Last night I was talking to another person who lives under the same roof as I do, almost a friend. He said, "You see dude, one has to go through seven relationships to find the One".

I took note of the statistic. I collect random numbers like that so that I can use them in poems like this. Usually numbers of highways that I happen to be travelling then, for some roads do come to an end after that particular journey and some people will never want to see me again, so numbers help me to associate places, faces and times to nightmares when they visit unasked and unwelcomed. Then like a doctor, I can feel the pulse and note clinically, "Oh this is the I-75 nightmare, it has a bumpy ride for the road is full of ruts and cracks from freezing and thawing in alternate winters". It was some freezing and thawing for in the end it tore the Whole apart, into seperate continents.

But then I am digressing, we were talking about seven lives that must be sunk to make real music, well if that hypothesis is good. I have my own reasons to doubt it, mainly because this procession has nothing to do with if you loved or were loved. It has to do with deals that one has to make with life, with god and perhaps even with the devil.

But why am I saying this, this number is as good as anything to belive in and don't I want to desperately belive in something ? A random statistic is simple enough for me to belive in after beliving in such weighty statements as, "I love you" heard many times. So now I have decided to keep track on the number of times I must die before believing no longer abrubtly ends into disbelieving, into countries whose borders are suddenly sealed by machine guns, barbed wire, gaurds and dogs whose barks I can't hear!

2002:07:19 00:32 Atlanta

I am so cold tonight and I am trying hard to find the rythms embedded within me.

[1]
Exs,
I gather them like those
old highways, on an atlas,
that I had once possessed.
Since I have one too many,
do I have to invent a novel
scheme to number them perhaps 
just like the interstaes? 
EX 1, EX 2 and so on.

[2]
Tonight my thoughts travel
with the undulations of my heart.
They refuse to see that all the roads
have been boarded up, that the gates
of the fort have been risen and it's
useless to lay seige against walls
that are impenetratable. So they dash into
sheer stone. They are sucide bombers
wedded to a doctrine of despair,
asking questions: why can't 
you ex-tend
                me love?
and ex-cuse 
                my mistakes?
Again and again.

[3]
Ex is a versatile prefix,
predating and prevading
all my nightmares.
Ex as in Ex 
              pulsion
throw me out, on my ass.
Ex as in Ex
              communication
burn me at stake.
Ex as in Ex
              cution
you can't kill me for 
I am already dead.

-------------------------------------------------
2002:07:16 01:30 Atlanta

Outside the already dark sky is darkened by heavy rain clouds. Inside of me, my voice box seeking words for you, hears them in the murmur of rain. It has started thundering. You turn on a light, you turn this way and that, my eyes move with your motions. And I remember the first time I was seated in a opthamologist's office and saw Es in various sizes reversed, mirror imaged and tumbled upside down. It has taken me time but I now know what all those E's were. They are the echoes of your love. Say Loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. See so many Es.

Should I thank myself for landing on the Square of Chance in this Monopoly game? You own all the squares now and you make me pay rent. And I keep landing in your squares. You laughter brings me to them. It almost ripples like a gondola floating over a Venice canal, I am standing on its bank. You have a mask around your eyes. You define the sentence "If looks can kill." There is no music till you move. Paganini must have written Moto Perpetuo after watching a vision like you dancing on cobbled stoned squares. You move your body and your curves move dangerously. I am frozen, by two great forces, deep desire riding deep love. Outside dark clouds are riding dark skies.

2002:07:14 21:30 Atlanta