infinity report number one hundred and thirty-three

thirteen minutes and fifty-three seconds ago, i caused specifically defined and digitally represented sound waves to transform themselves into perceivable phenomena and then emanate from two electro-accoustic devices situated on each corner my wooden desktop, crowded (as it is) with letters and cans; an old apple-wood pipe given to me by mother nature herself.
this mother (who sat in a tree and was always kind besides), told me that the ripplings through the space-time continuum were caused by mechanical vibrations that produced changes in pressure, manifested, after their intial production, as occillating waves that radiate outward, from their material source. These, in turn, affect the infintesimally small particles around them in musical ways.
these waves can travel through many forms of matter and can be represented abstractly as symbols whose derivation is based on observation, often and ironically, through the very media that is being analyzed.
out in the water, they are still swimming.
the seaside, ocean water and fragile humans interacting with that environment are composed of the same particles described in the previous paragraph. somehow and through a process that can, for instance, be demonstrated by the use of morse code in the 19th century, the mastery of the mellotron in the later half of the succeeding one hundred years, and further, the advent of digital reductionism, they are all still, somehow, separate.

the tendrils of flame and their many by-products

and as they descended, transmitting the code to initiate subtle chemical reactions in the deep and cold currents of every ocean, the first ships of the fire industry made a blue blinking light appear on the head of every statue of every saint still worshipped on that watery sphere. they also caused draining water to reverse course; huge waterspouts appeared everywhere and then fell to earth as snow.
the first of the starships entered the atmosphere.
a man with a small flame above his head and dressed in a ash grey uniform with red highlights was seen greeting shoppers in the departure lounge of the famous spacestation LXG-593.
so, obviously, their matter projection devices were still functioning, even after their hasty and unwholesome departure from earth so many years ago.
Said a commentator on the recently restored world wide web.
Within hours, canisters of various inert gasses were distributed to large swaths of the population.

xōchiyāōyōtl

then, a sonorous, oblique orbit through that part of the night containing references to the efficient self-organizing structure of insect wings, the red-golden glow of sodium vapor electrified and the symbolic positioning of migratory bird plumage upon the cradle of summer resulted in three spectacular observations which can only now be properly analyzed.

the moon is an occult object.

the sun is flying through the heavens at speeds that are unattainable on earth.

the stars represent butterflies and other fragile moments.

fragment

Components twelve through sixty-three – whose calcified protective auras might be more properly classified as metaphysical or intradimensional shells covering such flesh as was necessary to demonstrate the glowing presence of life within a section of the universe dominated by visible light and electrically charged gas formations – were discovered to be residing within the framework of certain insects and other less organized beings common to rocky planets with stable rotational mechanics.

Operating at the molecular level, these inventions were the work of elves that had sprung from the pages of Tolkien and then taken their show on the celestial road, traveling through time wantonly and demonstrating their technological formidablilty to a variety of races and sentient flowers.

Some of them were built by applying miniaturization processes to ornately carved sticks; others from a combination of elusive metal alloys and prayer.

dancing with oxygen

in the year 2319, the earth was or will be conquered by the glassy remnants of the fire industry, which crept into prominence as a cultural and economic force in the previous century, but then fell into the habit of combining with argon and so diminished and fragmented.
initiated by the performance of hideously arcane rituals in several cities throughout the kingdom, heat was precisely demonstrated. demonstrated. afterwards, those who could still see saw fit to follow the tendrils of flame and their many by-products.
After only fifty years, the effects of inert gases upon leaders of the fire industry ensured the movement's dissipation. the followers who remained built interstellar vehicles from saltwater and fled.
the dawn of the twenty-fourth century coincided with a floating sort of peace; humans once again dreamt of vegetables and instantaneous electronic communication.
and so what a surprise it must have been and will be, to see their lonely crystalline starships floating through the air once again, dancing with oxygen.

towards a place

laugh and sing in the sunshine
don't drive the snowy roads
we're headed towards
a place in the mountains
where you can see the folds
of the earth.

planet number three

they say that you are headed to a place (in space; that inevitable rhyme manifested like a horn section, but with the contour of teeth) where the annually vertiginous vernal visitation and lifting up of christ will follow a pattern similar to that observed in certain species of flowering plants (who begin their ritual of awakening now).
daisies come to mind (white and papery) or else roses; their thorns fresh and unadorned by age or rage or the gardener's perception of their sharp inclusion within the framework of growth and decay.
this is our garden.

march to the sea

her hair calamitous - nails from the fringes of eastern philosophy (likewise every hand which held an instrument) suggest that the march to the sea will be a fruitful one; circumspect and intangible
by daybreak, which slips through the curtains defining roughly the shadows that it builds.

venusian control software

on the control software to venus, jazz music plays in the background. several numerical character strings have been arranged to resemble the wind that blows through the trees on spring nights.
in the crevices of our sister planet, invisible to passing spaceships filled with the descendants of european adventurers, the secrets which bind electricity to water are being examined for proof of efficacy.
a demonstration on the causes of starlight will follow that magnetic discourse and it will be held in a place where the sky is compressed and lead flows like water.

only some of them had the weight of celestial objects

yo: i took up the flags, the sails and remnants, accoutrements of those who came before, sabes? the ones who spilt thunder from their heart (it pours out hot and red, making cathedrals of our bodies which are otherwise frail and only temporarily circumspect upon this wide and boundless sea) to ensure the sunrise.
but it was a dark undertaking, a path strewn with sharp rocks and occult sentences. only some of those artifacts had the weight of celestial objects.
and so, i drifted out into the wind-blown next season, where of course,
birds sang.

using symbols that stand for sounds made with the mouth

i.
the directions are very clear in this regard and even jethro, disguised as a hipster (with his hair cut to look like it had been shaped by a white porcelain mixing bowl formerly used as a repository for chocolate candy and photographic demonstrations of christ's authority) can revel, can plan and execute the greatest fiesta of them all (hallelujah, say the angels) to mark the events which describe their implementation.
ii.
the directions, the clear process wherein quantity provides structure, have as their underlying and organizing system, the idea of a leaf, the passage of electrons through wire and two minutes ago.
earth is floating or is so perceived because consciousness is complex and some writers have chosen to draw pictures of it, using symbols that stand for sounds made with the mouth.
iii.
the hum of machinery preceeds all of the entrances to heaven. accurate observations of the stars are likewise disrupted by that electronic breath. it's fluttering gray glow encourages dancing and only occasionally a sort of dreamless sleep.
iv.
keep walking. activate every source of light that you come across.

