The Flower
Hello! I am a talking flower! Chalk up my talk, which, no walk-in-the-park, comes from my stalk!
Greetings, welcome to my head. Ding! That’s an idea. Ding! Ding! Ding! That’s ideas. Ding! Ding!
Ding! Ding! Ding! They come like little men spilling out of a broken egg.
Hi there, won’t you talk with me?
My head bears fruit. To wit: what surrounds. Flappy wings on a circle, circle to reign what is within, flappy wings flappy in wind.
I want no part of a thinking that is not as well, feeling.
You there, what is your gift? Can you convert fluff into substance? What
About the other way round? What about the other way
Round? What about the other way round?
Please. The origami of my thoughts. Folded, enfolded, collapsing like a failed star into itself, a
stairway into the cunning arrayments of rhodochrosite.
I eat light! So spaceflight. So 2070.
(The ants are oracles, bringing news from the far-off place.
They have gnawed at a dream like bits of leaves
They will use to construct a nest.)
Flower, I flower. I flower in the bower as a lower that glowers.
I think there will always be those sick in love, lovesick, lovelorn, fated to wander the landscape with arms outstretched like a somnambulist or a hopping vampire.
They will come and shred at my head, mumbling “He loves me,” “He loves me not,” but I will not, I
will.
Oh! Oh! Oh! I know.
Have you ever been in love?
Aha. Love. Given the corpus delicti, how it is, in flagrante delicto and, as well, in propria persona;
so, given this, deorum injuriae diis curae? Yes? No?
Hello!
Hello!
Goodbye!
Goodbye, symbol.
Goodbye, hello.
Field which contains my brethren, my brethren and I, my brethren, my, the, brethren, a.
Let us knock our heads against one another.
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The Ghostwriter
I am a ghostwriter. That is, I am a ghost who writes. I have wanted to write. It seems like such a human thing to do. But I could not even hold up a quill. Everything slips through my flimsy grasp. Undeterred, I begin work on a novel in my mind. I have to work fast, you see, because thoughts keep leaking out of my insubstantial head. That means going back and rewriting sentences I have lost. When I finish this book at last, I think I will title it Ghost: An Autobiographical Novel.
/
I am a ghostwriter. I write to the ghosts. I write to the ghosts because when I consider their lonelinesses, I am sad for them. I imagine they are lonely. They never write back, so I can’t say for sure. My work keeps me busy. Ink splatters everywhere. Sheaves of paper fill my desk. Except for the occasional creak on the floorboard, it is so quiet here. From time to time, I allow myself to look up from my work and catch the dwindling light outside the window.
/
I am a ghostwriter. The ghosts pay me to write. Of course I am terrified. Listen, everyone alive or otherwise has to make a living. This is mine. I kiss my love goodbye nightly, set out to the abandoned barn where I work. I light the candles, arrange the quartz. I sit in front of my typewriter. I hope tonight I will get to work on shopping lists and business contracts, nothing overly complicated like a love letter.
/
I am a ghostwriter. I am the one who writes ghosts into existence. Poltergeist, wraith, banshee, pontianak, yaoguai, strigoi. The interviewer, considering my ghost oeuvre, presses, “Was your childhood, perhaps, marked by absence?” It wasn’t. I had a happy childhood filled with love. “And your life now?” I get up in the morning, shower, work, take lunch, work, take dinner, watch TV, sleep. Just an ordinary life, a life like any other.
/
I am the ghostwriter. I write to ghosts because I feel for them. The ghosts pay me to write—it is just business. I am a ghost, I am not a ghost. I may well be a ghost, considering ghosts are all I write about. I make them come to life. I am a ghostwriter, my clientele are mostly C-list celebrities looking to tap into another stream of revenue. Some of them are ghosts. I have a novel in my mind. Ink splatters everywhere. Ghostwritten, I ghostwrite ghosts for the ghosts, who right as ghosts, ghost, right as it goes for the ghostwriter, ghostwriter that I am.
