Tiger I

professormucknectar — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:18:09 GMT

7/7/2008 By Jacob Young In from Out sing- In from Out sing- _Ouumm ouuumm khuuua khuuua Ouumm ouuumm khuuua khuuua_ I am writing to you from a crumbling build. The inside has been gutted, and where I sit I can see through the phantom spaces of the second and third floor of the building’s left wing, through the ceiling, and out into the bright, clouded day. It was raining here just recently, and water pours through the roof, making pools in the bombed open floor. It seems like more water than there was rain. Pieces of rotten cement fall from the ceiling, but I am not scared, none are falling near me. I sit at the confluence of the remaining walls. The structure behind me is dark, becoming void without description. At first there is brick walls and uneven ground, but then nothing. I am terrified to question this, also the presence of so much falling water is eerie. It does not make sense, it seems as if a pipe is broken, but there couldn’t be any active plumbing here. The water stops. I stop. I cannot write to you any longer. My body curls in and fatigues like an avocado skin, the flesh of my fruit, rotted, my unwritten words carried away by flies, the avocado seed is my typewriter and folding table. I look at the crisp paper, half fed through the typewriter, will you receive this letter? You already have. Somehow I have spoken to you since the beginning. I get up, straightening, and walk to the door at the far end of the visible room. The cement continues crumbling, splashing into the pools of water, the light is beautiful. I open the door and all the walls fall at once, I am blasted by a radiance that fills the doorway and I never existed in this place. Enjoy this letter, it is my only artifact. Your friend, Sincerely, I I am a tiger, never was a man. I am a saint, but of the jungle clan. Heart beat beats inside my wake-ed chest, I need food inside my body, before I think of rest. They call me a saint because I deliver the dead. I deliver them from life. I break them. What was rhythm is not any longer, you will not hear a rhyme again, I killed it. I will kill something else now, I am hungry. My claws dig into the jungle tree branch I am climbing across. My legs are wide as clubs, see my sleek leopard fur, I am beautiful, I am a leopard now, I only said tiger before because it felt right. I leap forward and grab a gazelle in my jaws. What was it doing in these trees suddenly within reach? I am the leopard. I call the shots. I am writing the shape of a tiger. The last section was the tiger’s head, full of fierce hunger, notice it ended with an answer to its own question. How arrogant. The first section was the tiger’s dream, dreaming of writing and a letter. You cannot tell me this is false. I will next write the tiger’s bones: I I I II I I II I I I II III II III I I I I I II III II I I II I I I II II II II I I I I II I There is nothing else that can be said about this, bones are silent. What is left for us? Obviously this is a story I could be anyone maybe the man next door or the women at the bus stop I wrote this and it reached your hands maybe I am this page in your hand creating my shapes of ink through a feat far beyond your comprehension can you imagine ink crawling out of a bottle and into a ream of paper and turning itself into the story you are now reading it seems improbable but you cannot disprove it you cannot disprove me I could be that story Help! Help! I am ink on a page and no one understands me! Please be my voice and legs! Take me to the mall and buy me candy and tell people my opinions: I like blue My favorite color is orange The Mets are a better team than the Red Sox I am from Wistonia I like brunettes and Jolly Rancher candies Please just don’t recycle me! Of course you don’t believe this I don't believe it either but it could be true I could be anyone even the ink on this page hello nice to meet you, my name is I. Anymore of this and I will be sick The point has been made What else is there? I have spoken so directly that nothing else exists. The lie of my identity is boldly before you there is nothing left but the acceptance of my words read on and do not feel duped I have brought you to this place for a reason I tore down the walls of my theater to make room for more stage and to include the imaginary sky in my story let us begin I am in a jungle the night is raw and whole it breaths and speaks a bottomless voice it is loud there is death and mating in the air bright eyes that see past my own I am not scared my dog is with me the jungle the jungle how I know you I hold the white mane of my dog with one hand and a low hanging vine with the other I stand for a moment the bark’s surface is thick and rutted me and my dog move with the tides we know that the ocean’s great recession is nearly finished when we reach the shore all the near rocks will be exposed we are not alone in this knowledge there is a tiger spirit whose paw stance is acres wide whose silhouette is like a transparent horizon she is walking this path also her belly high above us We are beginning to understand each other me and this tiger it travels with us moving the wind and infusing the still air with spirit and energy I swear the night birds sing louder and the sugar bats fly higher in her presence it is an amazing thing there is something to be said for a creature like this tiger who is a predator but does not hunt she fills the sky walking above us I have heard that somewhere far from here she was written about making here face and bones vivid but her spirit was never written her body never placed she roams freely at any size I should tell you about my dog she bounds from the jungle as we reach its edge running out across the open sand and then returning to me to give the joy we make together she is a special creature but not born so not special in the way that is inscribed in papers that say bloodline that imply price that make specific diseases and treatments she was a given dog free as my clothes when I received her I brought her to this beach and to my home and to the jungle and I told her all the things I know she is my child I accepted her willingly and consciously she knows my friend’s babies and how they are loved she knows other people’s animals and how they are treated and she knows the tiger that walks above us because I taught her of it she knows all these things but again and again I see her choose the tiger that is why she is a special dog I named her Vishnu We go to the water all the tides creatures are caught in pools or limp and hanging to the rock I