Tag: Writing

Overheard

Overheard, today, in a doctor’s waiting room.


A couple, probably in their late 80’s, check in. They are feeble and hunched over and very grey. They are given new patient forms.

The wife sits down, looks at the form, and yells at her husband who’s still ambling away from the counter. “Harold! What gender do you identify with today?”

“WHAT?!,” yells hard of hearing Harold.

“What gender pronoun do you want them to use? I’ll write it in all caps!”

“What? Oh, gender. Does it say ‘sex’?” Harold yells.

“No! If it did I’d just write ‘yes’.”

<I have lost it at this point. The intake nurses have lost it. The nurse about to call my name is just smiling and watching.>

Laughing. I tell her, “you made my day.”

“My mother taught me that. Anytime they ask about ‘sex,’ you write ‘yes.’ “

I wanted to share the wisdom.

Fayish brow

She watched the Spanish moss tremble like brittle, witch hair, from the tree top canopy.

She swayed in the tire swing, to the tempo followed by the fauna of the faux ceiling.

Fayish brow radiant. Macabre grin smeared like lipstick across her wet lips.

The full moon loomed much larger than the sun. Hanged very near to the horizon.

And, the sun clearly existed to cast its light onto a face of the moon.

The moon existing to reflect the light.

Beguiled. Not mislead or manipulated.

So, breathe and find your space. Set it.

Sit on the floor and command a stunned crowd.

Crickets’ legs start singing in the midst of your wake.

Hyenas and spiders, hucksters and tricksters, wipe slates clean and call themselves rock stars.

An amplified battalion of holy Roman candles.

She swings on the rubber pendulum and watches them burn out, one by one by one.

And, they make her feel timeless as she watches their combustible timelines fly violently up, by, and, past hers.

And, the world around her transitions from dusk to dark.

And, this is howl she howls.

Shielded by the shadow of the tree from which she swings,

pitching her head back and pushing her face skyward,

she takes a deep breath in with her mouth.

And, she forces the air hard and fast from her lungs, back out of her humid mouth.

The anatomical line is straight.

She lets it whisper a vibration over her vocal chords; plucking a hushed, prolonged “ha” from the guttural.

And, she feels all her venom pouring out like ectoplasm at a traditional Victorian seance. It is ebony while everything else has gone red.

And, she swears she has forgotten howl to breathe; but, then she recalls she is unable to remember what made her believe she needs to breathe at all.

The Undercutters: Chapter One- Why Effie lost her job.

Prologue

Introduction

“She was always such a sweet girl, but she just lost her shit,” bar patron 1 says, at 9:00 a.m., to the responding P.D. officer.

He continues, for the benefit of the record, “No, I wouldn’t say she was provoked; but, the old woman she was trying to seat was being a real bitch. They walked to three different tables; and, more and more people kept accumulating at the door; and, when that old biddy said ‘no’ to the third table she offered her, she just…”

“She just lost it!” interjects the diner at table 14.

“Yeah! Her face went all cartoony. Like in those old(e) Warner Bros. cartoons, when you realize the sheep is actually a well-dressed wolf in sheep’s clothing. Like, all pretty smiles and dimples until…,” bar patron two adds.

“Exactly like that. Then she just reared back and clocked that poor, elderly woman square in her jaw. I mean, she coulda easily been 70 years old.” says the indignant wife of afore mentioned diner at table 14.

“Right?! And, that lady just slugged her. It was fucked up!!” the thirteen year old kid to her right nods, grinning wildly.

“Justin!” the wife chastises to her oblivious son.

Justin continues, “Yeah, and that old lady dropped like a fly hitting a bug zapper. Zzzzppp!!!” he illustrates.

“Justin!!” Mom responds.

The P.D. officer asks the group-at-large, “Then what happened?”

The group-at-large goes silent.

Finally, Justin elaborates as the others nod in strangely silent agreement, “Everyone and everything went all silent for forever. Until. Until, the host lady started laughing all hysterically and real loud.”

“That’s right, Just,” says mom, patting his shoulder.

Tight lips and all.

There is nothing I would imbibe to dull this edge,

but memories of you which I may use, spurning future potentialities.

You help me project myself into the future.