.

tales estructuras florecen

hay un tipo de poesía que contiene la veracidad de la luz de las estrellas, que ilumina invierno y camina con los brazos doblados, hacia el lector.
esas palabras hablan de las alas de un pájaro y definen el agua como una herramienta que se utilizará en el desierto.
ubicado en el vacío, tales estructuras florecen. son mirados por las otras plantas mientras que realizan rituales al sol y a su alfabeto brillante.
pero, ese libro se pierde, aunque sus secretos residen en hueso, en la enfermedad de la edad.

from glass, all of it

this is all formed from glass.
all of it.
this screen, those fingers, the clicks and pauses that float through the air toward their likely interpretations, even the photons projected across the screen whose fine crystalline lattice-work really and actually shimmers in the presence of electricity.
and the eyes, of course the eyes too, of that same substance; irregular, a very slow moving fluid, according to the latest science; clear on the subject and apt to issue further proclamations regarding the vibratory states of the molecules that pour through this world mostly in silence and sometimes beating like a drum.

a boat made from ashes

the past is restrained and drawn upon with wide latitudes available in a variety of skin tones; heartbroken and therefore unable to be accessed without the aid of fantastical airships or references to page 137 of any book chosen, what came before makes a sound that the other animals may hear with more clarity.
the moon is never still; maybe i've seen her before.

a piece of earth all full of starry machinery

a piece of earth all full of starry machinery and glimpsed through the flowery passage of birth; calculated using prime numbers, the voices of sleeping women and the soft flesh of life.
there are moments, calm and unobstructed, when i touched stars and let their light seep through my coarse and grimy hands so that my blood would be illuminated and remembered in the winter sky for millennia after my final sleep, with darkness as a perfect woolen blanket.
shiny, shiny globes, the arc of the seasons contained within my faltering breath as a butterfly jumps into the wind, cursing the waves, embracing clocks and cloves and the smoky outline of hands joined together.

quatrain: the symmetry of your ribcage

once i delivered the night into your small outstretched hands
it was as dark as the inside of the sun;
your hands were as white as the little ivory statues
of kings and queens that my mother kept in the china cabinet.

the people that live in the sky

i know that you are reading this, so let me tell you about one of my dreams.
there are people that live in the sky; they continuously reconstruct the firmament with next summer's flower petals, sending shiny garments, the voices in telephones and the position of satellites to the folks back home.
they wonder if it is the end of the world and so flee to an amusement park nestled in the mountains you have dreamt about - old wooden cars move through those rocky passages; their engines sing songs about utility and control.
the ferris wheel is a perfect place to watch the shadows of machinery, the clouds, the air. A jet roars by and leaves behind a trail that some have interpreted as a symbol of the earth's salvation through kindness and technology.
and it is cold in that place; the winter sun drifts aimlessly along the horizon.

how to build animals from smoke

i.
The last fire is contained; it is no longer prompted by oxygen, desire or the rough capnomancy of planetary rotation. The rain is triumphant, has formed lakes commemoratively and water now seeks itself.
ii.
Christ dwells near the surface; the ground yields as electric guitars and harpsichords announce the incoming surf; rolling and rolling.
There's a flower on your hat.
iii.
Some arthropods are designed to look in several directions at once. The way mammals crawl is limited by their attachment to the earth; slow vibrations guide the birds toward heaven and the fish swim as if to display their love of fluidity. Inside every heart there is blood and repetition.

the shape of aeroplanes

when the sun is attained as it surely will be, with eyes clothed in glory and clad and the remarkable light-deflecting materials common to the twenty-third century, call forth icarus, submerged as he is near samos; instruct him in a new methodology, which will free him for flight.
Later, after he has devised a new shape for aeroplanes and further illuminated the swooping potency of the color of butterfly wings, ask heracles to tear down the lovingly built tomb meant to shelter those drowned bones from time, from light.
There will be a great exultation on that day; someone will light a candle. Collect the wax and offer it diligently to wandering feathers, to the night.

undinal song

rise up from the sea and come to me, where
the light flows faster than your discernible waves.
i will build you a throne of guitar strings and blue plastic
diatribes from where you may launch a fearsome armada.
the clouds above will not part;
you would do well to have rain as a companion.

the moths in the northern hemisphere

within that cave there is a cave. there's a gaper in the corner and it is surrounded by the remnants of struggle; a hat worn merrily at christmas, the razor blade lost while chopping heaven out of hell and a paintbrush was left behind, too. mirrors find their most useful application when hung from white walls.
if you click on that button it will lead you to another, brighter location, where the forests are composed of real dirt. there is no action, there. the air smells of clouds and mealtime.
that electric hum is caused by all of the moths in the northern hemisphere beating their wings at once, and the rumble underfoot by the giants next door. there is light everywhere, upon every crevice.
in that previous world, there will be another storm, tonight.
but here, here, some birds sing to announce the sun.

the morning i thought of starbuck

his version of the sea is tranquil; reasonable and pacific, even as dark waves and hoary immaculate monsters leap from the thin film of obscuring water, that water covering an abyss.

oh, tumultuous surge and ripple, wearing down the finest wood, leaving women on the shore forever, touching the sand with fingers that also point to the horizon and the stars above it!

there was a modest pause separating each of his words; they became clothed in heaven and finality, a deliberate sort of salvation formed from the night itself. 

ten thousand syllables thus, spoken to a silent god as the pequod lurched through the gates of a lower place.

