Ron Silliman Dreams

Ron Silliman dreams (and one vision) came to me in three batches. All have been posted to my blog(s) except for the 8th dream in the 2nd Batch ("In a Bar") which originally appeared in Blake Butler's on-line journal Lamination Colony.

I haven't dreamed of Ron in quite a while now. Maybe I'm done. But, of course, you never know. I miss him.

Ron Silliman Dream # 1 (Batch 1, dream 1): I am going to bury you

..



My wife tells me there’s a call for me.

“This is Ron Silliman"-- and, before I can say anything: “Where do you get off making fun of my weight?”

He's really upset and I’m afraid.

“What are you talking about?” I manage.

“On your blog and in your posts you’re labeling me as “The Big Man.”

“O, God,” I reply, laughing.

But Ron’s not amused:

“Listen here, you little punk. I am going to bury you. I am going to fcking bury you!”

I want to say that I’m referring to his internet presence. His on-line stature.

Want to say that I’ve never met or seen him. Not even a photo of anything but his face. But he’s in a zone and he just keeps on at me.

I was afraid before, but now my anxiety's through the roof.

And, so, while Ron rants on (like a fire, really) a vision comes to me:

A big lumbering man’s carrying my lifeless body into a clearing. He tosses me off like a bag of concrete and goes down at the ground, digging. He looks so strong, muscled and beautiful——and I think to myself. “He’s not fat at all.”

Ron Silliman Dream # 2 (Batch 1, dream 2): A Brain Shot

George Orwell, Ron Silliman and I are walking into a village that looks like it’s been hit by a hurricane. Silliman suddenly chirps up in a kind of screech: “There it is! There it is!” and he’s jumping up and down like a boy at his first circus.

And, yes, he's spotted the elephant--off to the side, grazing quite peacefully. It looks so relaxed and so wise.

A lackey steps forward with a gun.

Silliman grabs it. I try to wrestle it away from him, and we fall, locked, to the ground. As we struggle, panting and groaning, I notice Orwell’s sitting down, drawing.

He's drawing the elephant and he's drawing it all in blue, except for the eyes for which he's using a kind of intense emerald green.

Silliman gets the upper hand and knees me in the nuts.

I’m next to the Big-Man in a helicopter and we’re coming down at a herd of elephants.

Silliman smacks the pilot’s back and shouts out “lower! Lower!” and he leans out and he’s firing.

A baby elephant, perhaps 6 months old, slides right down into the dirt. Red dust flares up.

Silliman’s screaming:

“Did you see that? A brain shot. A perfect brain shot.”

Ron Silliman Dream # 3 (Batch 1, dream 3): Sorry

..


George Orwell and Ron Silliman are walking me through tall, dry grass.

Orwell says “You know it really hurts me to do this.”

Silliman says nothing.

In the distance a crude gallows has been erected and I can see people getting out of smart cars.

“Look,” I say, “I’m not really sure what I’ve done but couldn’t I just write a couple of poems, or a short symphony, and we’ll just call it even.”

Silliman snaps out a quick “No!” and bounds on through the grass like a dog.

Orwell puts his hands on my shoulders, looks deep into my eyes and tells me:

“I am really sorry, my little bird. I am really sorry.”

Ron Silliman Dream # 4 (Batch 1, dream 4): (a vision, actually)

..



To follow is a draft of a poem I’ve never submitted anywhere because, frankly, I think you’d have to be a complete fool and idiot to publish it:


The parrot I bought from a fat man in Laredo may well be retarded. All he grinds out is “Cunt!” “Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!” All night, even, that's all he grinds out: “Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!” One night I was drunk, really drunk, and the girl I was with wanted it in the ass: “In the ass!” she urged, “In the ass!” and I had no idea where I was, the whole scene covered in fog, and all I’m sure of’s she kept screaming “No, Pussy! No, Pussy!”