I lay-line.

Silly, sad boys abound, but I see depths in your aged eyes.

Your crows well-footed and begging,

leaving their foot tracks below your lower lids.

They are just as fine when you smile as when you frown.

A ghost ship at full clip

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.

Physicsical Moaning

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.

A Watery Whale Wail

Have you ever stared, for a long time, at a large body of water?

More than an hour, or

until you can’t remember if the water is actually the sky and perhaps it is you that has been submerged in water the whole time?

Like maybe the horizon is a surfacing point where you and I breathe like whales?

Spouting our exhalations and thrilling the star ships above our surfaces.

It feels like when you sit in a room alone and repeat your own name aloud, for a minimum of three minutes.

Incepting yourself as you dialate time through your subjectI’ve experience.

Like purposefully esoteric, alternative spellings.

Parçigal from between time or Circumstance

Background notes:

Parzifal is the “collective tradition of mankind…is not subject to Time or Circumstance.”

Is for those born of the ‘Heart’s Affliction.’

Researching Parzifal led me to the works of C.S. Jones who wrote The Chalice of Ecstasy “to make the points dealt with [in the drama] as comprehensive as possible to the uninitiated enquirer who is prepared to ‘wake and harken the call.’ “

The writing below is an exercise in synthesis.
All quoted text is pulled from The Chalice of Ecstasy.
All quoted text within quotation marks are quotes Jones included in his work.
He also used WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH’s text Parzival as his basis. He does recommend a good translation of the Libretto from R. Wagner’s Parsifal.

Parzival is “written in the keynote of ecstasy” according to Wolfram von Eschenbach and “provides a glimpse of the Eternal Reality.” A key event in the story is Parzival shooting a swan from the sky. The swan represents ecstasy. Parzival should have been condemned for this but is not because of the unique confluence of his circumstances. I like to use the allegory of Parzival which is considered a “living text” as a means of discussing sexuality and gender roles/definition. I also like the idea of the newest incarnation of Parzival being from the perspective of a feminine knight questing for love and understanding with the former.

¤

My ecstasy has indicated I was “born of the ‘Heart’s Affliction.’ “

I found my “way to that spot where they, ‘scarcely move, yet seem to run’ “.

“Having become one with The Way,” I have just come to Tao.

I “discover that the shifting scenes of the world [I] had though so real, will pass [me] by as a pageant until the Vision of the Grail itself is presented to their pure Understanding.” But howl surprised was I to see both you and I.

I fear I believe that all that is written above has occured to me again and again.

I simply continue for long enough to forget and remember it all over again.

A chALice emptied and refilled.

My heart “learned to beat in time and tune with the Soul of the World.”

Rhythm and vibrations are everything we think we know. What is rhythm but

a wave? A wavelength. An S rotated 90% and crossing an axis. Periodicity of the pendulous arm’s swings.

Rhythm is the steady crashing of waves falling.

The entire ocean is every wave.

¤

I feel my being “to be a highly strung musical instrument.”

Fret awaiting fretting. Tuned to the proper tone to be strummed and plucked upon.

A fitt “burn[s] up the veils which hide [me] from Myself.”

It reveals you. A familiar stranger.

Strum me.

“Will runs over [my] strings” and I come to know how to reveal how it is “causing complete and harmonious vibrations.” Do you choose to experience this in your own being? Show me the “unformulated but delightful melody” that is the same song Whitman sang.

The Song of Myself.

I will dance to your song simply because you choose to perform it for me.

I will conduct your currents as you emit them.

I will empty you to refill you.

I am an empty plenum. I contain everything in my nothingness.

I know not the rituals. Yet still I seek to continually “unite the mind to some pure idea by an act of will.” This is the brick wall against which I slam my head “again and again.” The wall where you found me bleeding and dizzy, next to the eggshell pieces of Humpty Dumpty. Alice remembers her name again.

I know not the “Way of Holiness.” I may not impress upon the consciousness of your onlookers.

No-One is the only one that looks upon me thusly.

I am a pure Fool, ignorant and earnest. Before that I was a dummy. I could not speak. I have always been an idiotē.

I have always been the unaffiliated Maverick roaming through the initiated herds, admiring the brands, the symbols emblazoned upon their skin.

