Some Thoughts I Had On the Eve of Eternity
Noah Kucoltinny

Ah, I'm falling to pieces here.
I know I'm not Holden Caulfield.
Or Jake Barnes or Jay Gatz.
I am not Kimball O'Hara or Rhoda or Bernard or Louis.
I am not Percival, or Phinneus, or J. Alfred, or Franny Glass.
I'm not Max Fischer, or Igby.
Or even Noah Kucoltinny.

I know that.

Yet, still I am.
But who am I?

(I am me.) He whispers from across the street.
and
Who is that?
(I guess we'll have to wait and see)

Could be a baby being cradled and rocked to sleep by his loving, young mother;
Or maybe some withered and wrinkled old man
alone in the corner, grey-haired and eyed,
already asleep and waiting to die.

Am I who I am right now?
Or am I stuck in between these lines?
waiting to fall, unsatisfied;
piece by forgotten piece…
each left in a photograph,
crumpled up into a ball.
The universe once asked me this question
and I would still answer
Had I had a breath to spare,
or the nerve to call,
or a chance of living through this cancer
(or anything at all)

or if an atom floated back home
late one night alone,
while watching the starry-eyed streets of Boston,
reflect off the ancient seats of Rome,
and came upon a thought:

in orbit we are living and in orbit we are dead.
Is that what I’m saying or is that what I said?

Who am I to say what I mean?
To die today would be a dream!
One from which it would be impossible to wake
and continue to suffer
this eternal heartbreak.

Piece by piece,
I follow the west into the east.
I follow the never setting sun.
My bones, restless as they rotate,
each and every one
each with such meaninglessness and decay.
Each time is the same time, each second, each week, each decade.
Each glowing away

(night by night, day by day).

As I breathe in order to breathe some more,
and as I beat my heart so I can eat some more,
I wonder if it is worth it to skip ahead
when the end comes whether or not.
Is this depressing?
Or all we've got?

And which piece do I underscore!
If the end is impossible to ignore.

Whether I'm awake or falling asleep, making my bed or undressing,
I cannot stop myself from thinking about tomorrow morning.
Is it really able to exist?
Does a clock count time or just ticks of mist?

I wade into the sea
with jacket pockets filled with stones and shotgun shells each emptied.
You fill your sails with emails and love letters,
and maybe someday we'll meet.
I'll pick you a flower
and together we'll smile and say cheese.
Except how can love be just between you and me?
I count my steps to retrace
this distance from me to you,
and you and me to outer space
(four inches on a globe, when it's not spinning).

The air passes
(and fogs up my glasses, but that is just the beginning).
The air past us.
Everything passed in disgust.
Waiting for me at the end, thinking I was late
(it was the cosmos that we held and hold that made me so wait).

And my soul had wept a great deal.
But who am I to say what is real?

So I imagine a world already spun.
A cloudy human heaven of my friends, each and every one--
each protecting their earth-bound gods and angels,
each praying to the sun.
I think, I think, I pause at the brink.
(I would sing to you, like I always do. If you wanted me to.)
But who am I to think?

I think of breathless peace and broken heart grease
hot-fired ashes and hard pinewood trees
the oceans endless, dark and deep
the blue-grey stars above and universal sleep.

. . . . . and you are so beautiful. I haven't said that until now.

Just hold my hand.
Just hold my hand, please.
That is all I want.
This is all I can offer.
That is all I need.

(now push repeat.)

oct. 2006