit is
beautiful.
Don’t forget, it’s just Airon Paul Dugas, and we are two of the (relatively) few people who know how to spell it.
Death only comes when we no longer remember.
Please, love, don’t forget.
22 October 2008 at 8:37 pm
Your work is really great – never doubt that. And I believe it’s the particulars and the vague exactness of your references that make it even better. I know we (the reader) is not meant to get it, and I know we (the reader) are perhaps not even meant to read it, for these pieces are for a very particular, special person. However, as works of art, I am absolutely impressed.
“The hardest part for the artist
is the realization that his work isn’t as important as he thought.
The understanding that it might not be able to provoke any kind of change or
at least, not the change he wanted.”
I love that.
And the ending? Heart-wrenching and perfect.