House Of Leaves - House of Leaves Part 35
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House of Leaves Part 35

Sincerely, Zampano Venice, CA Our apologies to Mr. Zampano and all other collectors who due to our article visited Mr.

Kuellsrer 's store. Mr. Kuellster no longer claims to have any WWII Ithaca Model 37s for sale and refuses to comment on anything he might have previously suggested to our reporters.

- The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner E.

The Song of Quesada and Molino The Song of Quesada and Molino [434-Missing. - Ed.]

F.

Poems That Place Summer broke on the backs of children, even though swings performed miracles and breezes sang psalms.

For that summer, from the outskirts of some far off even whimsical place came the low resolute moo of a dragon.

A child, of course, could not recognize that fabled moo or the serpentine tail close to her feet, wound up among the thistle and milkweed like a hose.

Nor for that matter could she recognize the starry white bone left upright in the sandbox like some remarkable claw or shovel.

Not when the sun was out and games continued.

Certainly not when there was summer love and rootbeer.

But at dusk when the fog crept in, thick and sweating, suggesting some kind of burning far off, down over there, (where someone once saw two eyes - pale as October moons - blink) a child could know the meaning of fall.

And that August, two weeks before school began, some children went down to that place and they never came back.

The Panther The panther paces.

Waiting reminds him that clarity is painful but his pain is unreadable, obscure, chiaroscuro to their human senses.

In time they will misread his gait, his moon mad eyes, the almost gentle way his tail caresses the bars.

In time they will mistake him for something else- without history, without the shadow of being, a creature without the penance of living.

They will read only his name.

They will be unable to perceive what strangeness lies beneath his patience.

Patience is the darkest side of power.

He is dark.

He is black.

He is exquisitely powerful.

He has made pain his lover and hidden her completely.

Now he will never forget.

She will give birth to memories they believe he has been broken of.

He smells the new rain, tastes its change.

His claw skates along the cold floor.

Love curled up and died on such a floor.

He blinks.

Clarity improves.

He hears other creatures scream and fade.

But silence is his.

He knows.

In time the gates will open.

In time his heart will open.

Then the shadows will bleed and the locks will break.

Love At First Sight Natasha, I love you despite knowing love is more than seeing you.

(Untitled Fragment) The angles of your wrists preserve a certain mystery, unknown by any lips or written down in history.

To measure their degree would solve the oldest questions - providence and alchemy answered in your gestures.

But god and gold will never rival the way your fingers curl.

They hold my breath's arrival like a rare and undiscovered pearl.

(Untitled Fragment) There is only a black fence and a wide field and a barn of Wyeth red.

The smell of anger chokes the air.

Ravens of September rain descend.

Some say a mad mad hermit man lived here talking to himself and the woodchuck.

But he's gone. No reason. No sense.

He just wandered off one day, past the onions, past the fence.

Forget the letters. Forget love.

Troy is nothing more than a black finger of charcoal frozen in lake ice.

And near where the owl watches and the old bear dreams, the parapet of memory burns to the ground taking heaven with it.

(Untitled Fragment) Little solace comes to those who grieve when thoughts keep drifting as walls keep shifting and this great blue world of ours seems a house of leaves moments before the wind.

La Feuille Mes durs reves formels sauront te chevaucher Mon destm au char d'or sera ton beau rocher Qui pour renes tiendra tendus a freneie Mes vers, les parangons de toute poesie.

-Apollinaire C'etait l'automne. C'etait l'automne et c'etait la saison de la guerre. Te souviens-tu de la guerre? Moi, de moms en moms. Mais je me souviens de l'automne. Je vois encore les brouillards sur les pres a cote de la maison, et, au-dela, les chenes silencieux dans le crepuscule. Les feuilles etaient tombees depuis septembre. Elles brunissaient et m'evocaient alors l'esprit de ma jeunesse, et aussi I'esprit du temps.

