'Know thyself, O Croesus, and happiness shall be thine.'

    --

    The morning began lazily as if the Sun was reluctant to make an appearance, 
    and the stars, through no fault of their own, remained visibly present in the 
    firmament. ‘Time to wake up, sleepy head!’. In the bed chamber. You made it
    and want to sleep in it. But the curtains were drawn and the light painted. 

    This is how it began.

    Was there a mirror to behold the image or had it been broken. Seven years? 
    First the cutting reflection and then razor sharp shards. The bad luck was in
    the suffering that did not inform, he reminded himself. Now where is that 
    crown. The Corona. ‘noun. “a long, straight-sided cigar”’. For the nonce, “for 
    the time being”, the “obsolete oblique form” of the “THE”. 

    So he put the crown on and made ready. ‘Hail, O Croesus!’, he said to himself
    looking in the mirror. This is not going to be as easy as I imagined. 

    They say he never left his room, or some such thing. The office of Nature is a 
    job. And he was a busy man. So yes, he did in fact leave his room, on a 
    regular basis. And once in a while even to the great city, but he was no
    cosmopolitan. Unlike that infuriating character. ‘That charlatan! That cheat!’

    Newt. ‘noun. “a small, slender-bodied amphibian with lungs”’. That breeds
    and breaths. ‘Wonderful’. But Cosmos was his business and he reminded the
    Sun of his 1, 2, 3, “Trumpeting angels”,

    and Elephants.

    ‘When you meet Isaac you shall see Stars’, and then Jacob and his sons. That
    Man, that crafty Mann, had sorely tested him. Never trust a writer, nor actors,
    he reminded himself.

    Joseph was an innocent man. He was certain of that.

    But was he happy? He asked himself. ‘Are you happy, O King?’. Who are you? The
    mirror answers back. No he was not yet happy in that self possessed sense. 
    Something mislaid, misplaced, misunderstood. A momentary shot of envy, of the dog. 
    Chasing its own tail. ‘noun. “a round plane figure” “a group of people” “she did not 
    normally move in such exalted circles”’. 

    Lucky dog.

    He checks the time. Normally he would walk to the Office but not today, seeing that
    he was tardus. Latin. ‘noun. “the language of ancient Rome and its empire”’. The
    same tongue spoken by mad crowds cheering for the spectacle. Circus and bread. 

    Cha cha. Chai. 

    But first a Cup of Joe. ‘How but Cafe 0 lay 2 day 0 Croesus?’. No, this is not 
    going to be easy. Adjective. ‘noun. “a word or a phrase meaning an attribute,
    added to a noun to modify or describe it”’. Its all circular. Explains everything,
    he reminded himself. 

    No fucking wonder.

    On the way to the Office he pondered that rare occurrence of the verb masquerading
    as a noun. It was not a conclusion that he sought. He was not a dog, much less a
    bitch. But the idea of exalted circles did have a certain appeal. But nothing
    “urgent”. What was urgent was his being at the point (x, y, z) at time t. 

    Tuple. ‘noun. “combining form” “forming nouns and adjectives with a preceding
    algebraic symbol”’. Its all so twisted, no wonder they all go mad. 

    Of the variables he was considering, only z behaved in a respectable manner. 
    x claimed to be an unknown but it was always y that begged the question. And 
    nobody has a clue about t. But z moved discreetly from station to station. 
    The height of civilized behavior.

         ’I AM Time’.

    Ich bin Ein. Berliner. Stein. That thought threw him a curveball whose curvature
    threatened to arouse him. Like the “curvature of a woman’s body”. Arouse too is 
    a noun. (If you look it up you will see.) But love is the superior noun.

    In no time he was at the Office door. Fully awake. 

—

bushwick, nyc

sept 4, 2015