she writes mysteries

she is solemn and says that it is the cold moonlit air and the recovered starlight of an october spent on the edge of the water.
she retreats through the door of the night, wearing the hunter's belt slung low, across her hips. those bones are furnaces.
the breadth of heaven, undetermined, floats just out of reach, a dreamy apple or summertime peach. everything that is good is contained within that sphere; string theory, dancing animals, the promise of summer's return and even the formula for the creation of light, which she decodes just as sleep arrives.
— there is a glowing orb, over the sea, says she, eyes racing back and forth.

into that first cloud

i.
into that first cloud; sharpness and the recollection of grand adventures.
hovering yes hovering there and perpetually evanescent; if you don't look now, it will be gone.
i tell you.
the result of that window-passage: it is not a rock at all but viscous, fluid like mucus and that thick.
ii.
and on a spinning earth, a solid place to be, we made symbols from the liquid.
there is limpid motion in them; here are more than three.
iii.
beards proclaiming youthful glory later took up heavier reins, then drove the admission of mortality across a dusty plain.
that wagon was painted in muted colors; the horses always wanted more water.
bright flowers strewn like stars danced and danced amidst the clutter.
iv.
as the carriage passed the blossoms sought refuge in its wheels
petals pointing skyward toward a receding juggernaut.

what i said to m in the dreamworld

i imagined two of you. one made from darkness and one made from light. one, a feather. the other one, night. that was your medium.
the pale moon led me to that illusion. the birds you could not cage called you forth from the house at dawn. they oversaw your fission.
go ahead and wave goodbye to the neighbors; be joyful and departed.
your sullen replica wanders within, searching for her shoes.

in a time when shadows have also been eliminated

a look into the future reveals the coming of a culture that will no longer depend on precisely rendered symbols to initiate and transfer meaning between individuals.
everything will be blurry or noisy and filled with modulating static.
in a time when shadows have also been eliminated, many other physical occurrences and processes will be manipulated using an experimental type of injectable computer software that invades all levels of reality through the bloodstream and acting like a virus, is transferred to individual terminals via bodily fluids.
one version of this program, marketed as a means of achieving immortality, will creep into the world wide network of information and out onto the plains of the earth and the cities in the sky through the sweat on a user's fingertips.
this infection will be advanced after the user touches an input device such as a keyboard.
the peripheral input device will absorb the viral material, which in this instance will be all about deconstructing diphthongs and compound letters; qualifying intrinsic meaning; and identifying error as an efficient and therefore noble quality.
as the process progresses, the letters on the keyboard will re-arrange themselves, almost mystically. the wires and circuits will buzz ecstatically as they are invaded and relieved of their certitude.
the altered cpu will hum a little song while launching itself into cyberspace, filling even that most abstract realm with new visions and new versions of everything.

i really liked your latest post

it flew through the night air, years to the day after they fired up a belly full of uranium. it jumped through the window, as a compressed file; the ones and zeros were lined up and starkly beautiful in their humble yet inscrutable magnetic domain, resembled forests that went on forever or a million human mouths or both, at once.
the references to purity were astonishing in their telemetry. aimed and everything. a million hearts will sing out as they decode those anonymous sentences.
my eyes will follow that transit, darkly though.

Cempoala

i am the fat lord
and will offer you the earth.
(a form of entertainment reminiscent of the modern day circus)
the names of several plant species dangle from my tongue
which is like a coarse fishing line made from silver.

so, put down your flaxen robes, gather roses, forgive the taxman.
the hordes of butterflies that fill the sky are dancing.
(the one who is coming for you will lose an eye)
build your boats and carry them up to that occult heaven.
the passage is narrow, i hear.

the dark and certain curtain before the replica of nourishment

there's a lot of white space and it is no longer godlike because performing magic on the carpeted hallways has limitations. things are getting lost. another inside joke, like the time they found a poisonous spider behind the watercooler. how's that for symbolism.
my dreams do not refer to literature. they do not sound funny or exotic, when described. but in them, everything is backwards. color does not have emotional content and can be experienced in all of its glory.
the fish are always elusive, their soundtrack forgettable; composed of bright dots that are really grains of rice that are really bones colored like the contour of a cloud.

that avatar, compressed

two birds.
the forces of darkness met at the dining room table. one was dressed up like a mermaid and left a trail of salty water upon the floor as two birds (which were the colour of midnight) carried the half-fish to a chair. the chair was useless to a being with no legs and the mermaid said so as they approached the others.
and the table was set with silver implements and magnets. the two birds pecked curiously at the magnets and made clanging sounds with their beaks.
take me with you.
systems function continuously and optimal output can be achieved once an individual realises that the machinery of flesh has not been manufactured, but rather, was grown.
a signal to be processed.
some of the humans surrendered. more meaningless objects were collected as a result and they were displayed with great pride and chattering voices. and there are no more secrets, either; I am that avatar, compressed.
please sit down.

and all types of skull designs!

i.
come forth come forth
the geraniums will issue dust.
there is some wind in the trees.
it shakes boughs and rustles leaves and is encrypted at the cellular level. it can be imagined as the divisions in a leaf and the rooms of a house, the way buildings and streets are distributed against the surface.
green walls. white walls, vascular systems and cob webs blowing in a breeze created with fans and air-conditioning, inviting rest and coaxing tomorrow from idylls hidden in a well of darkness (all starry and made to last forever, like the middle part heaven).
they render the outstretched spine as sonorous bells and the air as rippling woodwinds.
even the simplest forms have that musicality ascribed to them (it has a chemical basis).
more complex things, like bones, living animals and old paintings become symphonic, but breathing and electricity are just types of humming or whistling.
ii.
rising in complexity, rising is simplicity: the laughter, the turning heads with blinking eyes.
the distortion of the octave into something which is lifted past that original wavelength.
iii.
you are still alive and want to go out, but prefer elevators and bulldozers, wandering through hallways that other shades have abandoned for milkier shores.
even the crippled can walk.
when paint falls off the truck, it races back into its container, conquering gravity and time in those few seconds before the sun rises and you are borne away, again.