My skin is marred by time and circumstance.

My skin is completely unmarked.

Canvas.

¤

“ “There is a Swan whose name is Ecstasy.” “

Also known as you and I.

I “ “wingeth through the blue” and at “[my] coming they push forth the green” “ because I bring spring.

I herald an easter Sunday for your tired soul.

You shot me down from the sky.

And, you did it by virtue of No-One’s weapon but your own.

A Happy Death for me. A Swan’s life born anew in you.

“ “In all the Universe [a] Swan alone in motionlessness, it seems to move as the Sun seems to move; such is the weakness of sight.” “

“ “O fool!”…”Motion is relative; there is nothing that is still.” “ Let me shoot my arrow at you this time. From your “ “ [feathered] breast poured forth blood” “ and I felt ecstatic and you discovered ichor. Now, let me ecstatically enrapture you until your veins flow with it so richly as to sustain this demiurge. You are no longer a Pure Fool because you know. The men that smote you last time will not let you pass again. But, I can sneak you through the gate. Folly is my protector. Let me use it for the protection of the soul of another.

⊙

I am ignorant of the rule and the action taken breaking the rule was kindly intended.

(says the little boy who cried ‘Wolf’)

(says the collective mind who was “just taking orders”)

⊙

Consequences occur regardless of intention.

Risk is underwritten.

In tension, intension.

Suspension of beginning an action and witnessing the resultant reaction and effects of your affect.

I have been called Artemis, Sagittarius (until the stars changed), centaur and satyr.

I read of the marriage of Christian Rosencrutz. Send them my congratulations and best wishes, please.

Where is the Castle and what of the Tower?

“ “By my word, I know you are Parzival-son of Herat’s Affliction” “-and I have recovered the weapon that you flung off after using it to pluck me down from the sky and into the blue lake.

I have discovered-upon that Might of Love which you used to render me slain. You “succeeded where all others had failed,” dear one.

You say you do “now as yet know [t]he True Name-the Word of [Ewer]-Being, though in the past [you had] been called by many names.”

You mention this: “one thing [you] desired to know and to understand. What is the Grail!”

You have already been told that “ “By no one can it be detected Who by itself is not elected.” “

And, you then did “ “Bestride the Bird of Life [because] thou wouldst know.” “

I desire to know if you came to me by slaying me because you wanted to know or because you wanted to know me. And to what end did you intend this knowledge?

The difference between a means to a desired end and being the end desired.

Dis-ingenuity. Do not be disingenuous, sorrel.

It will make it so much worse for you. Through it you turn three pounds of pleasure into three pounds of misery. Should misery please you, you will never be miserable again, if you act duplicitously or maliciously.

A knight need only be kind. Do not attempt to placate with being nice. Kindness does not impress. It empresses upon. Kindness is a way of being and not an act of valour to be selectively undertaken. Kindness can appear cruel to outsiders.

So, I also ask: are you kind?

I desire to know how you found yourself at the intersection of right now. Face to face with me.

This is the cost of admission. Tell me these things and I shall sneak you through the gate.

I just hope you are as brave as you believe yourself to be. Sometimes it will get dark. You have coronated me a Queen of Magnets. I attract all poles.

Howl I hope it is not just a ceremonial sobriquet, sweet fool.

“We are the ELLIPSE OF THE UNIVERSE.”

68 Coffeecake/86 Crab. tuesday

If you comment: it’s not exactly rocket science, you sound like you think you are a rocket scientist.

⊙

The silver couple arrives. She forgets my name but gives me a new one each day. Curly Sue. Dimples.

Today, I am Goldilocks.

She asks the bartender my name when she thinks I cannot hear. She suggests I read the poem Casey at the Bat. Hum, huh.

The village beach preservation busy body society has two tables held for them. One for the men and one for the women. Twelve seats total. Only three women come. They talk the politics of healthcare and about the addicts in their lives.

Our speakers play almost decent, easy listening blues. If you can imagine such a thing. Almost-Stevie Ray Vaughan comes on.

Nearly-Suite: Judy Blue Eyes plays.

We are slow enough that I actually noticemusic is playing.

And, time moves slowly now.

