Did you think about what I said?: he asked.
(My nostrils flare)
I said: You said alot; but, yet again, I thought more about what you did not say.
I tried to answer your questions: he said.
I guess I’m more interested in what you think about the questions you don’t know how to answer: I reply.
I don’t know what to say about that which I do not know: he said.
Soft words, volutary: I respond: what did your mind howl in
speculative
response and resistance?
Before photons,
ours was
the luminiferous ether, the medium through which light moves.
falling like waves
Issuing ever out in concentric circles
(within concentric circles)
《[Ego centrism
Of gEo centrists.
A vessel never falls off the horizon.
Our sight line drops off; and
the feet of another appear to
grow smaller (and smaller)
as s/he walks away from you.》
But, there was no motion detected.
A wave and a particle,
both either, as well as neither,
hidden ether.
Rods and shafts of sunlight.
A crisp breeze whips through us as we walk.
I look to your forearms
in anticipation.
Each breaking out in thousands of little goose pimples.
Reddening the skin.
Your face flushes as your blood vessels respond to the
change in ambient temperature.
It turns you to a blushing man.
Your eyes go childlike and I can imagine
your childhood face, even though I have never seen it.
The one you wore when you were fresh and new.
Before you knew how time flows
and before all that time flowed you.
Back when all you knew was feeling.
Before you had knowledge, before you wanted to have more knowledge, before you needed to prove things.
Before you knew that you know nothing.
⊙
A ray of light projects itself through the grey day’s smokey cloud cover.
It reenlivens your skin tone.
You thaw.
And, I wonder: where were you the very first time
sunlight kissed you and
began stripping away
your skin’s virginity.
⊙
In private, I will observe your bare form.
Looking for tell tale signs distributed and
laying across every inch of you.
I will trace my fingers along and press my lips to each revelation
of how you became what you are.
Wallingford.
Public streets are designed to be confusing.
“There are implied stops intended to create confusion,” Wheeze L. told me.
“Where did you hear that,” I ask?
“On the local, public radio station,” she responds.
She gets inked up while I take photos of the murals and street art.
°
Everyone is young. Thank God I wore black with leather boots. Everything is in color except what is fashionable here.
But, I am not being fair.
I have not eaten.
I feel quite unhip in this neighborhood. Like I am not trying hard enough to not care. You know, where non-conformist fashion becomes uniform. I am cool but not cold cool.
” ‘Course this ain’t Wilkes-Bashford either, so fuck fashion in the face of… and fuck it anyway just in good general principles.” (Not Fade Away. Jim Dodge)
I walk into the local vinyl shop. Stocked with just as many cassettes and CD’s.
Hey. How’s it going?: I say when I enter just one foot from the shopkeeper, and become the only browser in the shop.
He says: [nothing]. Looks up, then looks down.
I find this cassette called Cassette by an old fave.
Public Image Ltd.
You all set?: he says when I walk back to the counter.
Yeah, unless you have [insert band and album name here], in any format.: i say.
Yeah. No. I am not a CD seller.: he says.
I think: do what now? I bought a cassette and asked for any format. This album was pressed to viynl, too. Also, one third of your store is CD’s.
I feel old though I wager he and I are about the same age.
These are the dullest punks I have seen.
I find a hole in the wall pub.
Two men talk pinball strategy re: one of the three machines.
So, the Dark Knight story means…: I overhear.
I snag a draft from a sweet, little bartender. He was sharing his struggle, with anxiety and depression, with one of the Pinball Wizards.
Here is where I would frequent, were I to stay in this neighborhood. It is a haven.
An isle for misfit toys. Rankin & Bass, Christmas claymation-style.
Fighting-as-discipline haunts me with every new face I meet. (Invariably they are black belts, INK’D athletes, ex MMA fighters, etc.)
Cannily uncanny. It may be inspiring my clip this morning. I certainly find the trend personally inspiring. The same way the numbers 93, 13, 11, and 777 hook my attention. Do I see them at every turn because they occur in a disproportionate amount or do my expectations simply enliven significance?
My feet carry my brain to work, propelled as though by the will of something outside of my conscious thought.
I walk too fast. I don’t know why. Mind still foggy from tying one on with the family last night.
Damn. I can barely keep up with my own pace.: I think, walking.
Click, click.
Click, click.
Quick.
Oh well, the energy required to change my momentum seems more consuming than just continuing to walk along, too fast.
It is a grey sky morning.
Have I actually woken up?
°
The sun finally arrives and beats the cloud cover into smashed splinters. It makes the day seem real. I feel my heart finally kick start, keeping rhythm with the coffee coursing through my system.
Howllelujah.: says the newly given up ghost,
in a whisper of surrender to this new day.
Douglas Hofstadter wrote about Googel translate not too long ago.