a future, revolving

i.
a giant, revolving and brightly lit heart (glowing with a million candles and neon tubes courtesy of santa claus and the ghost of che guevara) descended from the sky, appearing before rush hour traffic. Though it was modeled after a human heart, it was not like any seen before. Lightning issued from the arteries and veins that covered it, a flock of winter geese attended its hovering and fluttering through the sky and their accompaniment was a noisy one.
ii.
the construction of flesh from dust and butterflies began in the early summer. geese fed themselves on fresh shoots of grass, the wind whistled through trees whose arms swayed moonward and small fish jumped out of the water in hordes, their eyes painted blue by poseidon himself.
iii.
oh, and the stillness of the moon, hanging within heaven's reach like a watchful eye whose name is like the movement of wings!

la cápsula floreciente

cuando fui, hasta la máquina en el cielo,
como me rezagué sobre los pisos plásticos,
tragué una pequeña píldora.
y la cápsula brotó, como vid exotica,
floreciente y floreciendo a través de mi sistema:
en cada hilo de rosca había un sueño.

lyrics to the latest hit by your favorite rock band

sung, vaguely, but with a sense of innocence,
to a tune called up from the reader's
most embedded and cherished memes.

outside, by the window
a bug flies around.
its wings float like numbers,
they don't make a sound.

and the animals dance and the rose petals last forever.

inside, on the tee vee
a man says some things
he's covered in mystery
and his microphone sings.

and the animals light up and the rose petals respond.

while talking to images
that float 'cross the screen
an army is waiting
who knows what they've seen?

and the rose petals dance and the animals last forever.

bathing in the well at canathus

A photograph was produced.
"Here, in this satchel. No, here. I moved it into this drawer."
Because it is blue and there are four frames contained within, four variations.
Really, it's a postcard. But, this is a photograph of the postcard, that she sent to me."
There was a time code stamped on the back of it and the glossy feeling and word named Kodak repeated itself, again and again, sometimes getting cut off, truncated at the edges. And the front was like early morning, when there were still a few stars visible, when shadows had not yet gained the edge given by the bright sunshine.
"She's been all over. Once at the water's edge, now in the mountains, where the snow covers the ground until May. And, sitting on the oaken swing looking at that old cottonwood in your yard, too."
Upon this twilight field, her face and on that face her lips and through those lips laughter. Or, its memory, which is like paint upon the hands, the fingertips, the fingertips coated and just barely touching a white wall.
The cars she drove with her pale legs!, The tires and brake jobs and other men and women drifting through her life, singing songs that could not be easily sung, that could not be heard clearly above the din of machinery.
Now, so far from your mother's cornbread, Tennessee is finally closer.

an instrument

an instrument is a box and hollow like a disease contained within a cell. it may be filled with light. water can also be used to demonstrate volume and will not disperse, though it is limited in location and therefore dispersal properties. the bright waves of the upper wavelengths, the higher echelons, exist in a more excited vibratory state and do not share this limitation. they are everywhere, like the outbursts of seeds or flowers in the early springtime.
on earth.
violins and clarinets are an example of instruments. refrigerators spattered with food, the insides of stairs formed from concrete and mammals: those are other examples. when starlight leaks out of heaven, sometimes dogs bark, but humans usually stare up at the sky, hands reaching out towards different sorts of instrumentality. and then, there are names.
floating through the air.
there are a lot of cars and also fluttering screens. both are filled with matter in gaseous forms or electrified, as plasma. if there are small, flattened crystals in the dirt nearby such objects, then some reflection must occur. somewhere, somebody is smiling while witnessing such phenomena, and as such, such actions are not considered eccentric, even though their orbits may take them outward, towards the farthest instances of fusion present in our galaxy.

the faraway picture

i.
it could be anyone, behind those glasses and it is what is left behind (which is less and thinner than the blades of grass you walked upon and made up stories about) that transfigures, finally. i can't read the names sewn onto your pockets any longer and now, your lips and the words coming out of your lips must be called forth from a very small and hidden canyon of flesh, a white place, surrounded by blood, pulsing by, pulsing by: a location traversed both by ghosts and large molecules, where I can still place a crown upon your head while grasping your fingers, just so. that final act is a kind of magic which is automatically performed, a compulsion to be enacted, much like the drawing up of breath into yourself, while birds announce your late arrival.
ii.
viewed from a distance, there is a richness of details: beauty, authority and the mysterious souls of a dozen animals drift out of your eyes. All approaches, even those linked to the slender rafters of time's passage, whose roof is heaven itself, render those moments, those actions, as intimate outlines, contours that will not be so easily and clumsily filled with color or starlight again.
iii.
and so, on that last day, when summer was headed for triumph and the mountains were green and purple with the season's presence, we captured the rain and poured it out onto the earth. when i hold the faraway picture at arm's length, i imagine that distance to be three thousand miles, and so, see your voice as all of the flowers that have come to fill up that vast and darkened field.

and

and made an inflective of the word go.
the symbol rising on new syllables.
and rode to heaven by the power of the holy spirit,
while others danced and also ate the moon.
and was formed from flesh or bread or the hunter's arrows,
the straightening of potential, glimpses of sleep
and the color of electric light.

the introduction of chaotic elements (as variables) into closed or obscured sytstems

there is a false hypothesis forming on those hurried tongues and it is not influenced by the wind, even as a structurally similar force pulls trees and metal signs from the earth where they were rooted, nor by a wide range of organic objects which could crawl out of the chemistry at any time, anytime at all, while less tangible concepts are just swimming about on the periphery and maybe seem like fish. the water they float around in may be analogized as a statement. presented dutifully and with smiles.
statements decoded and then catagorized as having been derivative of folks, who often no longer exist, in the traditional sense, may still be lent gravitas by using the proper, often reserved tone.
and that is where divergence occurs. the years raise themselves out of that soupy mess and are coated with its remnants. in all solemnity, trying that system will only cause its collapse. some will scream and others will yawn in the service of demonstrating the aforementioned fallacy.
laughter and sleep are a better remedy, a steady shelter from that storm which buzzes emptily and clatters like broken bones from inside the vacuum always nurtured.

