in front of you a mass suspended between life and death

"I saw the red Pacific Electric
city trains dismantled & replaced (L.A.) by
automative freeways, saw
the orange bulldozer, "Dad,
are we real?" "we slide our
barques … past burning parts, ports of
barbecues, seized women, farewell to the flesh
and fleas in a new vehicle 'driving … vast
distances to …'              roadside attractions, snake
farms, jelly stands with curios outside Palm City"

(Eleni Sikelianos, The California Poem, 2004)




You have in front of you a mass suspended between life and death and entirely dependent on you. I've often had this feeling of a confrontation between something that was already there and something that was about to take its place.

(Marguerite Duras, talking about writing in Marguerite Duras: Practicalities: Marguerite Duras speaks to Jérôme Beaujour, 1990, tr. Barbara Bray)