As an American, foreign languages are not the priority of inner city schools, at least not the one I attended. Not, their fault either.
I failed Kiswahili enough times, in college, to blow the socks off of any Kenyan who I meet stateside.
Ninasema Casey.
No one speaks any “Swahili” here. Not enough to even make the general populace know the language is factually called Kiswahili.
Bless you, Bibi Jane. And, bless you end of term oral examiner.
Can I write my responses to your oral questions?: I asked.
No.: she responds.
Shit: I think.
⊙
I’ve worked in enough restaurants to learn functional Spanish and Kiswahili.
(A surprising number of Kenyan immigrants in B’ham, AL. Magic City
We got a Nemo walking in: Robert would call to his kitchen, at Tavern on the Summit, whenever a catch of the day ticket came through. Howlarious.
But fish don’t walk, Robert: I’d always say
[After dinner rush, in the alley, smoking a cig.
Me: I thought “fish” was “samaki” in Kiswahili.
Robert: No, dummy. Nemo, like the movie.
Howlarious.]
)
⊙
I listened to this show, just now.
A few phrases in foreign languages hooked my attention.
I connect to Catalan, Frisian, and Corsican.
Don’t ask why, because I don’t justly know.
I love playing with Translate ever since the Hofstadter article.
But, I don’t have friends like his, to give feedback on the intimacies of Translate’s inadequacies.
On a cru que les données allaient nous libérer: appears in type face on the screen behind the band.
I make haste to Translate.
To triangulate my linguistic location.
If the phrase is in Frisian it translates to: On a cru que les données allaient nous libérer.
It translates to itself.
If the phrase is in either French or Corsican it translates to: it was believed that the data would free us.
In Corsican, the same spellings translate to: where it’s raw than the others were waiting for release again.
Hot and beautiful. Both.
⊙
Désormais ton monde est ainsi fait: appears in type face on the screen behind the band.
I make haste to Translate.
To triangulate my linguistic location.
If the phrase is in Frisian it translates to: this is a ton of things to do.
If the phrase is in French it translates to: now your world is so made.
Howl.
After the morning shift, I stop by a bar.
Watching the last ten minutes of an American football game, the crowd here breaks into applause and hoots for the local team.
For the images on t.v.
(For each other.)
“We look good.”
We? No, dear, “they”. They are not you.
Five minutes later the crowd breaks into “boo”, “oh no”, “why,” along with some judgements and criticisms.
“They should have…”
Oh, it is “they” not “we” now, huh?
Giggle.
The 12th man is always the loudest?
A short completed pass results in the “other” team’s receiver getting gobsmacked by a defender
“They lit him up” I offer.
I like lit people.
“I am gonna need you to get a little more excited about this game,” the fellow aside me at the bar jokes.
Despite being kind, I am not daft.
I can sense patronizing intent from miles away.
“And, Ima need you to not tell me how to handle my business” I smile. Teasing him.
I will poke the bear to see his response.
He has no clue how to respond. He does not realize I am giving him the business.
No rights: homage.
/Your eyes, they follow me…too pale to see.
[One, two, three, four]
Can I take you to the ice rink? I don’t care, if you can’t skate…
To get you out of those wet clothes.
…I won’t lace your…
Can I take you to the cinema?:[Margot]
(Can I take you home?)
I sling my leg over your hips.
Thigh to thigh.
I lose track of time.
My body shakes.
We flow through dilated time,
watching our steady state peers wrap themselves in stasis.
Pull close, in arms.
Tethered through together.
No rights: homage.
⊙
Breathe, wild thing.
That’s all you need do.
Your heart will keep beating and your eyes will keep blinking.
Or else, they won’t.
Then it will truly be someone else’s problem.
And, even then, will you breathe easily.
⊙
\…Brother, can you see those birds? They don’t look to heaven
But they don’t need religion, they can see
They go down to the water, drink down on the water
Fly up off the water, leave them be…
…You know I am tired, cold and bony tired
Nothing’s going to save me, I can see
I can’t say I’m fearful, I can’t say I’m not afraid
But I am not resisting, I can see
Now, I don’t need a heaven, and I don’t need religion
I am in the place where I should be
I am breathing water, I am breathing water
You know a body’s got to breathe…
I’m drowning me
(Breathing ourselves)
I’m drowning me
(Breathing ourselves)
Yeah\
Oh, k/no/w.
I set it up.
I think that I saw you laughing (in the dark, Albinus).
While I played a game of Patience
In the corner.
Consider this:
Because we are perceivers, that is why?
There is only causation because we create it?
We created the Why?
⊙
We have an inborn propensity to see causation. We attribute our perceptions to external causes, but some perceptual representations are internal, for instance, optical illusions.
[Consciousness] is an evolved user-illusion, a system of virtual machines.
