Four Letters from Robert Kloss
(1 Dec 2010; 9 Dec 2010; 22 Dec 2010; 30 Dec 2010)

James Tadd Adcox

1 Dec 2010

James:

I am ripped at the seams, I am slowly torn to nothingness. A projector is lit. The audience watches, slumped, drunken. So why this desire? What is missing that should be there? Break it to parts -- an anachronism, his chivalry, his love of reading fiction.
What makes it good for you? What is there that should be accentuated? You made love in the afternoons, slept with a wife, a woman who insisted upon no name but the name you gave her. She pulled away, coughing -- the shape of her figure, her pink brassiere, through the lighted window. How she would look strewn.
Are you frightened? Do you miss me as I miss you?


9 Dec 2010

James:

What is my belly for but growing new animals?
What is it you clasped, dripping blood? What is said: all dust comes from the skin of infants.
What is a man and woman together without new life between them.
What is after. What is that? What is. What is it called?
What is this I hear about you and our friend?
What is and is not the country in that voice of yours!
What is at stake. What is he then?
What is it? What is it?
What is it called again, Miriam's what?


22 Dec 2010

James:

Recall apparitions doomed to watch you at play.
Recollect the end, the past, in fits of anxiety. Discuss Robert in a relationship with his unnatural and devious lusts. Oppress the ghost and ash of the first wife, the first child.
Stagger through what's at stake: tender accusations of infidelity, inversion, the smell of dead fish, raw nerves. Factor in their/our constant quarrels, the punching and cussing and biting: "dreadfully abused"; "nearly took the ear off." Recollect certain scenes between the girlfriend/wife/whatever and the moment he/"he" disappeared.
Explain "Animal Lover." Explain "Anne Frank." Explain a little more about trying to figure out why. Explain how dialogue is the skin of a large dangerous animal, a white pink thing, trembling and mewing. Explain how tension is a disease.
I have toughness born of obstinance, James. Coddled skin is easily abused.
Crimes of passion are common on these brutal outskirts and powerful enough to crush bone.


30 Dec 2010

James:

You dream your skin gone. Do not worry over it. Most artists worth your time were not exemplary people.
Your skin would hold the pain that you didn't have strength for.
It's always easier to blame the other person isn't it? Failure is an intimate process.
An experienced writer can quickly observe your tricks, their effect, aimless, competitive, petty. There is of course no accounting for taste. Fighting for control with asides and personal reminiscences, snickering... this imposter only verifies what I've felt. There's a flatness. One incident of people being bad or getting punished after another. But empty. I hardly remember. We both knew I didn't have plans, I never had plans.
Your voice, echoing inside your cavernous skull. Even with eyes we get too isolated.
Different subjects infect your mind.
I am on the outside watching all of this. I am Robert. I am now x years old. Something happened and here I am.