Those who build subway tunnels for money, let them go up to the
sunlight and rest. Those who are rats in the subway, let them dream of
the freedom in sunlight. Let them be the subway train, let them grow
silver wheels. Let them be the passengers on trains, let them hurtle
upwards, let them see gravestones out the windows, let them lie beside
gravestones and drink mango juice, let them give thanks to the dead
poets who built and dug and created realia, the beautiful things of the
upper world.
Even the sunlight talks, even the sun
has a voice. The sun says: My beloved died first, then she became
music, then I died. I died in my body, I was once a rat but I died,
accompanied by music. At that time I understood nothing but pain. I
loved my pain, it gave me a self to shield from all other rats.
But (the sun says) I died as a rat. Most
rats cling to their ratness, and when they die their teeth stay locked
around their ideal, they bite and hold their picture of a rat, their
ghost rat. In death a rat hopes for greatness. Greatness is the
immortal defeat of all other rats. If everybody agrees you’re the
greatest rat, you’ll never die except in your body. You’ll
possess yourself like a treasure, you won’t lose yourself
ever.
I lost myself even while I was alive. I
lost my pain and also my ability to describe pain. At that time I was
already the sun, if I had known it.
I was in a tunnel. Train headlights
traveled through me. I had a thousand empty hands. My thighs were the
graveyards. My fur was the seaweed. My claws were the mind. My eyes
were exile.
Train, don’t destroy me
completely. Don’t make me forget everything. I used to love to
hear a story, didn’t I? I don’t know what a story is. What
have I done to lose everything? I asked to be cleansed of what others
want. But I was cleansed of what I want.
That world up above’s populated by
beloveds, beautiful and kind to each other. Humans carry rats gently
along the footpath in their cupped palms. When two humans meet, they
hug and rub heads together and bring their rats together for a kiss.
A hand is holding a gate open.
It’s morning. Why did you wait so long to come to me? With his
eyes closed, Rat can see this thought speaking from this hand.
Rat suffers because he loves one who
isn’t here. He’s thin because her existence keeps him from
sleeping. He can’t describe her, she isn’t enlightened, she
isn’t beautiful, she isn’t part of the beyond, she
isn’t a rat, she isn’t a passenger. She isn’t this
and isn’t that. He can’t picture her, he can’t hear
her voice.
Blackness is light blocked. Black has light behind it.
Tunnels were built by great creatures.
Concrete and tar are the wish that love be eternal. Blackness
doesn’t just happen.
The train arrives, the creator arrives,
the size of all you can think, the size of one million rats, the
creator roaring its million squeaks, the creator of black tunnels,
creator of light, creator of sound, the creator rushing past again,
destroying thought, destroying sight, destroying remembering, your
creator’s a few inches away from you, you don’t exist,
you’re all train.
Even to say you love the train,
that’s nothing, there’s no you to love. The train’s
everything.
Then it goes away. It carries the
universe away, but the black remembers where it’s been dazzled.
The other rats come back to themselves.
Rats search for the hamburger bun they smelled before the dazzlement.
One rat in the dark keeps his eyes closed.
This rat’s the faint pulse of
light behind black. Heart fixed on glowing light behind black.
Those who throw garbage on the track,
those who light the track fire, they wait for the end of the world.
I’m ignorant, I’m made of
this dark. In ignorance I ask about the creation of tunnels, the
destination of the track, the source of light. Let the one who knows
come and tell us.
The rat was created by somebody who
knows nothing about rats. Even a rat can deliver a message; even a rat
can be a passenger.
A rat can’t sing a hymn, a rat
can’t request his message be delivered. The train can’t be
talked to. Wheels aren’t slowed by smoke. Wheels don’t feel
fire. Wheels can’t be purified further. What drives the wheel
never ages.
Train. Bringer of sound, bringer of death.
Train, who carries all the faces away.
Train who’s never been stopped by any rat.
O death, o train.
Carry us into the light above.
Unite us with the beloved.
Train, who built you?
Eyes that destroy eyes.
Feet that destroy feet.
Hollow, roaring, not-caring.