David C. Dennett. The Evolution of Minds: from bacteria to Bach. 2017
⊙
The voice of knowledge wants to know what everything means, to interpret everything that happens in our lives.
DM Ruiz & DJ Ruiz. 2010, p124 & 13. ISBN 978-1-878424-61-7
I’m a bulldog for R.E.M being recognized for the amazing punks they are.
Southern Gothic Punk.
The album Monster turned 25 years old the other day.
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
/I was brain-dead, locked out, numb, not up to speed
I thought I’d pegged you an idiot’s dream…/
Yeah, /I never understood tha frequency (uh hum)/ either.
/Richard said, “Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy”…
I couldn’t understand/
‘Til recently.
Well, the last time I saw Richard was Detroit in ’68.
And he told me: all romantics meet the same fate.
⊙
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? Remaster. Given as a present to listeners,
along with a delightful, contextualization presented by original and remaster producer Scott Linn.
He wanted “to take another crack at it.”
I dig both.
⊙
Re: Strange Currencies
David Foster Wallace really dug it during one particular book tour.
Read all about from the words of (a very thoughtful) other.
I.e. read it in many fewer words than DFW would have described it in, with hardly any footnotes. Giggle.
This particular anecdote is my favorite from the entire book.
/I don’t know why you’re mean to me./
/The fool might be my middle name./
/Take you there and make you mine./
/These words will be mine./
/I tripped and fell./
/I wanna feel it now./
/You know with love comes strange currencies; and here is my appeal:
I need a chance. A second chance. A third chance. A fourth chance…
[Insert magical, hard to decipher words here]
To catch myself and make it real./
Highly excited about this dreaming experience.
Regular readers (thank you!) probably have noticed howl much I dig using [howl] in my writing. I say it in my daily life as well. I bellow it, in silence, at night. (You have to be quiet it the flat where I stay, see.)
I have lucid dreamed since being a young child. I realize I am dreaming quite quickly in the dream state.
Sometimes this realization empowers me to change the dream consciously. Sometimes, I realize I am dreaming but do not realize I may be able to alter the dream state. (But, howl. Why change a new experience for what you assume would be better? The idea does not occur unless I feel real suffering.)
Many times, dreams feel like another plane of reality upon which I have landed, where, the best I can do, upon realizing I am dreaming, is to choose to try to wake myself up.
I am overly familiar with the sensation of sleep paralysis. Of becoming mentally conscious before being able to move my body. It is a weird feeling, but I have never felt the terror others describe when experiencing the sensation. No aliens. No demons. Just a simple inconvenience.
“Oh, howl. I gotta sit here and think, ‘wiggle your big toe. wiggle your big toe,’ ” for what seems like an eternity.
Eventually, my big toe actually wiggles.
Enough context.
Here is the dream.
⊙
I stand at the top of several flights of stairs.
Wooden floors.
An old, antebellum-style home.
Southern gothic.
Crown molding with runners.
There are no lights and
A strike of lightning flashes. I see a very, strangely, white child appear on a bench, below. Situated upon the first landing, one flight of stairs, below.
Right before the stairs cut around to the next segment of their spiral.
He looks up, directly at me.
His eyes go wide.
Yawning like mouths.
Too wide.
I do not want to be here. It hurts more than it needs to.
Instead of thinking: wiggle your big toe,
I say, softly,: howl.
I know that I am dreaming. I cannot change the dream.
I want to wake up.
I start bellowing out:
HOOOOOWL.
Lightning strikes again. It illuminates the same bench.
Now, there are ten more children, with yawning eyes, where there had previously been only one.
I howl myself awake.
Serendipitously, “howl” took over and took care of me.
No rights: homage to a lady champion.
From
Carey back to
Conversation forward to
Smokin’ (Empty Try Another) back to the impeccable
The Last Time I Saw Richard and forward to
Coyote, and
JM knows, knew, experienced a lifetime of love and lust
and was gracious enough to share.
She knew interesting folk, if you look into it.
And,
still,
I howl.
What is this extraneous energy I feel coursing inside me?
Whose is it?
I need some wing-wo/man to deal with the secrets
people impart to the queen of magnets.
You said: she get it from her momma?
I said: eff right off.
{Not you, doll.
You look fine.
I love your snarl.
You are fine;
yet, I, still, worry you run cold.
I don’t get cold.}
I don’t exist in orgiastic ecstasy.
I exist in an ecstasy of sincerity that happens to be orgiastic.
And, yes, it seems like an eternity.
{An eternity for which I am already too late.}
Hey Aimme, I only have table 18 open…: I say, hostessing.
Oh, the four top, newly remodeled to a three?: she says, jokingly but without a smile.
~
{trans: yeah, that guy that joined table 19, without a word, stole the fourth chair from table 18 and has blocked access to table 18.