The reservation for six at noon became 4 at fifteen ’til

.All named Pat.

“You are pulling my leg, right?”

“No! It’s Pat’s Day. Okay, now I am kidding you about that. We are all named Pat.”

He and the other Pat (only two have arrived) laugh uproariously.

Mike comes by to make a reservation.

He shows me his Book of Answers.

“My wife found this in 2000. Ask a question and flip to any page.”

He carries a green street sign in a plastic sleeve under his left arm, hugged against his ribs.

He adds:”You don’t have to tell me the question.”

I silently ask the question on my mind.

Tolle Lege.

The page I flip to, it reads:

it is not guaranteed.

That figures: I think.

The thing about which I framed my inquiry is not guaranteable.

He and Tony will return for lunch tomorrow.

A regular left me this.

A Bath for archimedes

Ardor is ard(ours).

Come, I shall draw a bath for you.

Two glasses of Malbec.

Close your eyes and speak the words you hear.

I wish to take diction.

Victorian modernity mentality bound, hound.

Smile creeping in small doses.

Your eyes become 30 years younger.

You speak words softly.

Steadily.

Slowly

But, only at first.

My pen’s scratch against the paper changes. Surface tension of woven papyrus shifting with

Variations in the

coarseness of the grain.

The way my scrawls sound is how you felt when you wore your wool sweater against your bare skin.

White sox lay discarded in the corner.

Shea and lavender scents.

My body quickens at the gravity you begin using, speaking ecstatic poetry.

Body rush. Pert and tightening

to hear you speak in wild abandon, surrendering.

Across from Howell Way

The song’s tempo shifts and

the outfit slides easily into

a softer sound.

Impeccably nuanced for a bar band.

<>

R. used to own the joint; but he sold it.

Allegedly.

He would neither confirm nor deny this.

He heard him directly asked twice, separately, and all he would give up is:

I work here.

He returns nightly.

He emerges from the back of house with a

fresh bus rag. He flaps it,

like a matador,

before folding it into a small square.

He does not even give up

a smile.

He magically produces a broom and dust pan to

sweep the carpet.

They don’t make ’em like that anymore?

Hardest working man in show business.

<>

The smell of cologne breaks through, suddenly.

I breathe it in deep. Try to see the source.

That was a fun song: the singer says, tuning his guitar.

He and the fellow on keys banter between songs. Long enough to be ready for the next song. Not too long.

The bass and drums do not laugh along or smile.

The funky bassist.

There is a reason he is front and center.

He has no mic. He does not solo.

Nothing is the only part he overplayed.

He is perfectly on point. Tight.

Anchoring.

A self-indulgent guitar solo becomes necessary at his command.

The guitarist announces the set break.

We now pause for this brief station identification: I think.

Guitar and keys wander out the back door

to the smoker haven.

Bass bums around with the crowd.

The perfectly understated drummer (rarest of the rare) escapes my awareness.

I look up at the screen above me and am informed carpet is being liquidated.

I stop looking at the screen.

The bassist is the first to return to his position.

Standing in his spot. Waiting.

The drummer appears moments later. Seated at his station.

Tick, tick.

The bassist sits down on an amp and starts playing along with the song on the jukebox.

/gotta have that funk/

You got it: I think.

He plucks a quick harmonic, wrapping up, as the guitar and keys return to the stage.

Stands back up, he takes his place between the two.

Guitar and the fellow on keys banter. Long enough to be ready for the next song. A bit closer to too long this time.

Tuning strings, the singer says: all right. We are gonna play the same set for you all over again…you guys look like you’re having a good enough time that you won’t even notice.

Hell, half of ’em probably don’t realize that you are a cover band: I think.

Deep cuts selected.

Covers of covers.

An undercover, cover band.

<>

Clearing empties and wiping away the sticky of slightly, sloshed beer spills,

R. stops by my table.

He calls me by first and last name.

When did I tell you that information, sly, observant one?

Belligerent B’s

break

bread.

[tread the thread]

breadth read, dear.

red

breath. rath. dare tar he/r.

breathe bare, bear.

here

hear

her beat- tab.

hearth- the heart,

ear at the earth.