We hesitate next to the rail, we skitter off silently, no one catches us.
Teach us to get caught.
We’re slaves to food. Teach us to run like you do, fed on noise and light and nothing.
When rats dream we see ourselves wearing
silver chains eighteen links long. We’re fastened to the dark.
The creator of the train, he chained us here.
When the train approaches, the wind
blows, air dazzles like headlights. We dug these tunnels, I remember
digging, but who built the train? Who arranged the emptiness inside the
train? Who fixed the color of blackness? You, train, created the train.
You, train, make the wind. You, train, set the chains. Where you go,
the tunnels follow.
You push, you create. You made me dig
for you. You create wind, you create fear, you create noise and light.
When you created rats, did you make them out of light, or noise, or
fear?
We love your indifference. We praise the
destruction in your wheels. When you vanish, you make the silence and
the darkness, the misery is yours, the next anticipation is yours.
One famous rat stood on the track as you
arrived. He told you to stop, he stood up and shone his eyes back at
you. You took him and now he’s with you. We pray to the absence
you create. We offer devotion. Little offerings of food line up on the
rails. No god devours with such total glory.
If a rat can fly, who cares? If a rat
can write words, will that amaze us? A rat could wave his tail and turn
a peanut-shell into piles of candy floss, and we wouldn’t notice.
We’re visited every hour by the creator of everything, tricks
can’t impress us.
The noise of wheels is in the breath of
the female rat. The glare of lights is in the breath of the male rat.
The pink child they make together, is it important? Does it expect to
distract me from my worship?
To the rat whose mind is filled with the
train, the smell of garbage is a silver track. The electrified rail is
a finger of heaven. The black tunnel is the beginning of the dream.
Sparks are the bumping of his heart. The train as it rushes past, never
passes. The train as it rushes past, never leaves.
Rats are the body of the train, rat
blood is the fuel of the train. Rats can roar and destroy tunnels, they
just don’t know it. When any rat dies, a universe of black
tunnels is flooded.
The tail of the rat curves like subway
cars. Gray fur is its own moonlight. The skittishness of the rat is
worshipped by the dark. Fear is the heat, fear makes the electricity of
rat-life.
I’ll walk on the track you travel.
When you arrive, I hear you in my feet first. My feet are wheels, my
terror of you is anticipation.
The train’s not hungry, the train
is hunger. A rat who dies of thirst moans like your brakes. You
don’t bring food or drink, you created us empty because your cars
are empty, you’re howling.
Unless the train turns inside-out, the
passenger will never get to heaven. When the train turns inside-out,
the heart of every rat’s visible to every other rat.
Unless the train’s empty, we will
have no insides to breathe into. Unless the train’s full,
feelings won’t enter our hearts. A rat without emptiness
won’t move; a rat without fullness won’t love.
No rat can ride a train, but we dream.
In dreams we climb tiled walls, we fly through ducts, we float
invisible among passengers. The passengers don’t know
they’re a dream.
We live in dirt, we eat garbage, and our
dreams are filled with love and light. Should we lay our dreams on the
track to sacrifice, or our filthy bodies?
If our dreams are illusions, we
don’t want dreams. If dreams are your love, we only want dreams.
How can we understand you when you don’t talk?
Born as rats, we passed through the
vaginas of rats. Self-created creator, where have you dropped us? Take
us with you. If you deliver passengers to hell, take us there. Living
in holes, climbing over each other, we lack wheels to escape.
When will we crush you to our hearts, when will we catch you? Give us the strength.
Rats crawl over me on their way to the
greater darkness. Their belly fur scrapes my head. They need to eat.
They’re terrified, they can’t rest. They itch to dig, they
dig in the air.
They’re my mass, they’re my
fur, they slink off when I’m scared, they gnaw when I’m
hungry. They’re my rat body.
This body is of fur. It has tail, gnawing teeth. It’s hot, a train’s cold.
A train’s cold, this body here should be metal-cold.
Destroy my body, it’s full of rat,
the rat’s throughout. What thinks is the rat. This voice, rat.