The Gilded Auction Block by Shane McCrae

Author:Shane McCrae
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

I fell a whole lifetime of fall-

ing as I fell and as I fell I

Fell through my life I watched my life

Projected on the walls of the hole

I fell through but projected through

No lens no carried by no light

No but projected like a movie

On the walls of the hole I fell through but

Backward like watching was like watching

A movie from behind the screen

In kind of it was in black and white but

In supersaturated whites

And blacks like scraps of carbon paper

Their edges spilling over the edges

Of the darknesses in the world the blacks and

Whites overflowed the objects they

Belonged to the objects I had thought

Belonged to them and as I watched

Falling the camera overflowed

The edges of my memories

Once and again and then again

To follow people I had hurt

Through selfishness through inattention

From the edges of my memories

Into their memories and lives

I saw the harm I did I saw

Eventually I even my

Harm disappeared I disappeared I

Had thought at least the scars I made

Would be the scars I made forever

I was a desk lamp next to shadows

That would not be if it were not

And are its children and itself

And fade when sunlight fills the room

As I fell slow through darkness watching

Memories carried by no light

Until I didn’t I just stopped

Falling suddenly and no impact

Suddenly I’m standing in

A room my back against it feels

Like skin a wall but only as long as

It takes for me to realize

I’m standing in a room my back

Against a wall and the wall oppo-

site from me disappears the wall

Behind me slides forward and shoves

Me out I stumble into a

Cave or a warehouse somewhere big

And dark that didn’t really feel like

Part of the world facing a row

Of mumbling kneeling corpses their

Eyes open their mouths closed but mumbl-

ing but their voices didn’t the

Sounds of their voices didn’t come

From them their voices flooded from

A giant black hundred-legged beetle

Hovering in front of and above

The corpses its black back to me its

Pale orange belly pulsing a

Different voice pouring from each leg and

As I stepped near it spoke to me

But somehow only in my head

Look at me I’m a huge success you

Want to know how I got to be where

I am of course you do of course

You do see this tremendous line

Of people here I promise you

Trust me ok you will not find

A more tremendous group of people

Anywhere ok and they’re all waiting

For me just to hear what I’ll say

Ok and they don’t know can you

Believe it they’ve already heard it

You’re hearing it right now believe me

It might not sound like much but when

I’m all you hear and all you see

I’m everything the beetle’s voice

Swallowed my mind consumed me I

Staggered to one end of the row

And knelt and as I knelt a man

At the other end of the row stood

And walked into the dark beyond it

Opening and closing his

Mouth like a goldfish what I think

Breathing or like a cartoon shark

Chasing a goldfish really just

Snapping its jaws its fat shark head

Stuck in the bowl and disappeared

Into the dark beyond the corpses

Talking out loud his body dis-

appeared but as

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.