If you wonder how to read them, they’re all a very long phrase. Except the last one, which is read as a poem. To know about the texts and the experiment, scroll down — it’s below all of them.

how droll is the night i wander in
serving fires to the cold like clocks paint all gold with rust impure — only in thought endures, like a widow to the grave
patient, patient night
to be stormed a sailing face — grace is never saved — low lingers lower — the soft fingers tolled the night, the salient night away in deeper late
never, never, never come
night, the moon has never rung
don’t swallow me whole — better than the feelings of a stone — rain to me the water done
but what i’ve done? don’t you know?
i’m wheeling near the down below

i wish to be smaller — denized in vaporish gallows, eternally sober, dim in the shadow of a lake
clover don’t then desires — do not follow — last night sender — gruesome commander — gone in the faces of a safe
and safe do i feel — thethered now, but flying featherish — common clowns in the guns of the state
and do i feel the hand over my neck, over my leg, casting the shadow of a lake
it came from inside the house, on top of the hill, the hand that plays the knots
leave my body with your hands and waists
and waste me by the shadow of a lake

promise deep in my thought — Lake Fire, be my keeper, the sender of the storm
do the sleeping of the lock, the tender of the heart, the color of the pot
be the figure father — the man, the horror — the satin snake and pull the plastic on the sins that meet the eye
i hide where i speak, for i know you get the lines nowhere else
this is why you visit me, cryer of the minute
angel died in flame, send the casket
the body has decomposed, those who smell the roses know
the virgin lock, get away, never to return
this is not the fire for you to burn

The water washed in slows the devil
Sinning carols lingers suns
How desire pulls you in to find the meaning in the want
But you carry me to nowhere
You’re the stover of the run
How the mire grosses fire, dear desire in the want
Fanning flames, you talk to me
Never ever to return
How desire deals the cards and drinks the seeding in the want
Not to be the other name
Don’t you turn to leave alone
How this tired tune of life discards the begging in the want
It is time to break the spell
Longer goner now is gone
How desire found me pining for the other in the want

About the texts: Yesterday — I think it was yesterday — I tried something a bit different. I wanted to write something, but didn’t feel like actually going through with an essay or with a poem; it was too much mental effort and I was feeling slow. So I just started a sort of free form poem where words that sound nice together would come to me and I would put them in the paper. Of course, the words weren’t random. I was trying to say something, even if the meaning was not immediate to me, not caring if the meaning is clear to you; although, you should try to understand it, still. There’s no private joke there, it’s just an idea. You can have the same idea if you just read it well enough.

Anyway, safe to say, I kind of hated it. I don’t publish everything I write so this was supposed to go unpublished. It felt a bit like a hand load of pretentious nothingness — so, another random post of the-thief, I guess.

But today I watched Fire Walk With Me and just became devastated. This pain motivated me to write, and especifically in this style, since it’s such a subconscious and scary and internal experience, much like what the movie made me feel. To let my subconscious write my works — only God knows if they’re not nothing.

So the other “poems” are more talking about that — I can’t shake off Laura Palmer from my head, her face is so much clearer than any thought. The poems are not about Laura, she just set the mood for it. The last one I sort of abandoned the style of free-forming and tried to do something more conventional as a closer piece.

Maybe you’ll like these more than I did.

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Cover for the post — The Veteran in a New Field by Winslow Homer (1865)
“A Night of Stone” cover — Moonlit Landscape with Bridge by Aert van der Neer (ca. 1648-50)
“The Denizen on Top of the Hill” cover — The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli (1781)
“Lake Fire” cover — The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons by J. M. W. Turner (ca. 1834-1835)
“Dear Desire, Turn to Dust” cover — Winter in Amsterdam by George Hendrik Breitner (ca. 1900-1901)

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