X-Peri: Pedro R. Rivadeneira, Song of Anonymous

Poéme Chaotique I, image by Pedro R. Rivadeneira

Song of Anonymous (a nomadic novel)

Section I

Pedro R. Rivadeneira

(a work in progress)

not about but, a bout

“Language shapes the way we think,

and determines what we can think about.”

Benjamin Lee Whorf

“Now you will learn how something might have ended

that never even began, that started in the middle and

stopped at no precise point, but faded into another fog.”

Julio Cortázar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

“Blow wind blow, anon am I.”

Caroline Bergvall, Drift

. . . and the cold

the fog

the cold gray fog seeping into everything

with bite and sting knowing full well that the last word is the lost word

making the sting all the more pronounced more precise

still here soon i’ll be gone from this place my face my countenance dissolved erased by fierce wind and sand by rain eroded in this manner that is by means of this stillness this silent stillness i somehow get along without the aid of any illumination i find my way around in the gloom the ever encroaching gloom i hear see myself in a room writing a letter over and over again thus confirming my preconceived motions faster than the speed of life as it were as if words could begin again and again what’s been left unsaid undone a tangle of beliefs belief systems arguments and counterarguments obstructing the view i lie in the darkness telling my story but to whom? to what?

it is this this breeze this thing that speaks now this process that produces all utterances the isolated words and sounds grunts and wheezes holding on to the fog the dark silence no nothing to hold on to not now not a thought ‘cause the last word is the lost word why don’t they say so say so? [ 1].

and then again and still some more

i’ve been writing this letter over and over again starting out each time from a different location a different angle hoping to give skin to the passing of days trying to define a theme that would give it all some kind of meaning a shadow projected against the backdrop of life . . . but then my inability seemed meaningful enough so i let it all go grow like a vine wild and untrimmed which made its home in and all around me never minding whatever plans had been made to put life in its proper place by then it was too late why there were convolutions involutions and counter-involutions as it began to extend its tendrils branching out in all directions (in and all around me) as curly-cues and swirling m(n)otions shooting out shoots with tendrils in tender twists and leaflets green and dark gnarly roots grasping at what remains unseen

ever-same underneath distance and resistance dance into stream since then as far as far can be from the necessary despairs and possible reflections prepared for the day’s specificities reversing into and out of heteronomy and gestures stretched zealous enough thought told itself if behavior is an –ism as noise is to extreme libidinized density . . . what remains in helpless glance actually retreating distance and a leafy knot into unnecessary streets more or less quiet remained locked in seizure location what tries to try for more looking for pieces of scrap through cracks fallen leftovers from history’s workbenches dust bins garbage cans from which to construct a difference a heavy knot a nexus knots of discontent this content was as if by dreams an intent for pieces looking perched on branching out glances home of different locations passing through days of trying retreating into disorder and this order as flooding comes first alluvial readwriting this meandering ode to imperfection

whose story is this?

it is a story of

whose story this is

riding writhing writing it’s trailing within writing as kinesthetic process bodily function an excretion as is thinking a kind of action and reading alreadymade to move across the page a plane a practice an inquiry as practice lived to do so it is lived

Theory and Praxis:Praxis and Theory:Theory/Praxis:Praxis/Theory:TheoPra:PraTheo:TheoPraryxis: PraryTheoxis:TheoParoxismicry:ParoxisTheomicry:crymiaroxisPraTheo:crymiaroxisTheoPra:eroTicParoxismic:eroTicParosismatic:TheoPraeroTic:eroTicPraTheo:

sysmicPraxTheor: eroTixraP:erraTicraP and messy:eroThicPraxis:eroThixPracis:aesTheTicPraxis:PestTheoraxis:ThisPeoraxis:

ThisEroticPractice an Erratic TheoPraxis

paroxismically writhing

thi - this -sssss prr -

is er-

ah- my

tri-

ck-

dow-

the-

ory

peh-

in practice more like a bursting dam

ehxs- flooding the gates prr- ah-

over flowing the walls of containment

and contentmeant

spilling over the margins mm-

-sis the flat white plains of endless pages sss-

crr- languaging (not languishing!)

-arrr doodling and laughing mah-

suh sobbing and drooling dru- oo -

(not about but a bout)

i write as i please -ox

tih- my only constraints are financial

as i am poor that is to say sys-

meh- not privileged ssssss

no this is not a joyous time

nor is everything available to me

-iiiee

eh- least of all that upward mobility uh-

a i’ve heard so much about m

h my shelf life is uncertain m

h- anonymity watches nnn

w washes over me, e

u a content meant context e

h- and means s

c as in possible courses of action s

u not about but a bout:

h- an about face without orders s

th that disorders into off course ssssss

ah- a theory as practice and an-

p a practice that articulates theories t

u for me a content ic-

r- context means e

os- oscillating irregularly e

b between systematicism and

e the a-systematic:

e turbubabulence: ba

rah- this brain’s a random number generator bu

an erratic percolator, bab

bub- bubbling with the messiness of the erotic u

lin- alluvial, oovvv-

guh dragging the me kicking and screaming src-

fah- as far as far as the I can see a-

be and beyond tch

e the I refracted, ree

e dissipating into the structures of language, frahk

yaw its sounds, it’s rhythms, tehd

nduh its polyphonic meanderings po-

slaw- slipping between li-

pin- arguing dentures gnashing! ppy

guh (spoken like a true langeezer!) gnah

lang- Languaging not languishing lang-

whee- i mean verbatim not verboten! wan-

zing wandering, der

wri- writing and thinking wanderfully directionless lust

th- along whatever path it deems necessary, thin-

inguh acousmatic sound poem writing, kl-

par- parthenogenetically writhing inguh

mul- i do indeed hear voices hee-

tih- as i is a multitude, r

too- generated among other things r

duh by Routine r

geh- a unit generator that produces events r-

thuh

nnn- both regularly and at random li-

reh- according to an algorhythm s

eee- creating a polyphonic texture of multiplicities: s

tor s-

teh-

nnnin-

guh!