Well, for some reason while having breakfast this morning I thought of this poem (maybe it has something to with my wife asking me if wanted some sugar on my cereal and my answer--“No, Honey.”)

Anyways, it’s strange how the mind works but for some reason, staring down at my cereal there, I had a vision of Ron Silliman, The Big Man, laboring at an exquisite young creature, down on her hands and knees, and screaming--

“No, Langpo. No, Langpo.”

Thinking about this now I guess he must have been hitting her SOQ.

Ron Silliman Dream # 5 (Batch 1, dream 5): A Beautiful Conversation

I enjoy birding. But I am definitely not a "birder." I also have birds in cages. My friend Raoul, a serious Buddhist, doesn’t like cages.

"But they’re happy," I tell him. These are big cages, you see, and my birds eat really well. And they have plenty of toys. Some of them even build nests and lay eggs. But Raoul is not won over, so I try a different tack:

“Raoul, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll let the birds go free if I can put you in a cage for a year.”

Anyways, this is all just foreplay to the next dream:

I walk downstairs and Lord!——there’s Ron Silliman, naked, in a cage. Without missing a beat, though, I call out to him. “How’s it going, Ron?” “Beautiful, beautiful,” he twitters. “I’ve never been so happy.”

And, really, he does look radiant.

So, I pull up a chair and we start talking-- and I think to myself that is the most civil and satisfying conversation I’ve had in my entire life. Some of the details are fuzzy now but here are some impressions and details I remember about this conversation:

Ron is extremely well-fed. I order him Chinese, Thai, Italian, etc. On certain Sundays the cooks from the local restaurant, La Cucaracha, take over the kitchen here and prepare treats for Ron to sample.

Ron is still writing and blogging. And it doesn’t bother him in the slightest that everything he writes and blogs has to go through me. “O, what does it matter,” he says, “when you’re so damned happy.”

Ron has had many epiphanies here in this cage by my turtles. But the "Everest" of these epiphanies, he tells me, is that “Freedom and flying are way overrated.”

Ron Silliman Dream # 6 (Batch 1, dream 6): In Court

..



I’m in court with Ron Silliman. He’s cross-examining me.

“Where were you, Rauan M. Klassnik,” on March, 2nd 2003, he asks-- winking at me, and then, again and again, all around the room.

“I have no idea,” I answer. “I’m sorry but I don’t have one of those calendar memories.”

The judge gives me a bad look.

“Then I’ll give you an easier one,” Silliman says. “A slow-pitch softball. A watermelon.”

I’m starting to feel uncomfortable. Silliman pauses for effect and then launches out again:

“Where were you on March 2nd, 1932,”

“Ha!” I exclaim right away. “I wasn’t even born then.”

Ron jumps right back at me: “It is well known, and time-stamped too, that you were at your computer using the handle ‘monkey-face’ to slander me. Slander me horribly.”

He pauses again, and then:

“And, so, do you deny this?”

I look over at the judge, and when he gives me a really nasty look I notice he’s wearing a cap that says Langpo.”

On recess, and this is all feeling very Law-&-Order, Silliman approaches me:

“you know we can settle this all very simply.” And he winks at me again.

The next thing I know I’m in a hospital room. In the bed next to me’s a young woman in a suit. She’s got a small purple bruise on her right cheek.

“We should sue,” she says.

Ron Silliman Dream # 7 (Batch 1, dream 7): In a Boat

I'm treading water far out at sea and just starting to really panic when a boat appears. It’s not very big and The Big Man, Ron Silliman, is on it.

“What’s going on, buddy?” he asks me and, after I tell him how happy I am to see him, he tells me he’d love (and he draws the word “love” out for just a bit too long) “love” to help me on board and give me a ride back to shore——but, first, I need to recite ten poems that mean absolutely nothing.

“Ten poems,” he explains, “that are complete nonsense.”