<⊙>

heat herb tea. bard art. he

bathed at

Bath.

bather: hare; bat; rat.

rate brat hate

[TARE]

Parçigal Passionately Possessed

My deer, stag,

I it is.

It is I binding you in this ecstatic existence, suspended between

the Star and the Satellite.

The sun and the moon; yet, it is you they call Janus.

I am the feminine, arched gate-way granting the descent of your

spirit into matter anew.

I do not redeem, I conduct currents.

The sea of PARChVAL is the conjunction of /K/ and /C/.

I am the sea, KC, the reason

a /z/ becomes /c/

Parzival becomes Parçigal.

Congruence creates /Ch/

Why do you think I remember my name is also /Alice/, at least sometimes?

KC becomes Ch(eth) and conjuncts to /Alice/ through a confluence of circumstances causing me to recollect that I am

A ChAlice of Ecstasy. A grail.

GRAL, deer Parzival.

moon and sun

known to gods and, simultaneously, known to k/NO/w-One.

Socratic circles unaware of one another.

Let us ignore the voyeurs gawking at love’s blazon painted on our lips

We exhibit authenticity in current, capacity, and conduction without being simple exhibitionists.

They tricked you into believing you are the monster and me a prize if pure.

Howl silly they were.

I want your masculine beauty, that prettiness you cannot see,

to come

to love

the feral beast I conceal in my hotly, howling heart.

I show her to few outside the eyes of ewe.

Come

sit beside me and show me ewers.

Let me call you a pretty thing, fellow.

This gal knows objectification as well as the absence of it. All gals do.

It becomes a bore, sweet sorrel.

They taught you the trick of objectifying

Let us trade places, like swapping clothes.

You may become the direct object of the verb I enact.

I will do the work because I want to see if it makes you squirm.

To see if it makes me squirm to do.

The embarrassment of being kindly admired.

The sensation of feeling yourself being eaten by the eyes of another.

Empty yourself so that I can see you better.

So, I can better show you yourself as my eyes see you.

My mirror may reflect the unexpected.

Do not spook, unless you must,

when you discover you are the Dove and I am the female goat.

Secret she-satyr.

Why do I think we should go on?

Because what else is there to do?

As far as I can tell, ain’t nothing else happening at all.

Shall we find something which makes us belly-laugh?

Care to cackle along with me?

Cast upon me your strange glances, my deer-man.

My irises drink them like wine intoxicating my soul.

Straddle two shores of consciousness:

with one foot in every-day

and one in ecstasy.

In a balanced imbalance.

Our wabisabi is our Tao.

Tell them that they may call us by the handles

Priapus & Pearl.

Those dummies don’t know that my mantle is reversible.

They only see the dark side, the light side; and they leap to the conclusion

it must be so below, on the underside that is hidden from view,

as it is above.

It is red where the two sides meet.

The red turns green when I see you;

although you cannot see it,

you can feel it as a sudden drop in ambient temperature.

Being bespoke, not beholden.

Not needing, choosing.

Bound in the unbinding of wearing each other’s invisible maverick’s branding.

They will know us by

howl freely

we move as ourselves.

Our brand is authenticity having no mark burned into the skin.

A silence screaming: simply see and know.

Be still for me and feel the essence of softness?

Make your hardness melt into delicious vulnerability?

I will call you /Sweet Thing/ in such moments, derelict deer.

And, I will wonder at those instants when your eyes cannot meet mine.

I will call them up to me without words.

Your eyes will go wide, then soften to

see me look upon you with such hard eyes.

This is how

my femininity penetrates you.

All this I can do while

taking care

to not stomp the little flowers growing underfoot.

These are the open secrets of our Tao.

Inner sanctum unseen by the sleepwalkers.

Methodology provoking zealous jealousy in awoken ones.

They see us and cannot remember

if love differs from devotion.

I can show you how to move mountains.

It is as simple as letting yourself hold my hand.

I hold the world for ransom when I take your face between my palms.

Unspoken psalms.

What comes next

be-comes

unspeakable.

Just like Tao cannot be apprehended through words

(only hinted at)

It can only be obtained

through direct experience.

This is Numberwang?

This is Numberwang?

(Kindly let me know if my math does not tally below. I tried to check and recheck it, but…)

<◇>

Q: When was 120 minutes ago from now?