(//a SynthDef, a kind of virtual instrument: time stretching granulator //with variable grain size overlaps, producing a polyphonic texture of //multiplicities

SynthDef(\warp1,{|bufnum, pointer,freqScale,windowSize, envbufnum, overlaps, windowRandRatio, interp, amp, att, sus, rel, envAmp, start, end, dur, wPos,panAmp, nfreq1, env, mix, room, damp, fmul|

var signal;

env = EnvGen.kr(Env.linen(att, sus, rel, envAmp), doneAction: 2);

//an envelope generator: controls attack, sustain, release and //amplitude of waveform, its shape: plays back break point envelopes.

pointer = Line.kr(0, 1, 15);//points the position in the buffer

wPos = LFNoise1.kr(nfreq1);//a noise generator that controls pan //position, a kind of random number geberator

signal = Warp1.ar(1, bufnum, pointer, freqScale, windowSize, envbufnum, overlaps, windowRandRatio, interp, amp);//a granular time stretching and //frequency shifter ugen

Out.ar(0, Pan2.ar(FreeVerb.ar(signal, mix, room, damp, fmul), wPos, panAmp)) * env; }).send(s),

(//a Synth: an instanciation of the SynthDef warp1: time stretching //granulation of aiff file: "plosives": produces a polyphony of voices //at different frequencies, rhythms and tempos creating a polyphonic //texture

var envAmp, wPos;

thisThread.randSeed = 15;//determines where in the index list to //start

envAmp = Env(#[0.1, 1], #[12],\exp).asStream;

r = Routine({{//a unit generator that generates events

Synth(\warp1, [\bufnum, d.bufnum, \windowSize, 0.2, \freqScale, rrand(0.95, 1.1), \envbufnum, -1, \overlaps, rrand(0.1, 2), \windowRandRatio, 0.2, \interp, 4, \amp, 1, \att, 11, \sus, 3, \rel, 0, \envAmp, 0.5, \nfreq1, rrand(-0.25, 0.25), \panAmp, 1, \mix, 0.33, \room, 0.5, \damp, 0.5, \fmul, 0.5]);

rrand(1.0,3).wait;}.loop}).play(SystemClock.sched(20.0,{r.stop}))

);

What you are now reading is also an algorithm

algo e rítmico

not just mechanical emptiness but

an emptiness full of energy and meanings,

potentialities

a machine for making sense, dissonance

and dissidence

. . . form here isn’t something static but rather the consequence of the irregularly oscillating tide of order and disorder integration and disintegration semantic drifts smears trying to find a more spontaneous way of writing that will yield a more spontaneous sounding work allowing for ambiguities gray areas form here means a web a field of actions a field of activities and connections the events are sometimes autonomous sometimes interdependent intertwined an entanglemeant that is a meaningful tangle of events form is elastic fluid not a series of rigid structures relating to each other only by means of similarities and dissimilarities in linear fashion it is rather a web of relationships which may go back and forth in time

a landscape opens up in which a wilderness of words sounds and images spontaneously unfolds a scrub seen as if in a sudden flash of lightning revealing ravines and scraggly peaks with branches and twigs intertwined and dark gnarly roots grasping at what remains unseen i catch glimpses of the rocky scraggly ravines below in a flash of lightning i get glimpses of a network of long gnarly fingery twigs and branch-like limbs entwined reaching clutching at each other in a scrubby mass mess in organic fashion the internal relations are not subject to rigid architectonic principles but to the wobbly organic elasticity of a multidimensional web comparable perhaps to neural networks where each node is the intersection of two or more strands the messiness of a scrub if you will the formal language does not reach the functional perfection of the relational network of geometry or mathematics no relations are not held together in it by any special signs but only by the haphazard the contingent and disposition i mean to say the physical availability of reading and writing paths of gestures and their feasibility on the instruments being written for in a particular piece the structural elements the nodes in the composition act more like chemical valences strange attractors

together some of these

issues become like tissues;

drip-painting of thought

and sound

into matter of speech;

a network of dendrites

connecting,

electrochemically

resounding neurons fire

verbatim (not verboten!),

running into

foliage

over which a sequence

bridged is begotten

as wings of leaflets

lets wind of lack be forgotten

a scrub of words and sentences

crisscrossing each other

clawing at words riding

listening to the hearing

writing

writhing

it’s trailing within

writing as kinesthetic process

bodily function

an excretion

as is thinking a kind of action

and reading alreadymade

to move across the page

a plane, a practice

an inquiry as practice

lived to do so, it is lived

and then again and still some more

writing along so much so

such that enough is not enough

disintegration and

this integration

turbubabulent curlicues

involutions and counterinvolutions

meandertalltelling vineyarns yearning

with a mouthful of words and sounds disintegrating

reintegrating in re-creation

slippages sopping through fissures

and interstices encrusted with meanings rusted

up up up we go

we go up up ‘n up

we go wee!

we go up and up

up we go up we go wee!

up and up and aft we go

aft we go after weee!

go up ‘n aft we go after

each dip drop drip drop

drooping we go up and

after a bout about face

without orders

we go wee!

we go and

after we go

about

after a bout

this location and dislocation

starting again after about

mapping disorder and this order

as i was pounding in re-creation through speechlessness and speaking verborragia hemorrhaging bricollage a composite digressive possibilities whatchamacalliting into sounds dismantling verbatim into day dreaming turbubabulent curlicues in re-creation a shrapnel meanings disordering and this ordering meaning this here beginning as mishearings electrochemically into this juncture into into trance-elation transacting a while that is to say looping round and round again the ongoing digression into my beyond stumbling into clusters embedded contradictions refracted sense locus sounds rejecting explamutilations then say to the whirr: where other whirls in conjecture without between someone shown under “I” this again starting location

wanderlustfully

writing

riding

writhing

it’s trailing within

a path of inky trails

writing as a kind of drawing

painting

collage and bricollage

curlicues

digressive

irregularly oscillating

sentences

words

swerving

between referentiality and

opacity

transparency and

materiality

)perception(

play with/between sense and non sense

the weight of words

their sounds

rhythms

and frequencies

timbre and visual appearance

oscillating irregularly between

presence and absence

the spaces between letters and words

within letters

the interstices

the look of graphemes

the look of morphemes

the way they look in print

the visual aspects of

the look and sound of syllables

syllables and phonemes

e.g., as seen in computer generated images

of spectral analyses of sounds

exploring the space

the area between signifier and signified

combining juxtaposing words in different ways

exploding grammar and syntax

seeking new relationships

an irregular oscillation between meaning and meaninglessness

sense and non-sense

opacity and transparency

order and disorder . . .

charging language with possibilities of meanings

not by destroying meanings but by creating new ones

among the various units of language

a changeling channeling the unfamiliar

sign flotsam

discombobulation:

some jetsam to recall

not about but a bout

an about face without orders

that disorders into off course

writing as kinesthetic process,

bodily function,

an excretion,

as is thinking a kind of action

and reading alreadymade

to move across the page,

in any direction,

a plane, a practice,

an inquiry as practice,

lived to do so, it is lived,

and then again and still some more

writing along

reading and

so much so

such that enough is not enough

if texts are maps,

what kind of a map is a poem?

turbubabulent

curlicues involutions and counterinvolutions

meandertalltelling vineyarns yearning

with a mouthful of words and sounds disintegrating

and reintegrating in re-creation slippages sopping through fissures and interstices

encrusted with meanings rusted

mapping disorder and this order . . .