I’m kind of tired out here in the middle of the ocean, so I start reciting, but he quickly interrupts me: “C’mon, man. You know better. That just a mangled version of one of Berrigan’s Sonnets.”

So, I try a nursery rhyme and of course that won’t do.

But then I a moment of great inspiration I start barking and he breaks out into a huge grin and, leaning over the side of the boat, begins to pat my head: “There’s a good boy. There’s a good boy.”

The sad thing’s I don’t remember getting out of the water. I’m just there in the blue waves barking and Silliman’s patting my head: “There’s a good boy. There’s a good boy.”

Ron Silliman Dream # 8 (Batch 1, dream 8): Hello, I'm Ron Silliman

My little Pekingnese, Chuy (from Pikachu not Jesus—Spanish pronounciation “Hey, Soose”), starts talking.

I’m in the bath and he’s stretching up against the side so it’s only his little head peering over the edge:

“I’m Ron Silliman,” he says, “and it’s nice to meet you.”

Well, usually I like to take my baths in peace (and think great and peaceful thoughts——ha ha) but this has my attention.

“Chuy,” I stutter. “You’re breaking my heart.”

“I’m not Chuy,” Chuy(or Ron) replies. “But, it’s okay and if you want I will be your Chuy for you.”

After I get out of the bath (I make Chuy/Ron look the other way, his dark-brown bulging eyes making me a little self-conscious), the dog-man and I have a heart to heart, while I’m rubbing its stomach with my feet.

Chuy/Ron tells me that Ron Silliman died yesterday (out in his garden planting radishes) and this really upsets me because I don’t like it when any one or thing dies.

“But now I’m here,” Ron says, “and I’ll be a good boy. I promise you. A very good boy.”

I really miss Chuy. But I suppose we can make this work.

“Fair enough,” I tell him, “but I have one condition.”

“Shoot,” he says.

“No poetry talk. Deal?”

Ron cocks his head to the left. Then looks straight at me and sitting back on his ass, offers his right paw up to me.

(this, by the way, is a trick Chuy’s never learned.)

Ron Silliman Dream # 9 (Batch 2, dream 1): Japan

Ron and I are in a plane. An old one. A bomber, and we’ve got a bomb in back, and we’re headed for Japan I guess.

“Ron,” I say. “Shouldn’t we talk about this?”

“Listen, you prick,” he says. “This isn’t a little Haiku joke or sitting down to blog.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” I reply. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

But Ron’s shaking his head like a frustrated ape.

“You don’t understand a thing, do you,” he spurts out, and he’s all red and purple and he’s practically foaming.

“These people don’t even write poetry any more,” he fumes. “All they do’s sit around and watch Robert Hass movies.”

“You know,” he continues, choking up, “they don’t even know who I am. A recent poll showed that only 4 people in the whole of Japan know who I am and in the fullness of time you know that’s only going to get worse. Much worse.”

“In 30 years what is my legacy going to look like?” he continues, whining. “O, Bob Hass. Bob Hass. Bob Hass”

But then, suddenly, he snaps out of his funk violently.

“These bastards need to die,” he screams. That’s all the fire he’s got though——and all he manages, now, between fits of sobbing, is “need to die, need to die” in a very low, eerie murmur.

I roll down the window, and float out.

I’m coming in towards my house and I’m wondering if my Love Birds’ eggs have hatched yet. I’m suddenly really worried about them.

Ron Silliman Dream # 10 (Batch 2, dream 2): Dolls

I walk into the game room and Ron’s on the floor playing with dolls.

“Do you know,” he says, as he glances up, “that Chaucer played with dolls. Coleridge too. Basho and Ikkyu. And when Berg translated that crazy monk he played with dolls too. Sometimes all night.”

Silliman pauses and stares at me profoundly and then adds, “A kind of method acting, ya know.”

“You’re making this shit up, pal,” I tell him, as I softly punch his shoulder. (and I’m thinking how nice it is to be so chummy.)