A: It was two hours ago.

<◇>

When was one hundred and sixty four billion (164,000,000,000) minutes ago?

Hum, huh?

~

My illiteracy with numbers occurs at a certain threshold.

Numerical literacy*? Not my strong suit. So, I play with numbers, with what I can imagine.

For example, I can imagine a triangle, a square, a pentagram, a hexagon, a septagon, an octagon. But, I cannot imagine, or see in my mind’s eye what a 25 sided polygon would look like. I would have to try to draw it.

There is a 10,000 sided polygon, called a myriagon, according to geometry.

I will take their word for it because I cannot imagine being able to imagine what that would actually like.

~

I am not monied. The difference between one million dollars and one billion dollars? Well, sure, ‘orders of magnitude’, but I only understand that in the abstracted sense. The practical difference between such huge numbers is not immediately obvious to me. But, the news, scientific research, and governments, regularly inundate us with such large numbers.

~

Do a thought experiment with me? I wanna know:

Q1. How far could the millions of dollars, comprising a billion dollars, go?

Q2. If I had one hundred and sixty four billion dollars (as I hear someone in America truly does) and I gave away one million dollars per day, how many days before I am broke? Let’s pretend I keep my $164,000,000,000.00 in cash in a safe. That means my money is not making more money via interest, returns, dividends.

If I have one billion dollars in cash, let’s imagine it’s kept in one million dollar bills. I would have one thousand of these million dollar bills.

I could give one of the $1,000,000 bills everyday for 1,000 days before running out of money.

If there are 365 days a year, 1,000 days is about 2.75 years.

The difference between a million and a billion, practically speaking?

A1. You can give away $1,000,000.00 everyday for almost three years before exhausting $1,000,000,000.00

So, how much more than 1 billion dollars is 164 billion dollars, practically speaking?

Well, if it takes 1,000 days, of giving away 1 million dollars each day, to get rid of a billion dollars;

It would take 164 times longer to give away $164,000,000,000.00 than it would take to give away $1,000,000,000.00

1,000 x 164 = 164,000 days

164,000 days = 449 years and a few months.

If I had $164,000,000,000 ($164 billion), I could give away $1,000,000 ($1 million) everyday for 449 years.?

Fuck.

Now that I see it this way it only raises more, honest questions from an ignorant me.

How much money do people need?

And why? To what end and what do they intend?

______________

*My own numerical illiteracy was introduced to me by a slim, charming book called Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos which I found tucked away in the statistician’s, my father, bookcase.

The idea is wittily conveyed in the sixth chapter of the second section of Douglas R. Hofstader’s book Meta Magical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern.

The chapter is called Number Numbness.

Both are written for non-math-savvy folks and both pieces manage to entertain with humor.

I slept in

I slept until three p.m.

Because I could-no usual m.o.

In the pac NW 7 a.m., 3 p.m., and nine p.m. all

Look the same

Waking from dreams to remember

This is the one from which you do not know how to wake.

I imagine the world can

See and know what my mind holds

In that state.

Like there is nothing to doubt

Nothing to fear.

The cat slept on my feet.

They were not cold.

The gray summer sky

Resembles the colors of your silent eyes.

I slept by scraps I scrawled for you.

I slept by a bit of wrapping paper from a gift

Half a year old.

Oh howl, you make me sentimental.

To ask for what you hope

And to wait.

As hard as crying non-sad tears must appear to observers.

The sea is soft today.

But, í can always find a reason to smile.

I.e. “cheesecloth”

Sobriquet que ridiculoso.

From a car ride: Phoenix to a Grand Canyon

Sun-chapped, vermillion gravel lines the Arizona interstate. The smell of civil anticipation of draught conditions.

De-ride derision. Re-sent. De-ridden. Hostile.

Reproachful.

Regurgitate…come here, baby bird.

Under my wing where the sun does not scream.

Absolution awaits.

Abscond

like wild things run fast.

I run so quickly it looks as though I am lazy.

Because, I smiled all the time, my narrowed eyes confuse.

Rode hard but not to be

Put up wet.

I asked him not to say things that seem to be true.

Show.

A certain gaze becomes requisite.