and yet again and still some more

was it manifest destiny that led us down the dull highways of suburban days or was God only kidding? and who am i kidding? here i am standing by the river eating rice pudding from a plastic cup with half a spoon the other half lost broke off when i opened the package too much glue or something . . . roundish chubby grey-brown sparrow cautiously approaches curious wants to know what’s in it for him but the rain’s starting up again no time for intros and pleasantries gotta go there’s lightning too and the wind’s picking up no way to spend the summer this security guard for the old and lonely a dead end terminal for myriad pointless lives whose only purpose has been to do what they’re told to conform good boy good girl good little worker good little consumer here’s your punishment here’s your reward and here’s your punishment again just what is it i’m guarding? who’s gonna wanna mess with these guys? i mean the proverbial sword hangs from a very precarious thread above each and everyone of their scraggly whining heads so this is what i just wanna get by gets you!? huh? bones and joints creak lungs wheeze and skins itch in conjunction it seems an awkward ballet of coughs and who’s? and what’s? and didn’t i tell yas and you should of seen ‘ems ricketting past my confounded senses and meanwhile

the lights from the other shore reflected reaching out across the brisk water refracted forming sporadic glassy ruffled bridges . . . in these solitary isolated moments one must feel fortunate relief really the journey which words cannot hold the descriptions becoming journeys themselves eddying trajectories in the course of an action the hand cannot control i mean

Does anyone know?

how life is worn? meant to be?

(and then some more as if coasting along . . .)

i wait for the rain to stop

but it keeps on coming . . . and to have

such feelings, hushed and brisky,

rustling like grass at one’s ankles,

tickling between the toes. One

waits for music as it goes,

to tell us where and when

the flow begins and ends,

the loose ends really.

Methinks, “It takes

more mistakes, more purely

random chances, more chaos

and irrelevance to produce the epic

than the sordid yarn”[2] The castle

in dreams perhaps, and thereof, etc.,

just as all writing is a kind of fiction,

and the friction too of such imprecise

knowledge; the mopetions weitch

lead us back and astray,

and back again, on the trail

to a world “I” never knew.

May i begin again?

This story? Collecting rubble along the wayfe

‘n nubbles too that i may circumvent

what it is is so atrocious as to not look

but sideways ‘n vent whatever anguish

it is so revents me insides. It romps

me de adentro pa fueraside,

and errors as markers

as we survive yet another day

once more in the fray neglected.

And to you too, this is of concern, “for

every atom belonging to me,

as good belongs to you”. [3]

And so begins, “and now begins”

a wish or two upon the dust,

this vieja cuesta ‘rriba

and then some more as if

“nowadays, amongst those with

the wit to realize their predicament,

a more sophisticated spirituality prevails;

an infinite nonsensicalism replacing

and displacing all, so that, one day,

when all we here are dust,

particle and wave-form,

those who follow us will see

just that as a deal more

continuity than ever we deserved.” [4]

Cookin’ up a storm. The

wind passing through my fingers,

the water is a music as music

never to be aprehended;

A chorus of voices diluted

drip dropping, splashing and gurgling

in the gloom. Thought

i’d make it again to

the basement door and check it out,

see what i can find:

if Freud is still smoking

that fat ol’ cigar, or Barney

Rubble still bowls with boulders.

As it is, gotta go, bible belters

say so, and so too, their opposition

a position too awkward

to continue primping (and pimping),

pruning till the clams fall asleep . . .

Asunder. Bugging me like this.

Is sleep a kind of “is”?

Been between heart throb and discontent,

as the contents of a storm

massaged my innards, my emptiness;

a greenish light spinning, pushing

its way through, past my window,

a train passing in the distance

overshadowed by the wailing

siren of a fire engine.

Allegro ma non troppo.

Tongue ram mit rückstop.

Flowers in a bed,

happily everafter,

let’s see what i’ve been missing:

1) a whole lot of kissing,

2) hugs and fucks galore . . .

i thought of myself

as part of a crystal,

one of its smooth, inscrutable

facets, waiting to complete,

and be completed by others

whose façades i’ve never seen,

known. And so it was,

and is no longer: my

information’s theories gone awry,

passé and passed up,

once more, part

of the noise of a trajectory,

the rattling of which

fills these empty hallways with

a multiplicity of rhythms;

an intricate texture

of yesses and nos

and possibly maybes,

the impenetrable coat of mail

reality wears for breakfast,

lunch and supper. You are

told to walk a straight line,

but the line keeps on getting crooked,

and it’s no use consulting the authorities,

who continue to insist it ain’t so

while scolding you for it,

since day one – but you insist

on searching out a different kind of talk,

a different kind of walk

which you can call your own . . .

At this point, it is impossible

to keep on going, likewise,

it is impossible to stop,

to give it all a Blanchotian twist,

or was it tryst? But it is here

we part company really. Some

on the other hand, may prefer

to call it a Beckett like gesture,

a la “Malone Dies”. Me?

i don’t give a shit either way,

the police state of mind,

thank you very much sir,

madam, but no thanks.

Thinking a bout that piece again,

the old superball trick

on rusty, uptight piano strings,

saw Fred van Hove do it,

not just a month ago,

with Johannes Bauer on trombone

hopping and dancing, skipping along,

while Suzie Ibarra laid down the percussion

like a fucking hail storm.

They brought life back to

this half dead place,

unafraid to be who and what

they are in sounds so stormy,

so calm and minute, so

intricate and swirling,

i thought the joy, at one point,

would burst the house in two.

The rain is over now,

but not yet the storm. The wind

coming down from the north-west

across the river, continues to pelt away

at the building’s concrete and brick façade.

Out of decay, running out,

up and about, a bout rot,

committed to decide

a trajectory, the furrows

of a commitment

meant to commit

the most decisive of gestures,

bringing forth a moment, a movement,

a stream, a gushing force

kidding around, among

rocks and in meadows,

a forest of dreams

as it were, where one is in waiting

as time stands still,

to write in this emptiness,

i mean, into “it”, bringing about

an about face, a kind of wilderness

that leaves one agape. . .

Looking at watch again, searching,

hear the sound of your voice, husky,

and gray blue eyes smiling,

hair braided up and tied

into two tight symmetrical buns

at either side of your marvelous head,

as you dance to that gritty saxophone wailing,

enjoying moments gone by

making yours the sounds that swirl round us

in a haze of smoke and laughter.

Be bop music and the fizz fizz too,

that’s my thingamajig changing

the titles again. Firm

taught body rocking air

into quivering strains,

now i’ve got it, now you don’t,

the subterranean homesick blues

one’s breath breaks, secretive,

persuasive, the good nights

velvet blue on pink horizons.

But, “I’m not one of those guys!”,

Hear her voice

thinking through music’s

sequential squealing grit and guilt,

i looky a mina saxophone

home, a husky western style

i found astounded, the drying leaves

and memories of you dancing

abrasive, shoulda known

what? what! say what?!