L is for Longing

cups are filled the land is tilled and water is held in a sort of confinement which risks release. upon the glade, some summer shade as trees push through the soil and into the sky, a slow movement which cannot be watched and would be mistaken for emptiness if indeed observable, making food from the air and presenting that result as worthy of representation, an artist's creation whose moments are resolved by looking, even as numbers are recited backwards: until there are so many parts that they are infinite and indistinguishable.
Like leaves.

act number seventy-eight

there are no stage directions for act number seventy-eight.
suffice it to say that she would often arrive after the sun had set, while the sound of bells was still crawling through the neighborhood, while the ripples in faraway ponds inched toward small boats which were held captive on the shore, awaiting the clumsy footfalls of the weekend visitors who could unleash them, who could draw their crusty anchors up out of the water, blithely.
advancing through that dusky rumble and making a shambles of the flowers that were strewn along the path, stepping firmly, purposefully and with an awareness of the dust pressing up against and through her skin, she would sing simple songs, praising the warm concrete and the lateness of the day, with the voice of a bird.
and so, she imagined that her arms were wings, that those feathery agents of flight were to be revealed to those same persons who might, in an act of kindness or refutation, free the vessels which though distant, vibrated at her approach.
past the threshold, then inside, making a theater of her destination, and under the calm umbrella of forgiveness, the orchestra began. the boards she trod upon stretched out into infinity and the stars were revealed on a scrim made from water and repeatedly gauzy soliloquies.
those actions are incontrovertible, those objects are made from memories, she said to a man waiting in the wings. someone else, upstairs, pointed a light at her, making the gathered shadows sharp as she dangled her bare feet over the edge of the pit where complex sounds rose up in defiance of melody.

in the world of ones and zeros

i.
in the world of ones and zeros, a pathway is opened and the light from an extruded glass bulb, flickering, radial and drawn from a roaring wave past sandy shores, the last of the great green and complete forests and manufactured conduits which compress force into predictable patterns, reaches instantly forward, touching the night and becoming its opposite.
ii.
potent numerical data, like the realization of vibratory states (even in the quietude of early morning) is self-replicating, according to the leaves on an indoor rubber plant, papery insect wings and the way hands bend toward each other during attempts at emotional communication.
iii.
there is a sound like curtains being drawn and trees toppling, but without variation: those circuits present only two possibilities.

seven

Water makes a sound, when urged on by gravity.
When the air is filled with enough objects to facilitate vibration
the forces which are generated during this process
induce dreams which are also translucent,
whose songs are about the heroic outward march of the stars
the private language of memory and
the familiar numbering of days.

day

everytime a light was activated in the laboratory, he twitched. there was no sleep after sunrise, either and the noise of the sun was comparable to the appearance of famous rock bands walking across the lawn, howling and scaring the neighborhood cats, who ran under cars and up trees, sending dozens of fat brown sparrows into flight as a consequence.

the flowers and the sun

the conjuring of thoughts and the transmission of electrical impulses and complex molecular structures across decipherably minute spaces are concepts which, although ontologically similar, rely on substantially different perceptions of existence. If, perhaps, perception itself is merely a construct, as well, then the resulting paradox might engender certain actions in the organism, including the recognition of the revelation of flowers in the springtime, loaded with color, cultivated in many yards and gone wild in many a country field or the transformation of hopelessness when witnessing the perpetual surrender of night to the starry, fiery globe next door.

the vacancy of shadows

a cartoon character dances upon the stage wearing the skin of some unlucky animal. upon his head there is a crown and it is made from neglected promises and bits of food taken from a garbage dumpster. dance, the audience shouts, dance and you will find yourself in the movements which you have procured from your interaction with the ground beneath your feet.
above all of this swirling animation, the clouds have become inverted and ominous, laying low and spraying rain upwards, toward heaven.
the orchestra, seated below, in a pit that has been strewn with chewed upon apples and pages torn from the score of the tales of hoffman, reacts by throwing their instruments into the air, catching them and then taking them backstage to a small fountain to be washed clean of sin or any other sort of questionable experience.
the lighting is bright and unrelenting. all of the shadows have crisp edges which will later be described by critics as being dylanesque.

retrieval

according to texts that were burning and then buried, repetition is good for the soul and the physical movement of things, throughout this spacious universe is, as well, a profound representation of our actual position in regards to all the maelstroms or mountains or divisions of joyous wondering or completion that surround us.
made of wood or made of water, those underground letters say, crossing their own constructions, and recording the consequent rhythm: those results may be best played by sending electrical impulses to the heart.

without the common tools of navigation

come hover over that fibrous and circumscribed landscape
clothed as an animal, only in the frail superiority of flesh,
lifted up from some prayerful template of action
to dance upon the pearls of doe-eyed moonlight,
to escape the leaves. tumbling, rumbling pages
which chase after you in the nocturnal breath of the earth.
all of their stems are pointing towards unnamed stars:
the roads which they line arc toward a better, brighter sun
and are trod upon endlessly, without the common tools of navigation.

everything all of the time

i.
the historical basis of each moment: even when covered in satin or considered as poorly understood but non the less revered outcomes, each number is not the sum of those quantities which came before and cannot be said to inhabit or establish any sort of dimensional structure of its own. the process requires human interaction. complex organisms have the ability to represent numbers as forms and use this ability to engage in diverse activities ranging from the regulation of metabolism (a functional, concrete and practical application of data) to abstract and purely aesthetic movements known as dance. in all such cases, the concept of each number is imbued with a corresponding quantity which may then be represented as a symbol, artifact or any other type of human-generated objectification, including actions.
ii.
closing the eyes and envisioning hazy blue triangles (the color of the sky when lit by the sun) will never be a required action. it must however, remain an option: a reward to become ensconced in after the world has covered you in its formidable dust, after you have discovered better colors for the trees, daylight is still a few hours away and you are becoming aware of the different frequencies produced by each thing in and around yourself.
iii.
every bird, butterfly and camera. all of the candles with pictures of saints on them. the animals whose voices you hear across the miles or across the years. the particles of sand that you have dragged into the house, on your shoes: all of them bridges, all of them leading to that world where water runs up the mountain and it is easy enough to fly.