Souventj'allais au bois. Je traversais les pres et je me perdais pour longtemps au-dessous des branches, dans les ombres, parmi les feuilles. Une fois, avant d'entrer dans le bois, je me souviens qu'il y avait un cheval noir qui me fixait de loin. II etait au fond du petit champ. J'imaginais qu'il me regardait, alors que probablement il dormait. Pourquoi pense-je maintenant a ce cheval? Je ne sais pas. Peut-etre pour Ia meme raison je pense a tous ces mots j'ai ecrit au meme temps.

J'ai garde la feuille ou j'avais note tout ce qui m'etait venu a l'esprit. A l'epoque, je croyais qu'ils m'appartenaient, mais maintenant je sais que j'avais tort. A chaque fois que je les relis, je vois que je copiais seulement ce que quelqu'un m'avait raconte.

-N'aie pas peur. Je ne m'arreterai pas. Je dois decouvrir cette clairiere. Et je ne m'arreterai pas tant que je ne l'aurais pas trouvee. Sais-tu ce qui me pousse a la chercher? Eh bien... personne. Ma femme est morte. Ma femme, ma flue et mon fils sont tous morts. Te souviens-tu comment us sont morts? Moi, de moms en moms. Je ne me souviens que du temps. Mes blessures ne sont plus mortelles, mais j'ai peur. J'ai peur de ne pas trouver cette clairiere.

Je suis reste quelque temps a regarder les ombres, les feuilles et les branches. Ensuite, quand j'ai quitte le bois, je ne voyais que le brouillard autour de moi. Je ne pouvais voir ni la maison, ni les pres, seulement le brouillard. Et bien sur, le cheval noir avait disparu.

- [illegible]

You Shall Be My Roots You shall be my roots and I will be your shade, though the sun burns my leaves.

You shall quench my thirst and I will feed you fruit, though time takes my seed.

And when I'm lost and can tell nothing of this earth you will give me hope.

And my voice you will always hear.

And my hand you will always have.

For I will shelter you.

And I will comfort you.

And even when we are nothing left, not even in death, I will remember you.

Appendix II Due to the unexpected number of inquiries regarding the first edition, Mr. Truant agreed for this edition to provide the following additional material.

- The Editors A.

Sketches & Polaroids B.

The Pelican Poems A Palimpsest of Austere Pelican Jake Prospero dreams 'twixt green sea and azur'd vault setting war while the corner clock ticks in the evening den.

"Charlotte. Charlotte.

The moments here are short and I am mad."

(mutinous waves usurp the land) dear God here?

and raising a sun struck hand - yes here again.

- For Claudia. New Haven.

May 26, 1988 Pelican Considers a Cha-Cha with a Long Island Ice Tea In Hand Mr. Jake misplaced his armor.

And how the wind whistles through, "A swell of thought, the tumescence of a moment, only that, but...?"

A father tossed in that storm with iron cufflinks cut by Cain.

"We hesitate in chance"

But Pelican's begun now -Avatar Pelican's begun his occluded dance.

- Left at Klub Restauracja. Warsaw.

July 6, 1988 Pelican Jake on the Eurydice School Bus We hold our dreams in lost dreams and tear our hearts out over chance.

"She carried the songs of centuries"

and in her passing my madness passed.

- For the waitress at Cafe Wilanowska. Warsaw July 7, 1988 Pelican's Pen A jinx of ink, Lo the star!

All is chance, nothing planned- only the will these words command.

- For Marek. Warsaw.

July 7, 1988 Pelican's Juvenile Metempsychosis Will you steal from this blind man When I would give you all.

I stumbled when I saw, but Gloucester was never this far gone.

I see feelingly and at this height there is only so much fall.

Alex brought him back with a light tap on the glass and then lighting a match, "Romeo or is it Lear tonight"

- Left at another Warsaw cafe.

July 8, 1988 Pelican's Cocktail Mythology Three muse over an elegant ruse concerning a lingual wall which only I can pass over.

Their eyes are beautiful and plans wild and laughter unconcerned.

"You're at it again"

"Yes, on a high sea wall, yes at it again."

- For a beautiful three at a Warsaw hostel.

July 8, 1988 Pelican's Religious Ruminations One forgets that one is one.

I rnust try to remember this.