What you say breaks through

the falling as autumn approaches

and just now, “i” spoke

in a new key, what leads you

where? And just so, the undertow

i said, and back down again into sleep,

the velvet red of roses

backing up the green, upper cold

and downward draft, the news

paper’s smiling, gloomy faces eclipsed

out of thought, (“what dreams you have!”)

no later than sooner got up

misplaced activity of ringing

bright dappled and new,

seems like summer with a twist

of exhilaration, a tendril

of past regrets and sunlight

all wrapped up into one tender

braid curling round one’s memories

the way smoke swirls up

from a heap of leaves and dried twigs.

i mean, having something to say,

and saying it again, not knowing what,

or how or why, but saying it anyway;

a density manifested in the dull days

of suburban highways gone astray . . .

Starting up again and no time for

writing indifference and a thousand platitudes,

got the rhythm and blues, don’tcha know?

for whatchamacallit and crumpled

symbols pounding the dust

of behavior’s isms. But no

just when i thought there was

nothing left between us but

a sea of silence, this playful wilderness

creeps up on me; the sound

of an all consuming wave,

the way a rustling breeze

takes over the scenery

which once seemed so wooden,

and flowers bloom everywhere,

for simplicity’s sake.

And that’s just fine. But

what of those sounds

hitherto unimagined? It’s true,

“I can no longer remember the time when first

we began to fade from each other’s view”.[5]

However, i do remember very well

the first time we met. You walked in

on sunlight it seemed,

though it was late at night. i know not why

i saw you that way . . . i mean,

it’s not my fault, honest! Yup, “everything

was like something else”, “and behind the trees,

the light lingered on like a dream” it says here,

i know, i’m an idiot, but, as i told you

before, i can’t help it . . . Oh! but

these are notes written on whatever

margins allow for such scribbling! The

spaces between ideas i once thought

were of consequence, in time

grew and grew out of proportion,

until determination no longer seemed possible,

and now, “one walks with a carefree gait

as if among mild fields, oblivious of

where the melodies and harmonies lie”.

The loudness of it approaches us yet,

“like yon mad machinery left to crank away

at the sky” . . . And then, “I wanders away

like a friendly dromedary, trudging through

a lily pond, or sadness wanders off

like a child getting lost”. But you were

“telling me this story about how the

witch got lost in the woods and

wound up getting devoured

by a pack of mushrooms”,

or some kind of fungus anyway, this ditty

like fate in a fortune cookie

eaten away by thoughts,

rats! anyway you look at it

you loose, my turn away

any and then some more

as we go along down the bend

but “you” never functions that way . . .

Still in the undertow,

and my question to you is . . .

Writing indifference and

a thousand platitudes again.

Later on, complaints are felt

down the sunset streets with

green and cream colored awnings.

For eyelids. A song is heard

a midst the chatting, to be continued

in a turbulent flow as incremental repetitions

and seemingly endless permutations. Wondering

about the assumption whether the empirical mind

can get to the bottom of things by means of careful and

patient analysis, thus adding to the maddening effect,

the general hilarity, as the case may be, of what

always remains under construction. Rearranging

the sequence of events and casting doubt on order

- any order - all of which can safely be said to be legion.

These pages, taken by themselves,

may well sound pompous and wooden,

strange or warily experimental-for-experimental’s sake,

sentimental even. But it was, is, a way,

a kind of resistance to the gray, dank corner we’ve been assigned,

this part of oblivion one can call one’s own, this even though the battering wind

continues to remind me of the frailty of our existence open vulnerable to a world largely unknown and the thrashing sleet confirms again and again the fact of one’s mortality as it pelts the flesh of my cheeks bright red with frost bite whereupon having finished my rounds about the buildings and environs the parking lot being the farthest reaching stretch i return lumbering through the icy sludge to the office

on whose desk awaits “scrap(e)” a frantically fidgety fricative composition for solo cello full of plosives nasals and trills tapping and flapping groping and scraping its way along the something to say with scraps of discarded sounds as its mainstay i’ve been reluctantly working on all this fueled by Misses Doyle’s chocolate chip cookies and extra strong coffee the nice little old lady on the seventh floor whom curiously enough is curious about what i’m doing down here in my cubicle this little box for the chronically the systematically the terminally unloved

reluctance

what a word where’s it come from how’d it originate? re-luc-tance re luck dance read: luck dance: the paratactic character of moments the stroboscopic nature of the mind perception attention flickering on and off attempting to trick reality into giving away its secrets while ostensibly we weren’t watching so much whistling in the dark fidgeting inquieto como un viento irrascible seeking out perhaps mischien the peace of non being or a twist down into the dark warmth of the somatic the impulsive the moment at which in which the somatic becoming desire incarnate jots down in a reckless scribble the impulses in a code of writing inscribed into the material itself electromagnetic impulses codified into groups of ones and zeros impressed upon the hard drive’s magnetic coating matter unbound upon within which matter itself materializing its desire to be to be seen to be heard makes itself felt put together out of bits and pieces leftovers really scrap the discarded fragmented collage and bricollage-like: put together with whatever materials happen to be lying around what units of thought what? seems to be coming around ‘n round once more starting out each time from a different location a different angle and winding up again at some beginning the development of which gets lost in yet another mad digression arriving at the same place again which is that we have only ourselves with which to know the world ourselves our senses attention thought and language with which to conduct the task even as we know that ineluctably everything slips away into silence at last such that the utterance is made to seem but a pointless act as some had thought but it was the utterance which by way of relief made the silence possible

palpable

culled from the void

as it were as if words could stop the gap the hemorrhaging the eternal wound the gaping rift the discontinuity between ourselves and the world the cosmos whathaveya the whatchamacallit as they say a bunch of suffering Cartesians we the lot of us the lost painted ourselves into a corner with our systematic thinking and now look where it’s got us writhing in unfreedom here stuck in indecision collapsing into undecidability the pointer on the map “You are here” where is that? what? when? stuck in the self same ever present presence of an ahistorical moment a feedback loop they call it all that’s left us now it seems is to throw a big temper tantrum against life the cosmos the everything and whatever you know God and all that God wagging his tail tongue lolling dripping with indifference

and very often i doze off for a while and the radio’s voices and static mix in with my head and do something to my dreams as i sit here in my post drooling on my sleeve in my stupid guard’s uniform the polyester oppressive to the flesh the radio voices and static as i was saying seeming to be the way we talk to ourselves in our heads in our sleep the disembodied voices from the radio yacking an externalized version of the perpetual the eternal internal monologues we have going on all the time it seems the radio’s disembodied voices chiding reassuring fearful avuncular advising patching up the self plugging up the leaks with noisy static trying to comfort ourselves with whatever scraps of belief we manage to muster up the lot of us scavenging hopelessly helpless in our attempts to stop the gap between ourselves and each other the enemy the fearful enemies each other we are it seems this so fearful and therefore utterly boring lot enemies to each other caged in by our plans the endless scheming the systematic calculating and manipulation of how things should be