signifier

it is nearly winter by his reckoning and in that early night he is busy contemplating the ability to traverse vast distances virtually, electronically and even vicariously while realizing that he is composed of substances which are similar to those the consumption of which he relishes unabashedly.
our hero sits in a chair facing a device which, though constructed by others, is understood to focus, accelerate, deflect and modulate certain elementary particles in such a way as to reproduce visually perceptible (for humans at least) phenomena. other waves and particles vibrate at substantially varying frequencies, all around him, and inside him too. certain bones contained within that vessel (the one he emanates from, the one in which he believes he resides and which is separate from everything else) ache. when he rises he curses all shoes, recalling that some inwardly placed structures are pleasant enough and that it is what is on the outside, what surrounds, what becomes the periphery that must be detested and constantly fought against. preferring for the moment to remain seated, this process causes him to be reminded of the viscosity of the many fluids with which he is familiar. closing his eyes, he imagines himself to be water.
and so, oozing and flowing around and through all the objects which are without, he becomes aware of certain discrete frequencies, which are also composed of waves (though they not crashing on the shores of planetary existence as he fluidly envisions himself) emanating from a collection of magnets and wires and plastic which has been constructed and given a box-like structure (again by others) for consumption by comparable organisms. this amalgamated mechanism is used to focus waves and particles into understandable audile structures which have been reproduced from their original source.
focusing on those audible wavelengths and then opening his eyes, he becomes mostly solid while silently mouthing words which he will not remember in the morning.

how others have constructed symbols from dust or electricity

i read their poetry and turned their clocks backwards, towards a summertime that had been filled up with wrathful silences, gasoline soaked sciences and multitudinous paths which were not so much embarked upon as they were, instead, gazed at with ferocious and crimson clad curiosity (and yes blood is a fearsome thing, but made pale and translucent by their works and words) and therefore watery, the numbers retreated, before them, as the moon dragged those humble calculations away from the shore. you whisper in my ear that you have made your name from salt. you write things that depend on your ability to swallow whole the sea which has borne you. those are the voices of insects, those are the songs of entire families of birds lifting themselves away from the drone and clatter of whatever remains bound to the skin of the land.

allegory comprising a description of the remnants of the twenty-first century

riding in the saddle of the bright sunshine, throwing shadows onto the beasts of culture, the advancement of structurally complete yet small and ultimately indeterminate electrically generated images and icons as the ultimate representation of reality has been purported to be the most accessible path towards an exit from the post-modern era. once past that door, there will be no more weapons and all artwork will become trees, fluttering greenly, holding fast to the ground while reaching toward what in previous years was known as the sky. it has been predicted that the humans who notice this passage forward will feel as if they are walking on walls: they will be turned perpendicularly toward the heavens and believe, all at once, that they are riding on some type of odd and earthen spaceship. predicated on this notion of ultimate fulfillment and the sudden realization of peace and unity, another rider will gallop towards them. and this rider will be carrying night in his satchels, he will bear the moon upon his shoulders and sing cowboy songs and pioneer laments with the voices of the multitudes of the stars.

memorable flights on aeroplanes and through other planes

the first part is blurry, like the view from underwater, while glancing up at the moon: walking to the hospital at 3 am, a consultation with sad and idiotic doctors in a room that shut out the holy light of early autumn, the truck waiting for me in the parking lot. then, the decision to race to the aeroplane, just before it sealed itself in anticipation of an encounter with the limitless sky. the mountains of salt lake city looked vaguely familiar and the air was cold as i breathed dust into a payphone, only to say that i was going, anyway.
at the airport in san francisco i wandered around for three hours looking for a coarse temple to pray in, a place to stop and to carve meaning out of the wooden stick that had wrapped itself around my head. that head prayed for the spirit of tender mercy to stop haunting me, to come to my aid, instead. in a forgotten corner there was a christian science reading room. i spent an hour leafing through different books in those shuttered quarters, letting the names of all the gods slip through my lips while clocks clicked and did dances in the corridors that led to an imagined freedom. and as my portion of the earth tilted away from the sun, i rose into the air, accompanied by television monitors embedded in the seat-backs and sari-clad attendants bearing the gift of rehydrated and irradiated food.
sometime, in the middle of the night, in the midst of a passage across a body of water too large to really contemplate (except for my belief that it too, was stormy) i stopped and wandered around a city lit in signs which bore no meaning, other than strangeness and the geometry of unknown symbols. after an hour, i seemed to grow wings again and the monitors played video games and i tumbled toward a gleaming island made of steel and fast food, where i would finally sleep, under a table, by a museum that glorified fornication, smoking and the future.
in the morning a man wearing a cowboy hat reminded me that my journey was meant to continue. he lead me past an a & w rootbeer stand to a place where others were gathered, reattaching their wings and looking heavenward.
dhaka was shrouded in palms and unbearably hot. the other passengers waved magazines in eachother's faces and the man in the cowboy hat laughed as he exited the aeroplane.
an hour later and in the air again, headed westward, i noticed how the mountains rose up and how they were giants, covered in dirt and snow and trees, looming and gazing down at my clumsy progress while joni mitchell played through the speakers above my head.
a young and awkward american woman was sitting next to me. she was wearing a burgundy, velvety skirt, matching vest and sandals. as we landed, she said this to me: kathmandu.

when we were rendered as elements of the divine wind by certain animals

i.
in their world there is the suppostion that we float above them because we are part of the clouds. also, they have evidence that we are the limbs of the sun, the vessels of water and warmth, though we are filled with fire, they believe, still filled with fire.
ii.
you may tell me otherwise. but there are minds in there, piercing the same dimensions that we have learned to cascade across in the deepness of night, under the moon or absent of it.
iii.
when he returned (and he did know where his home was) he was trying to walk and shit at the same time and he was staring at the sky. el viento blew the trees around and their leaves were green and his blood was red and he fell to the ground. kneeling before him, i invoked summertime, the lord and the saint with birds on his shoulder.
iv.
and that is the foundation of a miracle, that is a song that continues to be sung through eyes that reflect the passage away from dark afternoons and empty living spaces, towards life, always towards life.