A dis-focus agile like a cacti forest.

Look for the invisible shrub-brush. The one that may or may not actually be there.

When you see that you do not see it, you will know you’ve got off on

The good foot.

So scratch, scratch pen to paper. Then take tips to keyboard.

Pleas. If you cannot silence your mouth, write it instead. For yourself.

Spit yourself upon the page.

See what floats.

Mercury corresponds here, where air is the element?

Striations of stratifications.

I am not what you expect, because I am not as you’ve known me to be.

Newly transmuted. I let my stomach gnaw on it’s own emptiness.

Acclimation. Deceleration of mass.

A bob becoming weightless, still tethered to a Flagstaff.

Asphalt lanes crisscross terrain like varicose veins.

Little, red blood cell cars traverse. Scrub-brush grows on either side.

Entering Sedona. The elevation changes. Ears pop.

The energy comes on before you fully make it to the valley.

Invigoration as my heart beat hastens, my skin quickens.

I feel my circulation pulsing.

We are told to Be Prepared to Stop.

We prepare.

We are stopped.

My father acclimatizes to the energy but not the dry air.

My sister fidgets with her fingers in her mouth.

My mom crossed and uncrosses her hands. Fingers tapping on top of knuckles.

The four of us seem far too old to be in a car on a road trip. We do not mind.

Joe Cocker. Feeling Alright plays on FM.

Sharp. The energy is sharp. It will hone you.

Make you diabolical, I giggle.

I feel you giggle against my ear. Echoed back to me despite your absence.

Despite your presence on another curve on another side of the world

I magnetize you to my mind’s eye.

There is a church situated in an open expanse. Nothing surrounding on its acre.

There even an atheist might easily see some god.

The orange and red rest easy in my eyes.

Like short pants slung low on hip bones.

S/crawled

I found a word on a notecard.

Assoil.

Present it between gritted teeth,

heavy lidded. Pleas

see before my snarl creeps back.

To acquit, absolve.

Solve Loose.

I call this word how we untangle each other.

You are Unmade and in need of collection.

Soft, sweet, slow.

Until inertia overcomes.

A harsh lunar body with love that annihilates

Your self-doubt ,

Ashames with kindness.

Pains with inelegant honesty.

You

Have

My attention and pulse,

sorrell.

Kept with you and resent but a moment ago.

And, I wonder where

we find ourselves

On this reading of what I just write to wrote?

To discern the coefficient of friction.

Re-scribed an umpteenth time.

For your inexorable sea, no doubt,

remains a’wave.

Unyielding. Relentless. Assiduous.

Paramour. Swoon over and give us some room.

Aragon and lavender, salty mists of sea tides

Aroma wafting through the scene.

A contention that new tangential elaboratorations

exert mild pressure.

“You are uncomfortably comfortable,” whispered with gravity.

So came I, cloaked.

Amateur ingenue

Feminine made anew.

I sow.

Sew you a pillow case all the colo(u)rs of Joseph’s coat.

You will dream of Argonauts. You will watch legion run

head first off the cliff.

They seek demise, but you have desire and

A dexterous handle with an au gauche moniker.
There is power in having a title, because to have is

To hold(,) dear.

To become the multitudes contained

within my circles.

The circles I contain.

The circles containing me.

A ruddy red demonstration of diameter.

Obstinte and obdurate at heart

I am a junkyard bitch who sometimes likes to bark.

Your home is no show place, but you are so fine

that lyrics write idylls for you

and scheme to catch just a sight of you

blushing. I’d sooner have you stern

Looking.

Jack & Effie

Doping up our heroine, Jack is on a roll again. Five times in three months, she has been inexplicably incapacitated to the point of babble.

He should rest & shave.

He should do a lot of things. If he had finished that sculpture a decade ago instead of leaving a half-beast still frozen in marble, he would have been a million-air and taken over the Hisem (Cawlings secret organization). As it turned out, leaving town immediately became much more important.

Had he not doped up our female hero, leaving town would not have been the thing to do.  But, he did and now everything was on fire.

The relics knew.

The intuitives knew.

The floaters knew;

and, the world would soon know if he did not get water on the pyre and his ass out of town.

She was just too fun.

