Jottings in Number 2 Pencil  |  Minimalism

Andrew Wilson has published poems, prose poems, and fiction in EXQUISITE CORPSE, IN POSSE REVIEW, NEW LETTERS, PAUMANOK REVIEW, and LA PETITE ZINE, et cetera. CYBERCORPSE is serializing Wilson's novel, Clever. He edits LINNAEAN STREET, a new web literary quarterly.

A blinding sea with the sun on it.

 
A notebook with bent pages.

 
A woman, all but transparent.

 
Picasso lines. Crazy quilt. Oranges.

 
... melted into air, into thin air.

 
I'm going swimming.

 
Long ago, and in darkness —

 
Writing on a page. I can't make it out, what is it?

 
Lips pursed.

 
The World as Will and Idea.

 
Piero della Francesca's pregnant Madonna.

 
Serene evenings among broken marble columns.

 
It was cooler higher up than below.

 
The car rocking on ruts.

 
I was ashamed.

 
I fell asleep under a pine tree. I woke as the sun was setting.

 
It was nothing having to do with you.

 
I stood looking at the sky. My brow furrowed. Grief?

 
Disappearing world. Vanished lives.

 
He stood on the beach, wind rippling his trousers.

 
David. Tell me something.

 
I climbed onto the rocking raft.

 
Why don't you kiss her?

 
Rear view mirror view of Enna, etched against a lightening sky.

    We flashed past it into the dusk.

 
It was raining in Sicily.

 
There are corners of this place even I haven't seen.

 
A little girl beggar. Her stern brother holds her hand.

    He takes the bill without a word and goes on to the next car,

    keeping her hand in his.

 
Syracusa.

 
I'm feeling a little lost.

 
It's not all about words. It's all about flesh.

 
She lay on the sheet stretched taut.

 
You taste like salt.

 
I was consoled by my grief.

 
I'm not going to pretend it's all right. It's clearly wrong.

 
He swam in the shadows then rose shaking light from his hair.

 
My father's frown.

 
My mother's laugh.

 
Walking along a beach, stepping over the tangled clumps of brown seaweed.

 
A boiled egg on a spoon.

 
A clear laugh.

 
A summer afternoon.

 
The so beautifully unsaid.

 
My eyebrow in a mirror.

 
Holding a child's hand.

 
My dream about going through a narrow alley in a helicopter.

 
The Castello di Gargonza, its tower rising above the tops of straight pines.

 
A butterfly fluttering on a grass blade.

 
Walking barefoot on sharp stones.

 
A girl's bra strap.

 
Holding a breast through a soft sweater.

 
A pocket mirror. Looking at one side of my face, then another.

 
A blurring river in dusk.

 
Shouts floating up.

 
The grave old men playing boules in a courtyard.

 
Daigoro!

 
Television.

 
Roma.

 
What have you got in your mouth?

 
He leaned out to open the shutters. A lizard flashed away under a roof tile.

 
She soaped under her arm.

 
Don't try to placate me.

 
The road ended in a grove of pines. Light and darkness mingled in its depths.

 
They can smell when you're afraid.

 
Je ne regrette rien.

 
Red Rover, Red Rover, let Andy come over.

 
Jeune fille.

 
I remember chewing the eraser to a stub. And the yellow pencil, wet with saliva—

 
Please don't let it rain.

 
Did you get into her panties?

 
Eyes, hopelessly sad.

 
Why don't you shut up and kiss me?

 
I used to have a sense about these things.

 
Kyrie elison.

 
This is not all fool, my Lord.

 
Wildflowers, shining in the wet field by the tracks.

 
Take down that suitcase.

 
He felt that his feet had wings.

 
Shane.

 
Toshiro Mifune.

 
Upper Engadine.

 
We'll get along.

 
Top Hat.

 
The way you drink your tea.

 
My mother is a fish.

 
I know I'm hard to get along with.

 
Je me souviens.

 
Que serra serra.

 
Just one more sentence.

 
The Ravishing of Lol Stein.

 
Holy Fools in Moscow.

 
She once was a true friend of mine.

 
How Late It Was, How Late.

 
The Secret Garden.

 
It's full of gruesome incident.

 
The shape of things to come.

 
San Giorgio Maggiore.

 
I Walk the Line.

 
Buddha's Four Noble Truths.

 
It hurts like a motherfucker.

 
You're a real firecracker, aren't you?

 
I'd like to shake your hand.

 
Then comes my fit again.

 
The limits of my language are the limits of my world.

 
My bonny lies over the ocean.

 
I don't give a fig.

 
First mate, he got drunk —

 
Come over here. I want to tell you something.

 
The wine-dark sea.

 
Existence is suffering.

This happened, and this and this:
then the end of it happened, and then nothing.