Having heard only lies all our lives,
we must assume the truth is
unintelligible and start from there.
It's like panning for gold and not
knowing what gold is.

from my collection *Theoretical Objects*
(Green Integer, 1999)
********************************************

from "After A Lost Original"
in *After A Lost Original*
by David Shapiro (Overlook, 1994)

"When the translation and the original meet
The doubtful original and the strong mistranslation
The original feels lost like a triple pun
And the translation cries, Without me you are lost
Then be my dream, thin as the definition
Of a trance in a garden
The ambiguous friend responds, Perhaps I do astonish you
Like a boy confused with a butterfly's dream
But you are my dream now, after all..."
*****************************************************************
from "Drawing After Summer"
in *After A Lost Original*
by David Shapiro

"I saw the ruins of poetry, of a poetry
Of a parody and it was a late copy bright as candy
I approach your metal mouth, you put it close to me..."
******************************************

"These are days when no one should rely unduly on his
"competence." Strength lies in improvisations. All the
decisive blows are struck left-handed."

*Chinese Curios"- Walter Benjamin from *One-way Street*
*****************************************************************
"The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far
more than that of convictions, and of such facts as have
scarcely ever become the basis of convictions. Under these
conditions true literary activity cannot aspire to take place within
a literary framework- that is, rather, the habitual expression of
its sterility. Significant literary work can only come into being
in a strict alternation between action and writing; it must nurture
the inconspicuous forms that better fit its influence in
active communities than does the pretentious, universal
gesture of the book- its leaflets, brochures, articles and placards.
Only this prompt language shows itself actively equal to the moment..."

W.B. from One-way Street: *Filling Station*
*****************************************************************
"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at
your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait.
Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world
will quite freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no
choice, it will roll in ecstacy at your feet."

Kafka
Aphorisms (104)