“This’ll prove it,” he says, passing the phone to me——and it’s a voice as though on a loop, repeating over and over

“Stevie Berg here.. Stevie Berg here.. Stevie Berg here.. Stevie Berg here.. Stevie Berg here..” etc etc

Finally, I interrupt: “Do you play with dolls, Steve? Ron says you do.”

“Come on over,” another voice replies (different from the one on the loop). “ And I’ll show you.” And it hangs up before I can say anything else.

Ron and I are trudging along a beach. There are beat-up dolls everywhere.

“These are all Stevie Berg’s,” Ron says, beaming.

And sure enough when I pick one up, and look closely, the proof’s right there on its ass in still-shining blue ink

“Stevie Berg’s.”

Ron Silliman Dream # 11 (Batch 2, dream 3): Cactus

I’m sitting on a rock with God. Below us in a field of cactus a naked Ron Silliman is scurrying after a rabbit.

Again and again it looks like Ron’s about to nab it but he either mistimes his final leap or the rabbit’s too slick and he ends up in cactus. Usually face-first.

But, a couple of times, tumbling over, it’s ass-first. All credit to Ron, though, he’s diligently and painstakingly removing all the needles (sometimes with the help of a mirror he’s produced from who knows where.)

I look over at God. He’s blank-faced.

“Are you upset, disappointed, disillusioned...?” I ask.

“O, no,” he says, “I’ve seen much worse.” And for a moment it looks as though a smile’s flickering across his tough face.

Meanwhile, Silliman’s back in cactus.

“Ouch!” I exclaim. “That was a bad one.”

“You know,” God says, “he really does have a very good heart.”

“You’re probably right,” I mumble, “but the problem with Ron is that he has absolutely no f-cking sense of humour.”

And now, I am sure, God is smiling.

Ron Silliman Dream # 12 (Batch 2, dream 4): Core Strategies

The crowd all around me’s going nuts and I climb into the ring. Ron’s in my corner, and he’s screaming:

“Remember what I told you, son, remember what I told you.”

Yeah, yeah, I’m thinking. This is going to be a piece of a cake. A piece of cake. A real piece of cake.

“Just go East,” Ron’s booming. “Just go East.”

My opponent’s entering the ring, the crowd’s gone silent, and, damn, he is f-cking enormous, with a Mohawk, earrings and studs. And he’s leaping around the ring like a jack-hammer.

And, O no!——the crowd’s started chanting “The hammer.”

“The hammer. The hammer. The hammer.”

And now the ring announcer, a fat version of Michael Buffer, introduces my opponent as the “All-Time King, Bill ‘the hammer’ Snakely.”

I’m getting pummeled. Snakely’s all over me. Nothing helps. I even try reciting the opening to Chaucer’s Tales:

“Whan that April with his showres soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote” etc etc

No help.
Ron’s screaming, Bill’s hammering, I’m bleeding.
I am going to die, I think. I am going to die.

But then a tiny little voice comes to me like a water-lily: remember the core strategies of abstraction, son. remember the core strategies of abstraction.

And I am expanding. I am burning. Nothing can stop me. I am all-powerful. Snakely is nothing !!!

Ron Silliman Dream # 13 (Batch 2, dream 5): Tolstoy's

My wife and I have been invited to dinner at Tolstoy’s. We arrive two minutes late and I’m concerned.

Ron Silliman, the butler, answers the door, and he looks a bit pale.

Approaching a huge, bear of a man, Ron the Butler squeaks out: “Senor Tolstoy, may I present Rauan and Edith Kl——“

But before he can finish, Tolstoy, who’s lurched forward at least 10 feet in one giant bound, slaps him in the face.

“You impertinent bastard,” he growls. “In this house you will learn some respect... Yes, sooner or later you will learn some respect.”

At dinner while trying to reposition my wife’s butter knife Ron knocks over a wine glass and Tolstoy’s grabbed him and thrown him up against the wall.