but everything is in passing nothing is permanent it says here except maybe the passing itself a concrete metaphor of which is the nearby onrushing river seeming to be the true reality of time our time which threatens nature and history alike it says here to save them we have no recourse but to rely on memory the human capacity to preserve what’s past dead in our lives the act of remembrance and that which society puts away in its darkest corners as antiquated obsolete is often a moment of freedom from which to criticize society itself a good place from which to criticize the present is what the present itself considers past what is thrown out as useless can be society’s strongest critic it says here to appear as being out of fashion is the form that uselessness takes on in a society that abhors the old and aging a society that denies its own past its own history a past littered with ruins

this me the lopsided existence scurrying around on (l)edges the dust of dark corners and meaning’s rust from odd job to odd job watching askance as the trains go by the missed boats sailing off into promising new horizons washed up passed up passé relegated to the silence the muteness of so much accumulated suffering stifled by a pain so intense AAAHHHHHMMMMM!!!! UUUUNNNNN!!!ABLE!! to shed one miserable tear as a procession of gray and blue hairs back from a game of bridge shuffling in from the cold with a chorus of hellos how do you dos and colder than a witches tit! ambles past my dumbfounded senses choked as i am with a hole in my stomach as reminder of what lies ahead the ever-expanding perimeter of a pool of gloom the internal cohesion of confusion con fusion i.e., with fusion will soon be coming coming and going ‘cause now is never the right time . . .

Buried alive:

bric-a-brac

bricks layering in the dark

the lid closed down upon you

and now there’s no turning back

afterall only which is

to say again

was the task that we had a skin even as we know all too well ourselves to be a theme and then some more starting location a (l)edge from which to know a world relegated to silence buried alive in a hole of how do you do and gray blues so intense packing up the lopsided watching askance scurrying past a history littered with ruins

this again starting location the point at which another digression begins a path to be followed away into and to be again some (l)edge from which to

not enough stomach belly as remainder of belying

an expanding perimeter

in down there’s no looking up sliding down that upward mobility some literary critic once said would soon be coming coming and going ‘cause now is never the right time

wordssssssss

kim-

bo,

ma-

chine

slot

wear-

iness

speak-

ing

knots

which

say

what a cul de sac!

so much accumulated suffering perhaps in the

stifling gloom seldom said again some more

words so much so such that enough is not enough

after all

only which again was the task that we have a skin even as we know all too well yes that is to say yes ourselves to be a theme and then some more as if coasting along

this starting location an edge from

which to know a word a world relegated to silence buried alive in the whole mess of how do you dos gray and blue so intense passing up the lopsided watching askance that is to say sideways out of the corner of one’s eye scurrying past a history littered with garbage yes that’s it a garbage heap a garbage dump the heap of trouble we’re in that’s it which is to say say what so much accumulated dust the rusty dust of meaning’s lot as flotsam is the so much more to say

but i don’t know and where i am is a kind of burgeoning activity a path that leads but can’t be identified a kind of acousmatic sound poem the fuzzy buzzy birds the radio buzzy birds screaming squirmishing stratosphere’s staticky whistletones teasing nagging at me like gnats for days on end and what is there to say i mean what is there to say here to say here to stay here to stray away and continue scavenging for ideas and things no ideas but in thongs is the motto of the day it seems no ideas but in thugs thugs in thongs throngs of ‘em regurgitating what has been said and done that’s been done before that’s been said before scavenging the lot of us the bored boring lot of us done scavenging for whatever crumbs of affection and attention we can lay our needy hands on the boring lot of us condemned it seems to repeat to repeat as i was saying to repeat what’s been said and done one more time and again and then some more and then again some more which is to say this historical tedium the tedium of history’s litany gone astray the long and tedious litany of history gone astray as i was saying the boring lot of us condemned it seems to repeat regurgitate reproduce sorry so melancholically so and re-reproduce as i was saying so mechanically so so sorry the boring lot of us so condemned it seems to reproduce the same old power plays patterns and schemes to reproduce it seems society’s dominant ideology that is the ideology of domination to manipulate and control the tedious bunch we this humanity all too human in our inhumanity the boring lot of us that is to say all too inhuman in our humanity this we it seems that is to say us the contemptible lot stuck in a rut of our own making the labyrinth of cages we force upon ourselves and each other in our daily interactions condemned as we are to repeat sorry so sorry reproduce i mean that is to say with our daily actions it seems repeat the same hellish same story nauseating hellish sameness of abuse and misuse the same sorry so sorry lot of us bored as we are with ourselves and each other stuck in a rut of our own making it seems bored with each other and who we are the biting nasty gossip the endless talk about nothing the noise the backstabbing the scheming the incessant monologue of fear the gnawing yes the gnawing in one’s skull crows cawing away in the sky crows clawing away in the skull the tedious bluntness of it all like a dull ache behind the eyes the violence sorry it is so sorry it is so the numbing tedium of the ongoing daily violence and its nauseating cycle of fear and destruction it is so it is so sorry this vicious cycle of threats and counter threats and counter counter threats and insecurities this vicious cycle as i was saying into which we are born and so-called educated by our progenitors and our so-called educators whose cruelty against defenseless children goes largely unnoticed condemned it seems that is to say the boring lot condemned to attack defend and attack again and then some more and then again and then again some more stuck as we are in this system that is to say this way of thinking which over the centuries thousands of years has become a habit and over the centuries thousands of years we’ve become habituated to this habit stuck as we are trapped caught boxed in as we are in this relentless this ruthless way of thinking snagged as we are by the indifferent machinery of its logic stifled by the coldness of its reason pinned down by its ruthless instrumentality and seeing how these authoritarian these oppressive structures are reproduced on a daily basis at the smallest most local levels in our heads that is to say our so called human heads on to the greater structures of institutions corporations entire societies and governments from left to right through the extreme center i think of the river and its relentless motion its ongoing ruthless motion

and very often i can’t hear anything out side given over as i am to my fantasies my dreams and thoughts my thoughts of the river and the lives it has taken the horror of it that is to say the river itself the horror of it that monstrous body of water the thousands millions of tons of onrushing jade colored water pushing forward toward the falls the thought of being swallowed up and dragged down into its murky depths

here in my cubicle my little box very often i can’t hear the sounds of the storm outside the thrashing wind and sleet as i’m often intensely absorbed concentrated on writing “scrap(e)” a dreadfully desperate attempt at composition for solo cello full of screechy scrapy whinny sounds or dozing off into sleep into the depths of the winter night into sleep dreaming or intensely occupied with my fantasies as i was saying with my thoughts of the river outside and very often i can’t even tell when someone is coming in through the front door and surprises me in one of my obscure reveries one of my as i was saying fantasies of walking off into first up to my knees then waist deep plunging into the icy water of the rushing river into as i was saying the cold murky force of its relentless logic

