Jul 2015
When I woke up
my name...was gone.
As if it had jumped ship
took a train and
ended up incognito
in Tuscaloosa
as an unsuccessful
travelling salesman.
Who the hell I was
...I couldn't tell you.
It was as if
I was being
slowly erased.
Things too
started to lose
their names
looking at me
startled like
people
shocked to see
themselves
suddenly in the ****
walking down the High Street.
Only a telephone
remembered its name
and started talking to me
in a high shrill voice.
"Ring ring ringringring!"
it said.
"Ring ring ringringring!"
it said again.
But although I
remembered its name
I didn't remember
what it was for.
So it just rang and rang
itself
into
silence.
"Shut it!"
I shouted silently.
"Honey..?"
somebody who
claimed to be
my wife
( what ever that
was )
handed me words
like hieroglyphics
written upon
the air.
"Tusaloosa!
I said.
"Wot...?"
she hieroglyphed.
"Tuscaloosa...that's
my name!"
I told her
for want of something
better to say.
"Tuscaloosa!"
I kept saying
trying to make it
make sense.
But it didn't.
Nothing..didn't
My wife started weeping
into the telephone thing
and that's how I
came to be here.
Wherever here
...is?
my name...was gone.
As if it had jumped ship
took a train and
ended up incognito
in Tuscaloosa
as an unsuccessful
travelling salesman.
Who the hell I was
...I couldn't tell you.
It was as if
I was being
slowly erased.
Things too
started to lose
their names
looking at me
startled like
people
shocked to see
themselves
suddenly in the ****
walking down the High Street.
Only a telephone
remembered its name
and started talking to me
in a high shrill voice.
"Ring ring ringringring!"
it said.
"Ring ring ringringring!"
it said again.
But although I
remembered its name
I didn't remember
what it was for.
So it just rang and rang
itself
into
silence.
"Shut it!"
I shouted silently.
"Honey..?"
somebody who
claimed to be
my wife
( what ever that
was )
handed me words
like hieroglyphics
written upon
the air.
"Tusaloosa!
I said.
"Wot...?"
she hieroglyphed.
"Tuscaloosa...that's
my name!"
I told her
for want of something
better to say.
"Tuscaloosa!"
I kept saying
trying to make it
make sense.
But it didn't.
Nothing..didn't
My wife started weeping
into the telephone thing
and that's how I
came to be here.
Wherever here
...is?
He had a mini stroke...he recovered but at the time he was looking at the tornado hit Tuscaloosa and remember his childhood sweetheart of years gone by and hoping that she was ok and the name or the sound lodged in his mind and whilst everything lost its name( including him )TUSCALOOSA became the name for everything. A similar thing happened to another friend and she was reduced down to the one word and everything became "THINGY!" She also recovered and became her self once again. This was how he described the episode to me when he had recovered ....him self!
He would often hum his favourite Dylan song YOU'RE GONNA MAKE ME LONESOME WHEN YA GO and replace Ashtabula of the song with Tuscaloosa. So his memory took over and supplied the one word that remembered his old love back in the days of his youth.
And as Hopkins puts it...
" O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. ""
He would often hum his favourite Dylan song YOU'RE GONNA MAKE ME LONESOME WHEN YA GO and replace Ashtabula of the song with Tuscaloosa. So his memory took over and supplied the one word that remembered his old love back in the days of his youth.
And as Hopkins puts it...
" O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. ""
(Guildford)
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