“You filthy dog,” he’s screaming. “You filthy dog.”

“I like these two, “ my wife says. “I want to see more of them. Buy them for me, darling. O, please, buy them for me. O, please, please, please say you will!”

When, finally, I look back Tolstoy and Ron are dancing to a slow Big-Country song and Ron’s burrowing his head into Tolstoy’s chest and he seems to be sobbing.

“Old woman Time and her slaughtered chicken,” I pronounce gravely.

“F-ck you, Charles Simic,” Ron blurts out, and they’re both glaring at me quite ominously and now I feel like I’m The Little Prince and I need, desperately, to apologize to my 9th French Grade Teacher for calling The Little Prince an idiot and tell her I didn’t mean it though I did mean it.

Ron’s sobbing even harder now. And I’m feeling very guilty.

“I didn’t mean any of it,” Tolstoy assures him. “I didn’t mean any of it, Ronny. None of it at all, my boy.”

Ron Silliman Dream # 14 (Batch 2, dream 6): Gorgeous

I’m walking through tall, dry grass and suddenly Ron Silliman’s whispering to me:

“Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky”

I look around but I’m completely alone and, so, I keep on shopping. But when I reach for a carton of eggs

“But I know a place where we can go
And wash away this sin”

Again I look around——but, alas, nothing.

Then, while I’m unpacking, reaching deep into the sack for a bag of asparagus

“We’ll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind.”

Again I look around and this time I notice a note on the refrigerator: “Come upstairs”--- and there are candles all the way upstairs and then down the corridor and all through the bedroom. I knock on the bathroom door:

“Come in, baby. It’s Ron. It’s Ron.”

And, there, rising out of a mountain of bubbles is the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen——a bit like Botticelli’s Venus, but so much greater...

Stepping into the steaming hot bubbles I take her, giggling, in my arms...


“Who knows how long this will last
Now we’ve come so far, so fast
But, somewhere back there in the dust
That same small town in each of us”

Ron Silliman Dream # 15 (Batch 2, dream 7): So Much Fun

Ron comes running up to me over the dunes. He’s had his hair braided and, Christ!, I had no idea his hair was so long and so exquisite and so shimmery (maybe’s he’s got extensions?) and it’s billowing and bouncing and he’s getting closer, and closer...

“My God,” he says, panting. “I thought you were lost. I thought I was never going to find you.

I drop him off at his hotel and he throws his arms around me and kisses my neck.

“I had so much fun,” he sighs.

I walk into my office where a fax’s unfurling——

“I am so happy, Ron” it reads, and below that a couple of confidently drawn
heart-shapes ——

The phone’s ringing. It’s Ron:

“I need to see you. Where are you reading next? St. Louis? Chicago? Borneo? I don’t care, wherever——I’ll be there with bells and whistles on.

I’m feeling giddy. It’s so nice to be pursued like this. And Ron must be able to sense this. This is what the phrase “meant for each other” must mean I think.

“O, Rauan,” Ron purrs. “I just want to make you happy. I’ll do anything you want. Anything at all. Just please don’t kiss and tell,... O, hell, I don’t care——go ahead and kiss and tell... I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I am obsessed. You are my North, my South, East, my fcking West. My working week. Damnit, Rauan, I have stopped all the clocks, Rauan. I have cut the dog. I have silenced the pianos. And love, my love, Rauan, is not going to die! It will last forever. It will last forever. I am the stars, Rauan. The packed-up moon, Rauan. This mantled sun, Rauan. These circles moaning. Public doves. Black cotton gloves. O, Rauan!”

Ron Silliman Dream # 16 (Batch 2, dream 8): Rough, Really Rough

Ron Silliman approaches me in a bar.

“I like it rough,” he says. “I like it really rough.”

As quickly as we’re talking we’re rubbing up against each other.

“I want you to shit in my mouth,” he says.