the horrendous logic of the whole thing the ruthless self organizing self perpetuating logic of the whole thing and which with mechanical force pushes us forth inexorably in a series a concatenation of catastrophes expanding inexorably as i was saying with the mechanical ruthlessness of its logic expanding in seemingly exponential fashion in a series of catastrophic events leading us it would seem eventually toward total disaster

and suddenly finding myself face to face with Mrs. Doyle who smiling asks me how i’m doing and would i like something to eat or something to drink and the horrendously wrenching contrast between the kindness of her smiling face and my despondent gloominess twists my insides with guilt and self consciousness a shame that washes over me like a freezing cold shower making the river outside look more and more appealing by the second

and very often as i’m standing outside by the river eating my rice pudding or my tapioca pudding with half a plastic spoon or even a whole plastic spoon i think about the river and its relentless motion and staring into its translucent turbulence i think of the lives the bodies it has taken both willing and unwilling away down into its cold jade colored darkness the countless broken lives the silenced broken souls it has taken into its fold perhaps even mercifully like no mother no lover ever could and who’s stories remain forever untold i think of those countless broken lives those broken souls who’s now no longer struggling bodies the river in its relentless passage has engulfed and with brutal indifference dragged down as i’ve already said into its murky depths and with the ruthless force of thousands millions of tons of freezing water perhaps pinned into a corner somewhere some dark rocky crack rift and with brutal force as i was saying that helpless that hapless now lifeless body the life crushed out of it by the thousands the millions of tons of freezing water lies boxed in in its final resting place

but no i think to myself that is to say i say to myself there is no final resting place in this the river for even as i think to myself that is to say i speak to myself ceaselessly so the river in its endless flow with utterly brutal force continues to pummel away at that now lifeless body which lies boxed in helplessly pinned down in a crevasse somewhere below and the river as i’ve already mentioned with brutal force continues to pound away at the lifeless flesh and over the course of weeks or perhaps even a few days erodes eats away at the now frigid tissues tearing away bits and pieces even chunks of what is perhaps a flesh in nearly crystallized state over the course of weeks or perhaps just a few days strips away the flesh in patches swaths of skin peeled off then the fatty tissues below then the muscle tissues and sinews eroded peeled away as i was saying and in a matter of weeks or perhaps just a few days such that only the bare bones are left upon which the river continues in its relentless process of demolition to pound and grind away rub and chafe at the cold bones below and over the course of weeks and months the incessant grinding and pounding slowly but surely turns the bones into clay or mud which as i may have already said over the course of months or perhaps just a few weeks is washed away downriver the bones lying in a mortar of rock pounded upon by a gigantic pestle of millions of tons of icy water day after day ground into a fine dust that is to say pulverized now turned into clay or mud such that whatever person whatever life there was is now erased washed away downriver every last bit every last particle dragged away inexorably toward the falls’ very edge

a ledge broken off from which to begin again alleged beginnings it is said commence here where nothing it seemed there was left to be said as stray sections foiled streaming my own interests messy into musical mishearings ends ruins from logic a kind of oneiric logic accidental other territories resisting ideology reproduced enough such that enough and then again words langwise langwedge langwheezing a langeezer whimsically languaging saying verbatim in places as “i” was pounding in re-creation through speechlessness and speaking verborragia hemorrhaging bricollage like a composite material (p)articulate matter digressing into possibilities whatchamacalliting into sounds dismantling verbatim into day dreaming turbubabulent curlicues in re-creation a shrapnel meanings disordering and this ordering meaning this here beginning as mishearings electrochemically into this juncture into intro trance-elation transacting a while that is to say looping round and round again the ongoing digression into my beyond stumbling into clusters embedded contradictions refracted sense locus sounds rejecting explamutilations and then say to the whirr where other whirls in conjecture without between something shown under “i”

arriving at the same edge again writing this again starting location a skin to be theme all some more and then enough is not enough to be theme in dislocation which is that we have only ourselves with which to know the world each other language thought and perception with which to conduct the task even as we know that ineluctably everything slips away into silence at last only that silence wasn’t as bad as some had thought

as final

it was silence after all that made the utterance possible

audible

* * *

an unpleasant machine it was is this no better than a hand cranked meat grinder proceeding each time at a fairly brisk pace then yet still not knowing how or when not writing what one knows but writing toward into uncertainty crablike backing into it perhaps then knowing not knowing and what “i” means in this context belonging perhaps to these turbulent motions

can we see it without words? do words block the view? if words are the view what lies beyond? behind? behind beyond what to write in on what? and in what language? not the mother tongue but the other tongue

the nothing of tissues i was flaunting be still me frozen hard they are before be before the thing has no word maybe to hear perhaps to listen a word here a little story small this was a writing is better still better be still this was a waiting is for the rusty places

as final this the utterance made into the silence the last after fall slipping away into everything made possible at starting location audible arriving at enough this location not enough can be seen crablike as possible even as we know left to be said what say what? logic from daydream location thought as streaming dislocation

driving down the highway along the river the sunlight again gleaming on the water’s rippling surface no not glasslike not like-anything i know or anything like light on water gripping dripping grippling dribbling along and. across the border the trees which just a few days ago still clung to summer’s edge have now turned overnight into yellow then a tide of browns ochers and reds along the river’s distant opposite shore igniting feelings which are better left unsaid

the story began somewhere i knows but soon got lost among many others and i is hard pressed to say which one matters most though it seems the turbulence the mayhem the energy generated by them all is what counts what’s worth telling about and behind it behind the writing that upon which and against which the writing writes resisting the indagations where pen and pencil are like daggers with ever blunted points prying at the surface of things as i tries to gather in a few gestures the facts and events into a landscape which might give it all some kind of sense wherein even the senseless has its place

“Mi annoio. Voglio morire.”[6]

yeah i know i’ve told you all this before but that’s just the point the point before and after is present here in the here and now of writing along mapping disorder and this order compelled egged on by the chaos outside and the indifference within curious about the places the spaces the surfaces the point the line the surface (a membrane?) where the world outside meets the indifference inside i mean “inside” just as I mean “outside” (gotta get back to this inside/outside dichotomy later turn the whole thing upside down inside out and round ‘n round no such thing really no such “thing” no such “thingliness of the thing” really but it’s an entertaining notion really . . . ) that is metaphorically

and thinking that maybe the indifference within i means the chaos without is really proportional to the callousness inside a kind of butterfly effect as they call it or a feedback loop that generates more disorder even as we desperately struggle to freeze-dry reality into a tidy clean elegantly packaged explanation pretty as the truth tied at both ends as it were as if words were the connective tissue that glues everything together thus keeping us in contact with. this even though in time the glue hardens and thickens becomes brittle and lifeless cracking as the seams come undone crackling

and writing these lines these strands which are entwined in a rough irregular manner together forming a loose web of associations dead ends disjunctures and inconsistencies a porous texture characterized by fissures gaps and blemishes irregularities and discontinuities a kind of texture comparable perhaps to geological formations and other messy turbulent processes seen in nature a thorny and often cacophonous writing employing a strategy of excess an inconsistent ode to imperfection the purpose of which is to create a singularity a locus of difference in effect a kind of scrub a noisy weed garden that resists the ever present and totalizing inundation of useless information society generates to distract and drown out the troublesome moral implications of its existence namely the violence by which society constitutes maintains and enforces itself upon us weapons of mass distraction a kind of negative feedback loop intolerant of any new and dissenting information and which can be characterized by the following motto “I know what I like, I like what I know” or to put it another way:

