uncle, but having none of it.
In the film of the book of his
imaginary life he's walking
some outback, his past in a
haversack of tales: but this
one won't be told, its title
Lost Surname or, The Birth of Genius.
Your personal B Traven, your own
Weldon Kees, sends word from
the heart of the matter. Your own
desaparacedo, taken by night
in a raid on the matter of
his heart, scuppered like the Graf
Spee below the water-line.
You search the narrative
for signs, lost in dark
barrios of cities, track him
to villages of the Last Tribe
soon to be discovered, hear from
his friends wives mistresses,
drink in bars he was last seen in:
nothing. His existence is suspect
but a message comes through: here!
You go, he's left. In this reel
you're always about to meet, him
wearing the belted gaberdine
you can't imagine him without:
always some excuse.
In the final scenes you
walk hills rising in steps,
stand by a cross on its Easter hill,
ponder the meaning of fact
and fiction. He'll be
incommunicado for years,
till from elsewhere
the rumour arrives
at a house recently vacated,
hanging on air as the credits
roll and a figure, familiar
from photographs, walks back
down the road he's just come up,
sad to have missed you again.
http://stevenwaling.blogspot.co.uk/