/Some men appear to need to take up an unnecessary amount of space. The cunt in me thinks they are the same men who feel compelled to drive large trucks with flat beds they will never use/
Additionally, the small dining room of this restaurant is filled with only tables for two and tables for four. This makes table 18 a hot commodity to a hostess. Especially, a patient, thoughtful one working Sunday morning.
But, push has come to shove. I won’t run a waitlist for him, this joiner, unless my server says she thinks they deserve it.}
/some posers know how to tip/
~
[She should have been cut an hour ago.
We should have dropped to two servers already; but the gal closing told her: yeah, we could cut you if I wanted to work harder.
I overheard this. It disappointed; but, there may be reasons such a statement is more reasonable than it may sound to my ears.]
⊙
Am I cleared by you to do my thing with this guy: I ask?
She nods immediately. It is louder than words to my ears.
I wonder if she noticed I kept seating her out of rotation, when a table in her section became available. I made sure she did not lose a table because of the joiner.
I don’t mention this.
⊙
A table for three arrives.
One moment: I say, wearing a smile, for them alone, that says “I’m gonna let you in on a trade secret.”
I take two steps over to table 19 and begin with
a big, genuine (“here goes no-thing”) smile
{In a way it is my job to do so. /You see, hosti are notoriously flighty. /otherwise they’d be servers, right?/ giggle}
I say: hey there!
[I do panto, panto, panto, then a little soft shoe.]
{Sic. Hosti trade secret}
The entire family at table 19 laughs.
Me and the five year old are now waltzing in a tiny square.
The people standing, waiting, start laughing,
for a different reason.
We should get out of your hair: says the dad at table 19.
{This family had finished eating over an hour ago. We call such folk [campers].}
Well, I do need to get access to that table over there, to seat these fine folk: I say, motioning to actual humans waiting.
Table 19 kindly slide themselves aside while making small talk with the family I am about to seat at table 18.
I am now waiting on the waiting list.
The best kind of professional inconvenience, to me.
⊙
Table 19 leaves.
Table 18 is seated.
Thank you: says Aimme.
I am immediately and acutely overwhelmed by deja-vu.
I grab Aimme by the arm and say: I just got the most intense deja-vu I’ve felt in years.
Because, I experience the feeling not infrequently.
Because, Aimme is empathic, too.
Because, it feels so strong it calls into question scales of magnitude.
She stops.
You must be in the right place: she says before springing back into action.
…
I dig the gravity of her spontaneous response.
Over her shoulder, she calls out: thank you for making sure I got as many tables as the others.
Prof. Lewis: what is the meaning of life?
Carroll: to answer the question, “what is the meaning of life?” Is that right?
Chuck raises his hand and is acknowledged; he asks: will this be on the quiz?
I saw your raven’s claw hit the mark too squarely.
The clip of the talon’s clasp.
Snatching telephone cable as I watch three lightning storms
consume the sound.
Thunder.
I do not buy nonchalance
anymore than I am willing to eat soft words when
my eyes go hard.
Uncanny does not always equal canny.
Ariadne now knows how to lucid dream.
A hand poised, around a throat from which
“take my breath away” is whispered with
an accompanying half grin.
I smile: I am pleased you like the work, but not particularly interested in why.
You liked how it felt.
Instead, tell me about the last dream you had while sleeping?
Did you like how it made you feel?
⊙
I dreamt a record store called All ‘N Analog. It was no analogue.
And,
What if it turned out that Paul Revere was just a Boy who cried Wolf?
Let’s incorporate.
A stem [becomes]
steAm.
Repetition of action is
not repeating oneself;
though, care must be taken, of course, so you
don’t repeat yourself;
but, sometimes I love it when
you repeat yourself
(or ask me questions, the answers to which you believe you already know.)
⊙
Self-awareness of ignorance can nearly
overcome it.
Just don’t over-commit.
You will, still, scratch that itching nose with a finger, whether you are aware you do so,
or not.
⊙
You skate on a bead of water produced from the ice you melted as the blade of your skate skirted over it.
You have not cut the ice.
Boiling point is dependent upon the local atmospheric pressure, sweet thing.
Are you at an elevation of simple sea level?
The triple point of water.
A bathtub producing water, ice, and steAm from its faucet head.
All states
existing simultaneously; and, at the same time,
the ultraviolet exposure at my atmospheric level, fries, while I watched the sun rise
from my spectacular, secularly sacred space.
The dissonance of a consciousness can be caused by a lack of cultural consonance.
A flock of birds makes daily, coordinated flight shows,
training the little birds,
the ones I watched learn to fly over the last week.
The seven others will make tight, sharp barrell rolls,
reversing their momentum and direction.
The three babes miss the sign
and lose their flock.
I see the panic in the way their wings change their flapping.
WrittenCasey 