“In chaos terms, the systems that operate on collusion and automatism

are obviously not creative open systems. Rather, their behavior is dominated

by a relatively small number of negative feedback loops. The countless small

loops [ . . . ] are not an expression of creative degrees of freedom, but represent

microloops locked together in a way that creates one big obsessive repetitive

loop that chaos scientists call a limit cycle.

Limit-cycle systems are those that cut themselves off from the flux of

the external world because a great part of their internal energy is devoted to

resisting change and perpetuating relatively mechanical patterns of behavior.

To survive in such rigid and comparatively closed systems, everyone must resign

a little - or often a great deal - of their individuality by blending into the automatism.

Those who rise ‘to the top’ in such systems are generally the ones who use

empty phrases, those mindless formulas that keep the mechanism of collusion

together.

Limit cycles are the systems that make us feel powerless. They are

the ones we want to change but can’t because they appear to resist all our efforts.

These systems are everywhere in society.”[7]

that’s what i was talking about la noia annoyed irritable irritated by boredom that is to say the incessant production of boredom the incessant ranting and raving of the ratings and polls the forced cheerfulness coming from the media

that enforced cheerfulness

those weapons of mass turbation that keep us chasing the proverbial carrot dangling from a stick you know what i like, you like what i know desire on the run yearning chasing as i was saying after the proverbial carrot the promise of a fulfillment that never comes no better than hamsters the lot of us on the proverbial as i was saying treadmill all this in the midst of an endless barrage of images of destruction wars murders torture exploitation disease and disasters of all sorts the all around nastiness humanity is capable of producing reduced down to the level of mindless entertainment the never ending tautologies as i was saying and human suffering as not seen in the vacuous smile of the celeb on the red carpet swaying those brilliant perfectly aligned pearly whites gleaming forming an implacable wall of denial . . .

what a celeb is

what does a celeb really celebrate?

the ongoing and numbing

production of vanity stupidity and ignorance that’s what!

“whaaat? don’tcha know? I have thoughts and feelings too!?” sexily purrs the celeb squirming in her surgically enhanced bodily charms a jiggling the meat hard pressed against an open blouse steaming

why don’tcha know? she’s America’s Bridgit Bardot! a ruthless reduction of the subject to a hand-full of poses: hip slightly jutting left contra posto hands on hips knowing glance sideways now a smile shift to other leg flinging hair across face in defiance smile again knowingly and then again and still some more clutching left shoulder with right hand feigning shyness grin crossing legs in childish pose arms and hands as before long black lashes on high tan cheekbones jutting which is to say and then again commissure of mouth smirking head bent sideways hesitant face slightly downwards then in profile fleshy bust protruding and knowing glance a gleaming some more and then again and still some more again and so on so forth which is to say and then again some more show a little tits a little ass smirk bare and grin it and do it all over again and still some more and then again which is to say

sexy means . . . thing,

the thingliness of the thing,

tidy little package,

pretty as the truth

tied at both ends

cathode-licks i tell ya the lot of us entranced by the taste-less smell-less touch-less insubstantial flickering flow of images of wealth and debauchery violence glamour and senseless luxury

and

thinking how the history of humanity is really the history of boredom a great endless bottomless boredom incommensurable beginningless ontological boredom (if you’ve ever lived in the Hague

you’d know exactly wot i’m talking about,

exactly wot i mean,

the global village idiots,

the tedium is the message of the media

such that meaning means business

and business means . . . as usual,

secure behind their miles thick dikes and lulled into complacency by their ever so perfect welfare state and all the while, ruthlessly exploiting the hapless foreign workers that wander into their way,

sway . . . )

the boredom as i was saying humanity left here by some device divine or otherwise annoyed on this planet left here as i’ve already said in a kind of solitary confinement left here on this insignificant spec of dust to stew and rot away in this prison this labyrinth of fear and confusion in our on our own of our own of our own making

stranded as i was saying left to our own devices and try as we may to distract ourselves from this state . . .

. . . until the advent of television (vision from afar, distant vision, remote vision: an obliterating eye blasting us with . . .) and its incessant production of boredom where nothing means everything and everything means nothing nothing at all yet still entranced by the magic of . . .

cathodelicks the lot of us entranced by the flickering images weapons of mass distraction . . .

envy resentment . . . envious you say? naw don’t think so just wish i had one tenth one hundredth one thousandth of their wealth could pay off my debts get myself out of this financial mess then write them a love letter or two ‘n make their heads spin the pen being mightier than the sword i’m told my little Excalibur here cutting and slashing to and fro poking its way along . . . all rights reversed! steal back what they took with impunity our time our misdirected desires

gone astray all the while singing a little song

“We could take the money home

Sit around the family throne

My old dog could chew his bone,

For two weeks we could appease the Almighty

Just making easy money!” [8]

all this as i was saying a dispersal a doodling scribbling motion with which to create a cartography as is all writing a kind of trace a trace of itself first and foremost composed not of units but of dimensions or rather directions in motion no beginning and no end but always a middle a meddling a muddling from which to grow and from which to overspill stuttering spilling over toward a book a text made up of planes lines motions and commotions energies energy fields and textures (no, not chapters) which connect communicate with one another through fissures and gaps turbubabulent a turbulent motion from which to go on[9]

through através atravesando otra véz as I was saying incompleteness a single sentence full of interruptions derivations and digressions deviations from which the story began only to branch out again a flow of waking walking and writing with pauses pieces a text a composition as I was writing “as I was saying ‘I’ ” made up of incompleteness exposing the incompleteness of thoughts and things perceptions of our experience of them the incompleteness of our experience of them

yeah sure how things sounds are related connected to each other but also how things sounds are not related connected to each other and what happens in the interstices the spaces in between listening to the scrap where the scrape once was avoiding any orientation toward a culmination point or external end always detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable with multiple entryways and exits, now straggling but then with sudden gushes[10]

writing as kinesthetic process where such motions actions are a mapping mapping disorder and this order which is to say scribbling between the lines a babbling between the rigid order of so much thinking

connected by conjunctions a swirling motion sifting through the cracks scribbling the moments away scrape scrap scribbling and scratching between the notions and scrape scrap scribbling in the something to say

is it spite vindictiveness that keeps me going? or am i slowly but surely turning into a machine helplessly churning out

words outwords phrases verbal formulae thinking indeed that i am thinking churning about in an increasingly limited pool of ideas and habits?