lurking not advancing

the man said, "once in a while a stray wind will circulate around the perimeter of the graveyard. some of the bells in the trees will rattle or else vibrate in a low, mournful fashion. usually that does not last". and and in one corner of the sky, gathered into wet, rolling, grey objects which are now symbolized (remembered) as a system of clouds, there was a storm.
"take everything that is important to you, including ideas, and hide it all. this tempest cannot resist those beloved physical or mental constructions; it will be determined to consume them", he said through the whistle of humid air and the whining of aeroplane engines.
music and mirrors were among those things hidden away from the approaching squall. and also love and golden jewelery. some animals, deemed significant through their on-going association with the humans, were shepherded into a huge underground bunker and there fed fresh meat and sweet corn, so that they would remain calm in their occlusion as the weather advanced.
"when night manifested and the stars were still shining and sorta singing bird-like from their celestial perches", he said, "we all decided to walk, out into the night and saw that the storm did not come by us, after all. it is reckoned that the lord or some other similar sort of divine energy took it elsewhere".

the construction of shelters and other, similar vessels

the construction of shelters and other, similar vessels meant to contain mostly humans (if one is to judge by their scale) can be seen as a transformative process. this practice has seem much refinement during the post-modern era, resulting in objects that display much surface complexity and unique geometries meant to circumscribe, separate and surround areas of space: often, movements toward the attainment of the perfection of form and the expression of unity can only be expressed in the outer layers of these structures. this phenomenon may be readily examined using various methods of deconstruction including actual, virtual and organic ( i.e. those actions which require physiology to decode images and ideas).
given an understanding of the methods which lead to the planned formation of such mechanisms of delineation, a pattern of sorts appears. each underlying stratum of the shell that functions as the separator is generally less complex, materially and geometrically than those above it, though interestingly it often serves a more utilitarian function than its aesthetically derived successors.
thus, rough hewn boards are carried up a hill. some of them are buried in the ground. other pieces of wood are affixed to them. theirs is a single level of complexity, based on ninety degree angles. these are the outlines of walls.
subsequent layers use this geometry as a basis, but offer further iterations of growing complexity: flat sections of various materials, often composed of powdered rock are used to cover the web of tree parts. sometimes the structures are built so that such units are themselves hollow. in these cases they are filled with plastic covered copper wires which spread electrons about the perimeter of the vessel. also present is a pink fluffy material that serves as an insulator of thermal radiation.
calcium sulfate is applied. when mixed with water it attains plastic properties and can be shaped according to the human preoccupation with ninety degrees, with order. it is used to cover the flat parts which cover the dead wood. it is a very smooth material and thus acts to further organize the skin of the vessel.
decorative properties are manifested in the uppermost layers. these include paint and mirrors, which is type of reflective glass, which is a form of silicon favored by the humans for a multitude of purposes, including computational ones.
when these sorts of vessels are completed, they may be used as shelters. similar in meta-design, and in their usage of forms to describe and make use of discrete spaces within space, other vessels may be used to traverse the sea or to reach out into the void which surrounds the earth.

reply to those, who like virginia, are still cloaked in darkness

i sat under the apple tree and watched a small fire bleed away into the night. and then prayed. and then slept. for three days it rained inside my room, covering the walls and making the floors slippery. the wind howled and howled. somewhere else, harsh words were exchanged. on the morning of the fourth day, at 8:06, the system was restored: every icon danced as it crawled from long hidden folders. glorious words tumbled through the air and the moon fell from the sky, into my hands. later that day, under the bright summer sun, i again sang these words of praise. and will continue to sing them, until virginia removes her crown and leaves the mall for good.

Om Namastestu Bhagavan
Visvesaraya Mahadevaya
Trayambakaya Tripurantakaya
Trikagni - Kalaya
Kalagni - Rudraya Nil - Kanthaya Mrityunjaya
Sarvesvaraya Sadadhivaya
Sriman Mahadevaya Namah.

लिङ्गं

song for s: track three from the upcoming life brothers cd, life 29

sung, vaguely, to the tune of "camera" by rem:

you don't have a car to ride in, and the summer's ultra hot.
reckoning the days by bus trips, wondering if what
is written, what he says, is really what he is not.

i will be inside glancing up at broken glass, dancing slowly,
or walking around at midnight in my best prayerful bubble.
if i'm to be a ghost, then maybe you can be my guide.

stared at the moon once, watched it covered by a cloud.
you don't stay here nowadays, though your soul bangs awful loud
against the wooden floor, the noise says that you are awesome proud.

you don't have a way home and it's gettin' dark again.
waiting for a new acquaintance, to take you where you might begin
to locate ancient pictures, that describe the mood you're always in.
did you see my photo, its the one that looks like you.

so far

the days, they just disappeared. i would sing to myself. i would say that night time was approaching, watering plants and listening to the airplanes next door. the fan on my desk just buzzed and buzzed. it used to keep me up. but as hot winds continued to blow across the surface of my earth, it became more and more like a very fast heartbeat, full of anticipation and surprise and holding back the moonlight. one morning, when her voice finally rose from the machinery, i believed, for just one moment, that i had touched heaven.

those trees, those forests

there were birds. the birds were hidden in those trees surrounding my quiet shelter. and a forest of restless branches spread out against the lightening sky by that white home, waving to heaven. and the wind that helped move them smelled of hay and honeysuckle. in the early morning, the birds would sing, just as the sun rose. and i would lift my head when i heard those songs about sunlight and water and the life bestowed by springtime.
i had been dreaming about freedom. i was running, unshod, through those forests reciting the words of the ones who came before me. when the singing began, and as my heart returned to the earth, my eyes opened and an unknown word was upon my tongue.