At first I was turned on, incredibly so, but now he’s saying things like “I want you to stick a steak fork in my shoulder while we’re fucking” and “baby, you can rub vinegar into my asshole while I’m blowing you——and don’t let my screaming stop you.”

“There must be some sort of mistake,” I tell him. “I’m not interested.”

He looks baffled, then really offended.

“But I heard you were cool,” he says. “Zach Schomburg said you were really cool.”

I’m puzzled.

“Yeah,” he continues. “Zach Schomburg said you were tough. Really tough.”

He’s right in my face now and his breath smells terrible.

“Zach Schomburg,” I mutter, almost incoherently.

“Yeah, Zach Schomburg,” he shoots backs at me, almost spitting through his teeth. “The kid you went to high school with. The kid whose dog threw up over everything.”

“O,” I tell him, remembering a poem I read a long time ago, “You’re talking about David Berman.”

“I am not talking about David Berman,” he growls. “I am talking about Zach Schomburg, and Zach Schomburg’s never steered me wrong.”


(note: this dream first appeared in Blake Butler's Lamination Colony)

Ron Silliman Dream # 17 (Batch 3, dream 1): Seven More

I’m in a conference room with Ron Silliman. He leans back in his big red-leather chair, creaking.

“We’re done, Rauan,” he says, and now he’s up at a chalkboard.

“Well, almost done,” he continues. “You’re going to have seven more dreams about me, and that’s it.”

“But, why Ron, why?” I plead, hot tears gushing down my cheeks. “Hasn’t this been good for you?”

“Yes, yes it has, my darling,” he replies softly. “Lately I’ve got an extra bounce in my step."

"It's like...It's like..." he mutters, "It's like I’m permanently on Viagra. I’ve never felt better.”

“But then why, Ron, why?”

“I’ve started to wake up in the middle of the night,” he says (with a tortured look on his face, like a frightened dog), “and I’m covered in sweat and I know you’re dreaming about me and I’m filled with an impending sense of doom.”

Ron pauses, looks down at the ground, trembling all through his body, and then he continues——

“...Other times I’m making sweet love to my wife and that same corroding-poison floods my mind and heart. Rauan, I want to. O how I want to! I swear on a big fat Buffalo’s head: I want to! I want to! But we just can’t go on.”

It's quite obvious he's a broken-man. A used-up old coal-horse.

So, “Fair enough,” I tell him, resigned.

“But seven more dreams, huh?” I add, looking up at him coyly.

“Yes!” and he’s perked up right away.

“In the first one,” he says. “I’ll be licking your toes.”

“In the 2nd we’ll discover the North Pole together...”

“In the 3rd, boil potatoes...”

“In the 4th———”

Ron’s glowing, ecstatic, and he shouts out:

“Christ!! Why did I ever learn to count to seven ??!!”

And, then, like a King or a Clown or a Magic-Lizard, he rises up in a cloud of swallows.

Ron Silliman Dream # 18 (Batch 3, dream 2): The Mountain

I’m waking up slowly and I’m stretched out against my red and purple sheets like a cat and I am sighing, like the sun rising and setting, and, as I crack my one good eye open, I see that Ron Silliman’s sucking my toe. But my toe’s much bigger than normal——It’s the size of a really big banana, or perhaps more accurately three big pomegranates stacked on top of each other.

And, hell!——this is heaven. And hell!——Ron’s a pro. He must have done this a billion times. But then, all of a sudden, he hops up and walks into the bathroom and——O My——standing there in the doorway he’s young Paul Newman in “Cool Hand Luke.”

“I can’t do this any more,” he says. “I’m bored.”

So, I’m helping him pack up his stuff. All his Bee-Gees and Lionel Ritchie LPs. His hope chests full of Lalique nudes and Wild West Chia Pets. Kimonos covered with African Art (all bought, he told me, from the royalties from his first book).

We’re sitting on the grass together. The sun’s setting. It feels like Creeley and Olson in a diner after talking all night.

