Charles Bernstein’s books include Blind Witness: Three American Operas (Factory School), new in 2008; Girly Man (University of Chicago Press), now in paperback; Shadowtime (Green Integer), libretto for an opera on Benjamin; Republics of Reality: 1975-1995 (Sun & Moor Press), Content's Dream: Essays 1975-1984 (Northwestern), and Controlling Interests (Roof). He is Donald T. Regan Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. More info: epc.buffalo.edu.

The Blue Divide

An almost entire, eerie, silence floats above and between the fixture that separate me from the doorstop. Slight rattle, rolling, scratches the space just behind me, which is helpful, if not necessary, to cast the reflections and echoes in just the way I’m accustomed. A table and window frame sit just ahead, to the side of the walls and corners, slat wood flooring, shelves, the tar-blacked driveway and terraced approach roads. A person waits in a boat about an hour away, floating in totally occasional manner. Stripped of its wood, unparalleled in respect to its riveting and displaced glare, incised by its dimensions, I feel the slight pang of an earlier sensation which rapidly switches in succession to images harder to identify at first, postcard sized shapes, rolling vertices. The sounds are pervasive and only from time to time increase in loudness which looks almost as if it were a tear or rip in the otherwise unbroken intensity. Bits of fabric—plaid, striped, glyphic—hang from fan gliders about 20 feet above and to the side arced formations of smoke languidly drift this way and that. Several hours pass the mood indiscernibly shifting to less substantive pleasures, the hallway rotating airily to the tempo of unforeseen reverberations. A small coterie remains behind to see that the ship departs smoothly, counting their change with an alternating frenzy and tedium. You ask for the lighter but remain seated, seem to recollect what you refused to say, purse your lips and, with a forlorn look, lapse back into thought, then begin to make suggestions for lunch. A fly makes its path spiraling over the campsite, arching toward the partially lit skylight and barraging full throttle into the screen. Men in blue suits and brown hats hurry over to the table and unpack their cases, gesticulating animatedly with their feet and hands. A tall, thin boy with grey callow eyes stares across the walk with forced attention, rubbing his legs and scratching his head, finally sinking into a dull, dejected slump which nonetheless gives the impression of greater ease. Barrels of fruit, uncovered and ageing, fill the area with a distracting odor, the inevitable subject of recurring fantasies for civic improvement. Tendrils, assimilated into the background glare, announce with glum resignation “far better for those with lighter hearts” imminent departure. Blocked, buoyed, incessant, I take for the elevator, dash quickly to the folded bed clothing—you angling loosely toward the courtyard, suffused with contentiousness. After a long walk we return to an almost identical place—the mat on the one side, the hobby horse on another. Paralyzed by the smoke, dazed by the duplicity, an earnest but elderly gentleman hobbles somewhere along the periphery, stooping, circling, tumbling, gliding while making his way to an adjacent watering hole. Not so nimble or quick-witted, the pool attendants make a final resolution to shore up their energies and make a clean break of it. By now the helicopter is annoyingly late and a considerable queue is backed up to the presenting section, obtrusively disrupting the ordinary course of commerce. I get on the megaphone and make these several points but the indifference turning to scorn of the onlookers is too uncomfortable and I turn to a medley of disconnected hits. You look so quiet there it seems a shame to disturb you, eyes lolling about to their own tune of distraction. The icy slope curves beyond reach, careless of index and anticipation.

selection from Controlling Interests appears courtesy of the author

New York: Roof Books, 1980; reprinted 2008