It was the sensational poster that he saw that made him realize what he had done. It was for the release of an album that should have come out in 1962 and today was 10/12/08.

The only thing weirder than seeing an ad for an album that has already been released is being the only guy who thinks that is weird.

Some birds just were not meant to fly?

Dodos? Zeppelins? And, her? And, maybe some cats should be kept in-doors.

But, Pet Sounds would be released next week.

All this esshit and after the chances he had effed up. He could have been the angel of justice if it were not for rock n’ roll. It was after the arm that should have been broken during his second punk show that had made the lord decide that he had had enough. This was supposed to be the next Jesus.

Besides, no son of his dyes his hair.

He could have been Cawling’s apprentice. No one ever wanted a fallen son of god more than that guy; but, then the whole beast/marble debacle happened and he was out;

and Pet Sounds would be soon, again.

Up he had effed, the cardinal rule.

He misused his power and now time was out of joint. The key had been exposed and it was his fault.  His dad had been right after all these years.

Jack sat outside of the mini-storage unit where his friends’ bands were practicing. He had collected funds; and, between them, he now had $43.79 USD.  His usual trips did not require cash, per se.  Being in the diving family has the benefit of a gas station attendant believing he owes you $36.75 USD in change after you paid him in monopoly money.

But, now he needed to stay under the radar.

No miracles today. Just a non-shaven, white guy who appeared about 35 and was currently wearing bunny-ears.

“You should probably take those off…”

Carol was about 15 years old when she started getting the feeling that she did not get something.  While 90% of adolescents seem to feel this way, Carol’s situation was unique in that she was justified in her paranoia.

Said feeling was brought to a-head with Jack;

and, he hated that foolish girl for it.

She was the reason this ridiculousness had started.

To say that Carol had that paranoid feeling may be misleading. It was her whole family that felt this way.  And, Jack’s dad had made this blood line for this purpose. Anyone with blood from the matrilineal side of Carol’s family had this feeling.  The reason for this was that they were prophets.  But, prophets that did not know they were prophets.

Having visions and knowing esshit in advance is commonly considered quite a psychotic feature.  As they were not psychotic, they were aware of the stigma associated and their own propensity towards appearing this way. Also, not being sent angels or anything for reassurance about these feelings could leave one feeling quite confused and alone.

Like there is a joke that everyone else is in on. The thing was: only no-one else was in on the joke.  It was like figuring out the end of a movie before the second act.

They just sort of always knew how things would turn out. They did not know why they knew; they just knew that they knew (at least in there in their more lucid moments). But, none of them ever told anyone else that they felt that way, for fear of the straight-jacket.

The same way most people do not say things like, “I think I am a prophet,” for instance.  Nor does saying, “you’re gonna die from stomach cancer,” help ease the weirdness.

Why would you tell someone something like that?

How did they know something like this?  Don’t ask them. They just got feelings that, from their mind’si, always seemed to be proven thusly.

VVöderland Notes from Parçigal

Underground currents,

conducted by Mæstrœs, at

certain key-stone sites where

lode-stones are ritualistic-ally, mystic-ally, and magick-ally

fawned over; and then,

pressed close-ally and

firmly into the lay-line

which will magnetize

the electric charge of

both Keystones & Lodestones,

(grail, cisterns, resevoir, from Latin ‘cista’ chest, arches, Ark, Lantern)

allowing the earth’s current to

be conducted to

those natural lay-lines sites that

just occur;

but, with an

increase in energetic out-put on

the scale of 150x.

Energy is pulled to the key/lode -stones; and,

held or redistributed by:

Maestrœs; Music Masters; Mæcens

using minnesingers; idiotēs; meisters; Mægens.

Magisters. fellows.

Hærlœts; a Lady; Maidens; handmaids; handmaidens

Milkmaids.

Hand

Made.

like a
A lice ntious ladder.

Maven; mavin; matron; knights; diabolūs, sons of Socrates, the ‘diatribe’

(“a private ind’l”)

Hermit. Hermetic. hermeneutics. Vermillion.

roses, swans, graal, gradalis, gra(d)al

scribes that transcribe

rishis, sannyasins, dervishes

Infants,

Mavericks,

Arhats.

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