the repertoire of things to do say think and feel shrinking day by day as the dominant order increasingly takes over our lives consolidates its hold on us choking the life out of us forcing us into a straightjacket of debts and emptiness the screws steadily tightened

thinking indeed that i am thinking day by day a society in which more and more people want to be told what they want need a polymorphous iron lady clamping down on us with even and steady pressure compressing us down into a one dimensional existence

my life increasingly limited compressed by the

the thought

wordthought machines jabbering in the dark light of a red dream gone astray as the corporate mentality gains upon us day by day

its hold on our lives forcing us into an increasingly limited repertoire of things to say think feel . . . relationships as simulationships just another technojock

with the machine to show for it

“I am unwritten” croons croaks creaks squeals the latest corporate pop “sensation”

but that statement itself is scripted advertisement another lie propaganda no different from those politicians who say they stand for freedom and democracy while at the same time wheeling and dealing with the corporations they serve . . . distracto-people hanging out wasting our time

have i addressed the issues yet? yeah the Great American Novel fell by the way side spilled sifting through the cracks and where still we wait for permission in the dark for permission to be free Nietchste Foucault Deleuze and Guattari giving us the go ahead it’s OK son girl you can write think what ever you want it’s OK you know nomadic thinking writing be a wolf man it’s OK oh is that OK? Sir Madam? well geeez thanks i’m glad you approve what would we do without it?

you will be allowed to speak live but only after every outlet has been obstructed[11]

you will be allowed to live speak even but only after every desire has been blocked and diverted we are after all a freedom loving democratic society and we want you to be happy happy doing our bidding you are obliged to be happy doing our bidding you will be happy doing our bidding we will oblige you to be hap or in any case . . . to do our bidding . . .

throwing out flames and shooting out shoots an intensive trait starts looking working for itself a hallucinatory perception synesthesia perverse mutation or play of images and sounds soundimages and imagisounds shaking loose challenging the signifier’s hegemony and the grid of preconceived notions we’re stultified by from the inside out and vice versa vice as in addiction

a movement a motion wiping away the graph paper mind set

scribbling the moments away scratching between the notions scrape scrap scribbling away in the something to say connected by conjunctions and then again regaining one’s freedom from the dominant competence of teachers language expertise (and expert tease) a digression of course and off course a flow without purpose using short term memory and short term ideas even when reading and re-reading using long-term memory of long-term concepts the unconscious as a-centered system oscillating irregularly between systematicism and the a-systematic

what is a wolf anyway?

an animal

what is an animal?

and who’s to say?

say what?

what’s left to say

applying a system to the kinesthetic process the scribbling the scribbling goes on the etching the scratching word as form shape sound complex the itching goes on and on as does the inscribing the scribbling within

an external monologue ingested and so internalized digested and then excreted and so externalized as nothing is lost no nothing no thing is lost all is transformed somehow into lust the dust of lust and then some more rust no thing to be spared once more gone and still

forlorn

there is no inside and there’s no outside there never was a dichotomy to rebel against only enclosures and exposures

enclosed spaces and more exposed places pockets caves and houses planes and fields and pauses convex areas and concave spaces enclaves and convex caverns bubbles pockets and pick pocket hockets

places and spaces readily available to perception sight hearing and smell taste and touch

and spaces processes (thoughts gurglings emotions and desirings) not so easily available to the senses

telling “it” like it is

is like telling it is like it is

telling wha? wa?

as language is my witness no longer knowing who or what i am what purpose i serve in this life all that guides me now is trauma this catastrophic process i’ve become

all this i’m thinking as i’m driving the van the van i rented down the highway heading north past the Niagara exit toward . . . searching for a place a different kind of space all this as i’m driving down the highway along the river toward North Campus heading out of town and as the highway begins to veer off away from the river’s edge a glint catches my eye my left eye to be precise peripherally i catch a glimpse chunks of ice drifting down river toward the island where the river’s bend begins

jagged white grayish-white shapes puzzle-like slowly swirling round and round caught in a whirlpool near the river’s elbow where the bend begins blindly searching each others’ edges shapes erratically bumping into each other never quite fitting in

* * *

Footnotes

[1] Verlaine, Tom, “Elevation”, “Marquee Moon”, Television, 1977 Elektra/Asylum Records.

[2] Banks, Iain, “A Song of Stone,” Abacus, London, 1997.

[3] Whitman, Walt, “Song of Myself,” Leaves of Grass, 1993, Modern Library Edition.

[4] Banks, Iain, “A Song of Stone,” London: Abacus, 1997.

[5] Ashbery, John, “Flow Chart,” The Noonday Press a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 19 Union Square West, New York 10003, 1991.

[6] Weaver, Williams, Introduction to Boredom by Alberto Moravia, translation by Angus Davidson, The New York Review of Books, 1755 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, p. vi.

[7] Briggs, John and Peat, F. David, Seven Life Lessons of Chaos: Spiritual Wisdom from the Science of Change, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022, pp. 39 – 40.

[8] King Crimson, Easy Money, (Fripp, Wetton, Palmer-James), Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, released on Island Records, March 23, 1973.

[9] Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix, “One or Several Woves?” in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, translation and Foreword by Brian Massumi, (University of Minnesotta Press, 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290, Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520, Eleventh printing 2005).

[10] Idem.

[11] Idem.

Acknowledgement

Some sections of Song of Anonymous are composites made of bits and pieces taken from other texts, whether in the form of a direct quote or as paraphrases, which, when put together in collage or bricollage fashion, constitute the narrator’s voice or rather, his or her many voices. A list of these sources is provided below.

1) Adorno, Th. W., “La posición del narrador en la novela contemporánea,” Notas Sobre Literatura, Obra Completa, 11, De la edición de bolsillo, Ediciones Akal, S.A., 2003, Sector Foresta, 1, 28760 Tres Cantos, Madrid, España. My translation.

(Adorno, Theodor W., “The Position of the Narrator in the Contemporary Novel,” Notes on Literature, Complete Works, 11, From the pocket editions, Ediciones Akal, S.A., 2003, Sector Foresta, 1, 28760 Tres Cantos, Madrid, España. My translation.)

________________, “La forma en la nueva música,” Escritos Musicales III, Escritos Musicales I – III, Obra Completa, 16, Ediciones Akal, S.A., 2006, Sector Foresta, 1, 28760 Tres Cantos, Madrid, España. My translation.

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Monday, June 17, 2019

Pedro R. Rivadeneira, Song of Anonymous