Wednesday 21 October 2009

Jane Doe

This is a sort of prose-poetry piece based on the cover artwork for this album. It's not my single favourite album, or for that matter even my single favourite "heavy" album but of the three Converge albums I've heard (the other two being You Fail Me and No Heroes) it definitely is, and comes very close to being complete. Apart from a couple of sly refs I couldn't quite avoid though this piece doesn't really have much to do with the music, just the front cover. Probably not finished.

Jane Doe

She looked empty to me but proud too with her head mounted on a sun staring down monochrome. Years after I first saw her realised she reminded me of a face I’d seen in the interim (not the person just one picture of her face) no other real comparisons to be drawn there though. I think she’s still alive stuck among spines reigning somewhere between different thoughts.


1. There’s no peace here. Ruptures swirl the air with
questions the clock yelps and however much we drizzle
gold on our skins we’re still caught not knowing. Ever since
she was first dredged from the unlettered deeps there’ve
been no straight lines any more. Nothing’s flat now. Every
surface I see is scored down with who is she (always the
same answer even though we never once saw her burn)


2. They say she’s going to make us pure like feathers we
can’t see will flashburn the stare from our eyes and her
curled-up tongue’ll sandpaper our teeth to white/they say
she’ll destroy us from the very heart split the atom of our
homes count our seconds down ruin us till we find our
final solace only in her (I’m not sure how they plan to find
her) Maybe she’ll bite through the cords let them spiral away.


3. When we found her first (I lost the pictures) she
couldn’t speak. Dust of clocks wormed in her mouth
and the hands nodded in the milk of her eyes. Little
by little though moments started to click off her tongue
and she murmured how she’d run, and run. The dust
tickled into shape she coughed out the last and the clock
took its place sweating light behind her raised head.


The shades trickling over her face looked tangled in sadness I thought but no remorse, I don’t think she’ll ever look backwards if she even knows how. Sometimes I wonder about sticking her up on my wall; thing is, I know she won’t smile.


4. Every day now she types more earthquake lacerations
into the floating streets (maps here change every hour get
snatched from the air collected and bound) Paving stones
ask their way to level with pedestrians’ eyes then split and
grate dust and gravel onto their feet and they scream her
name they grab and burn every watch that drifts past and
specks of glass write away their skin and bone to clean.


5. Whenever I look out my window I see someone else
jumping out to try and touch her or just to show
they care. Sometimes they throw her baubles with new
names for her to try (mostly she doesn’t notice)
Sometimes they throw her dark matter to clench her
with them twinkling into a singularity. Either way they all
end up sinking always struggling the whole way down.


I can’t count the days/when she combs her eyes across my chest I know that soon, soon I’ll smash her into swallows and gulls (that’s all she is, you know, just a crunch of pinion feathers and beaks) because deep down that’s what she wants.


6. I know she’s not the mouth of our end her skin’s no sea
pure to drink but now when the clock hands wasp my ears
I can’t help it I have to blame her (not like she’d even care
if she knew) not for causing any of this that was us/just because
she could have been more made her name love time the cold
life the dream belief I/but she left it up to us weak lost in
hours of thought and all we could think to call her was Jane Doe