“How does the mountain die?” I ask.

“It dies,” Ron intones. “It dies.”

Ron Silliman Dream # 19 (Batch 3, dream 3): Whale Wars

Ron and I are watching “Whale Wars” together.

The best part’s when we’ve finished up the popcorn which Ron’s prepared in his adorable little French Maid outfit (wiggling his ass the whole exquisite time) and we’re cuddling together on our snow-white bear skin.

Meanwhile, our heroes are hot on the Japanese tail—— maneuvering beautifully and dangerously through the floes.

But the screen goes all white-fuzzy and Bob Hass, a young Bob Hass, comes on, and announces: “Now I am going to read some Haiku from my new Harpoons-Book “Killing the Big Fat Blubbering Ron Silliman.”

Ron, in my arms, has gone stiff as a roach.

“Whalingly Black Macho Ron O
We’ve come so far damned wrong———
Puked up Ice—Glass—Shattered Black-veined God.”

“Wow!” I exclaim, “He sounds like Aase Berg.”

But Ron doesn't answer, because, I see, he's frothing all through his body like a stomped-on roach.

“Ye Old Black Time-Heart Sky
Blubbering Ron Whale Swimmingly
Swooooooosh——Fat Bob Hass Death!”

I can’t see anything at all now except for Ron’s roach-froth which has spewed out and dissipated into and around everything: a kind of mist I’m walking into, bellowing out, like a foghorn--"Ron, Ron, Ron”

And I bellow and I bellow and I bellow but all the fog offers back to me is one final Death-Throes verse:

“Whale-Musk-Puke Spouted Love
Ass-custard bright-green Death
Soups and statues, slurp slurp slurp.”

And nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Just fog.
And my grief.

My lonely foghorn's grief-cry


“Ron, Ron, Ron.”

Ron Silliman Dream # 20 (Batch 3, dream 4): Opportunity of a Lifetime

We’re at a Burger King shoving down french fries and Ron looks up at me, all forlorn. When he does this, like Bambi's eyes in a snowstorm, I always want to cry.

“I’ve done it,” he says. “I’ve taken the job.”

“What job?” I ask.

“I’ve thought about this long and hard and, really, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask again and by now children, thousands of children, have gathered around us.

“Can’t you see,” he says. “It’s fate.”

And, now, all the kids are droning like zombies.

“All of time,” he continues, “every bit of it has been pointing into this moment.”

The droning’s getting higher and higher and they’ve hoisted him——my Ron!!——up on to their shoulders.

“Adieu, mon ami, mon chere ami,” he waves, cavalierly, as the horde, disappears——still shouldering him, My Ron!!——into a bright red cave.

Ron Silliman Dream # 21 (Batch 3, dream 5): The Center

“In the center of time there is a black hole.”

I’m alone, drifting. I can see nothing, feel nothing. It’s as though I’m in a kind of giant universe-womb and I’m in thrall to this queer and wise voice, which, it seems, is delivering me.

“In the center of time there is a black hole and everything——your love, desire, the beaks of egrets in the river, monkeys and sunflowers, the blackheads on your face, everything, everything——points into this one true center of time.”

I feel so relaxed. Like I’m getting a massage. But terrified also. Here, I think to myself, the blood gets stripped away. Here, I think, the mountains sway.

“Here in the center of time,” the voice continues, “you must stop kicking. Here the fire and the ice twist together like a DNA coil.”

This feels like pre-coitus, in-coitus, and post-coitus. This feels like everything.

“Here everything in the center of time is created and destroyed. Here, my love, I am making you, and I am loving you.”

“Huh?” I think to myself, “This is stupid. This is so damned fucking stupid.”

...I’ve dropped out of a hole. A woman’s screaming. A man in white’s slapping me on the back. And I am filled with breath-light. I am burning. I am alive. I am dead.

“Go forth into the world, my love. Go forth!”