see them in the moonlight the tiger has stayed behind at the edge of the jungle laying down she waits for us to return I walk carefully toward the waves I am barefoot stepping cautiously through tide pools and climbing on all fours across low ridgelines of stone bound in seaweed Vishnu leads and follows me always hunting we come to a large rock formation high above the water line I climb it and Vishnu follows me as we come over the peak of the formation the wind of the ocean is suddenly thrown against us far off we can see the waves of the sea’s edge crashing in rolling layers upon rock formations we cannot reach that place is dangerous out past them the open sea goes on and on meeting the stars in a place I cannot see I sit down and my dog sits also a little ways off from me the wind is so strong so telling of the earth’s power Vishnu howls at the sky and I howl back both of us laugh we made it to this wonderful place again we go down the rock’s face sitting near the wet and delicate looking seaweed gardens here the wind is not so severe and we sit in silence for a long time watching the stars and distant ocean the waves do not seem to be getting any closer and the wind becomes cold but Vishnu knows I will not leave this place until the ocean returns she cuddles against me I appreciate her warmth we fall asleep this way against all odds in the unsettling wind I am dreaming the crash of the ocean is almost in my hand all but upon us then a leading wave hits the bottom of our rock formation a great sheet of water is thrown high into the air it falls upon us and I awaken immediately leaping up are we safe waaaahhh the ocean is here the great leading wave recedes it is day We walk back across the top of our rock formation to the shore the air is thick now with mist from the breaking waves the water in the tide pools is rising in echo to the ocean the seaweed touching the water begins to open like wings the efoliated ridges that separate the pools look like half risen dinosaur backs in the morning light I imagine tyradactiles and giant dragonflies riding the air above them we watch the waves timing their roll in and dispersal when they are farthest away we make for the beach it is a long and dedicate trek the waves come in again and again before we reach the shore Vishnu fares better than me with her strong dog paws I am battered with scraped hands and feet but we are both happy half wet from the sea and alive as we approach the jungle’s edge the great tiger arises and stretches her back she turns with us we enter the jungle going home I stop in the light and greenery something felt different this time bringing back the sea we were witnessed by someone this is good I will write a letter to you this has never been done before I was wrong about the tiger not hunting. It is a different game when you do not hunger, but still she hunts. The tiger leaves as me and Vishnu enter our home she walks over the valley and into the next farther farther on she tracks the sun across the day following the passage of time finally gathering in the place where the light becomes golden the great bodyless creature feels the collection of things in the presence of the setting sun dusk and flying birds pass through her as she lays between two peaks in the luminous horizon light sound and life reeling in the air THIS MUST BE WHAT IT IS LIKE TO HAVE A BODY She thinks, this is the tiger hunting stalking places of strength great enough to fill her presence here the birds rush in great numbers passing through her toward the day and from it in anticipation of the night their song is as important to her as their bodies for she is silent only able to move and see Night comes and she leaps back over mountains and mountains to the ridgeline above my home where the sky has darkened long ago The owl, night monkey, and dreams rule these hours past midnight close to dawn black air sifts in soft wind standing on the mountain tops the stars are near to the tigers brow shining in the fullness of their maturity Alight and silent throughout the dark Proven to be still and constant, clear in their identity Same as the plants of late summer, their leaves no longer growing but instead holding space, living The moon rises CAUGHT Thinks the tiger another precious thing found another thing that is mine just in time I am the first to see the moon MINE What is it to pounce to gain the tiger thinks she knows without a body with only the mind and structure of her spoken bones, she thinks, she believes To take space to own This must be what it is to hunt Then the tiger hears a new sound, she looks down down into the distance of the valley to my home coming from the structure’s shadow into the moonlight the tiger see something new incomprehensible a secret never before even hinted at now glimpsed subtler than the mystic of Vishnu and I knowing this tiger deeper than the threads of the universe, its very hands Seeping from cracks in the outer walls of my house pieces of ink are escaping from my books and running away into the jungle The tiger is transfixed I WILL POUNCE THESE INKS THEY ARE SO LITTLE BUT I WILL TAKE THEM I AM A TIGER THEY WILL BE MINE The tiger slinks forward with caution all her attention fixed she know she is seeing something beyond any bird sunset ghost or anomaly but she does not realize its depth she is witnessing the exodus of gods cousins to this ink writing the story in which she lives then she is there with the pieces of ink their strange language is now audible The ink in front coaxes the slowest along They are a family They are going to the ocean They will enter the waves They will join the dolphins who will take the ink people to a distant undersea kingdom NO THEY WON'T And the tiger pounces front paws striking down in the center of the family the ink splashes up making her paws suddenly manifest with the ink’s divinity for seconds the tiger’s formless presence has striped fur, claws like sabers, paws wide as houses the claws dig through the ground through the flesh of the reality A tare in the page is made The future is seen in the ragged window it is the next page a glimmer of a moment to come the scattered ink calls out to its family and they run down the tiger’s paws escaping into the next page the tiger watches her hands once again become formless To be real Known for seconds Lost A memory of stripes Hands and huge claws The power to rip through this page To be filled Only for seconds The tiger smells the hole inspects it and slinks away across the jungle The torn hole stays A new part of the jungle floor Golden incomprehensible cavern A myth for the future.

A New Story

Tiger I