i know this guy
i know this guy who walks in circles, sings in riddles, and can probably stare into the sun without going blind. he's always got some secret in the wrinkles 'round his eyes. and i've come to think he's got magic in his baseball cap. he can grow a beard in a single day and he's cut his hair at least ten times this year and he still looks like some kind of grunge jesus. he once built a model of hyperbolic space out of napkins that he found at a coffee shop. when i saw it i thought it was some kind of fancy hat, that's how stupid i am!
i got into this conversation with this guy about love and being or violence and nonviolence or dogs and cats. i can't remember and it doesn't matter because all of the conversations that i am in end in the same way anyway, that is to say, they end. well, he got me thinking about some pretty strange things and i hoped he'd stick around for and hour or five because i really was enjoying putting new wrinkles in my brain, but he left. sunset.
it's too bad the way things go once the going gets good and the things stop going. all of my dreams end up this way: (i wonder what this guy i know dreams about) i'm just about to find the answer or the treasure or the woman or whatever when i wake up. i don't think this guy i know ever sleeps because he seems to be pulled everywhere at once and one day when i asked him what kind of bird was singing in the tree above us he said "what bird? i didn't notice any bird, i was too busy thinking."
i haven't been thinking at all for the last long time, that's how stupid i am. instead i've been listening to birds, or to the snoring of my lover, or to the sweet song-voice of this guy i know. i like to hide myself in the notes and rhythms that this guy has pulled out of hyperbolic space, out of the event horizon, out of gravity itself, and placed before all of us to enjoy. this guy's a bird i say and mean it: one of the beautiful creatures that can be found here if you look.
this guy's (this bird's) got the map of the world and all of its history charted to perfection in his brain, which is, itself, hyperbolic space and then some! so he knows just when and where to migrate to and from. what i've got is a map on the wall that makes the sphere look flat, like something crushed by a rolling-pin. and i can't see anything of history on it.