LETTER TO BORGES
Poems by J.J. Blickstein

On waking this morning I discovered that I am
Miguel Cervantes decided that death was no coincidence
I am in the corner of a mad dream
testicles raw liver pate
I watched the sun
it happened to be the corner of a small globe the corner
I decided was no coincidence
Within the page of the trance were some diagrams
to a Shakespeare who begat Shakespeare who begat (me) Shakespeare
Normally I seek to astonish but this was no mere circle I
intruding on but a labyrinth god (hee-hee) had no reason
to include me so thought
I time had no real significance other than
multiple indignity often order
was a consequence of this futility although
(forgive the mathematical impiety of these equations)
I am blind or going
Beckett Beckett if we were sisters you would have suffered like me
like Quixote like the Spanish tongue but I am too involved
in the mysteries to quibble in the fashion
of neglected Dadaists Beckett and I are I and Beckett
Describe your hour of paradox to me nouns only
(Flaubert the inconsolable cry of a bird)

UNIS ANIMUS

Shocking lord-like you resurrected the forgotten
the equipage of the other dead who had need to investigate
the same 360 degree deceptions you perished
in some vortex of words we simply call library
mocked cliché idea and origin
right angles folding upon one another how did you do it
no platitudes?
And who deserves paperback you or old EZ or could you be EZ?
You who have gazed into the blank disaster of the marbled italian knowing that purity
tastes like bile
That little Argentine girl at the airport has seen nothing
she is your dead political tear and silent brushstroke of universal intent

Victim assassin hero villain living dead you

"death makes men precious and pathetic and immortality is for fools"
I am the one who created you parsimonious you DeQuincey you Caballah you
Judas the messiah you you
who have aged and crippled mirrors with baroque anxieties
we will both die itinerant in the present moment collapsing the I and you of stubborn minds
we will pass an "irresponsible figment of the imagination"