commander of small larks

the commander of small larks and coyotes fashioned a telescope from abandoned bird's nests, the teachings of christ and bits of metal and glass that he had stumbled upon in the back garden. through it, he glimpsed a parade and the waning sunlight made the band’s shadows long and steep. the horses pranced around in white paint, palms lined the boulevard and the audience held small paintings of themselves above their heads. the paintings, of all sorts, from non-objective abstract to impressionist to purely figurative, seemed to glow as the wind passed through them, as it swept through the moveable gathering. he also noticed that, sometime, in the past, when he was not watching, the flowers had bloomed and he muttered to himself, saying, “it’s already may, damnit”. then he lowered the telescope from his left eye, grabbed several flower petals that were drifting by, on the wind, and proceeded to wrap the small instrument of light in them.

this summer

urging the completion of jet engines, covered wagons and the nine hundred mustangs pressed out by the ford motor company, daily, the mythos of freedom (which will finally set america free) continued its juggernaut, much like an avatar of vishnu, (who was named jagannath and resided in the same heaven as contrails, rutted roads and the californian horizon), growing in complexity and hindsight and foresight while the eyes of the humans scattered along stretches of the northern continents grew large with anticipation and longing. steam rose from the hydroelectric plants and though the bees were beginning to disappear, there was still food on the table. some other small animals were given a benediction invoking happiness. it would be a good summer.

statements derived from the experience of objects

i.
through the branches of a looming and solitary cedar, after the edge of the earth has turned upward and away from a place where light is reckoned to have its primacy, venus appears, announcing revolution.
ii.
the victory of movement, which was briefly discussed during the most recent attempts to decode momentum, will be noted in the symbolism assigned to starlight and pretty birds.
iii.
i was raised up in a milieu of adverse socio-economic conditions, was shown the nobility of poverty while wandering, wandering through the arroyos, from house to house. also demonstated was the ascendancy of writtten language when transmitting culture: it is still easy, though, to want all sorts of interactions with, to draw oneself towards, the material realm, while navigating a sea of flesh and dirt.
iv.
at the hospital a very old woman asked me to look at her cell phone. it was not working properly, the keypad was unresponsive, i told her. when flipped open, there was a photo of the woman and her husband. he had been dead now for 13 years, she said. i folded the phone up and gave it back to her, briefly inhabiting the future when she smiled, waiting for her name to be called.
v.
so many of you have disappeared. this process directs me towards your continued perception as waves of light, chemical reactions, sparks and whistles exchanged across synapes, extra-large molecules transiting the distance between organelles.

the holes

what will become of us: paths establish, musically sometimes, a methodology towards accomplishment while a melodious engine hums or beats or spins, distinct but only occasionally percieved. within that solemn framework, in which numbers and stories and stories about numbers gather, there are many activities to undertake, much phenomena to draw into the soul. lists are a novel endeavor: there's the radio; here is a text which had funny characters; and over there, the sun continues to stand still in space. we are moving.
they kept playing songs that had been structurally linked, with webs and pieces of rebar, to the past. the one about love, for instance.
also, a place for me to stop had been somehow preserved and reserved.
even though they did not get my name right and seemed to exist in a fuzzy plane which was separate from the cool mexican tiles i walked upon, the one with grey hair and glasses brought me a book compiled from dusty reminiscence and hot food. it always opens to the same page, she said.
the last time we visited, i wore big thick black glasses. the lenses were dark also, and kept me from seeing objects that were far away. that way, i slyly imagined, i could see the faces of others while still protesting the illusion of solar momentum that seemed to bind us to that room, on this earth.

dillon's escape

now the moon rises and it is covered in ghosts. they dance around, holding hands and jumping, singularly or in pairs, into the craters and then out into the blackness that separates that orb from this one. one of the ghosts wears a necktie around about the head, as if it were a hippie headband. there is popular music from the fifties and sixties tumbling through space, all around the void, and for a moment, the shade drifts with those waves.
one of the songs goes like this:

Old man rhythm is in my shoes
No use sittin and a singin the blues
So be my guest, you got nothin to lose
Won't ya let me take you on a sea cruise?

back on earth there are plenty of costumes to try on, the three-piece suit which was worn to a debate, once; the sailor suit from mr. roberts. also, there are cigarettes and broken down cars filled with magnets. but such artifacts are of no interest to anyone or anything that believes itself to be finally free. myriad and persistent, the sounds of eternity will suffice.

the images flicker. they do not persist.

inside a metal tube, by the apple tree, several wasps dance and their mandibles move back and forth.
there are too many birds this year. it is difficult to separate their multitudinous voice into discrete communications, songs or identifying chirps.
when the sun lingers like that, do not drive towards the west: its golden color can be overpowering, like a hardwood floor, leaves lost in the rain or feathers from last summer.
there's smoke everywhere, so crawl upon the ground, return artifacts to the pocket, rejoicing at their nifty compartmentalization, the blocking out and diagramming of symmetry.
standing there, behind the counter, is freedom, shifting its weight from foot to foot and pointing towards small, uniquely packaged bits of food.
photography no longer requires chemicals.

sonnet for kenneth w. seward

when the winter begins to give up its darkness,
when the clouds portend rain and small blossoms
unravel orchestrally from the hair of women and
the hot engine of experimental theater, you will
read my watch secretly, hinting at its utilitarian beauty
and noting the years that have passed.
and we will make a conversation
about the electric bars that descend from heaven.
can you imagine what creation became,
after your flight through its filmy and flimsy covering?
it's all robotic and composed of numbers,
just like you predicted.
music still floats through the air, the waves
that we surfed are larger in this century.

symbolic rendition unit two

they had a victorious and youthful countenance, but that had been darkly stained by too many days spent swallowing and walllowing in gold. thus, they had grown heavy and felt themselves pushed toward the center of the earth. this irrevocable change had many consequences. one of them ran off, seaward, in order to avoid detection, though he would still appear in their usual meeting place some nights, to reminisce and show the others his teeth. another chose to dwell upon a glade where he could spend his days frightening away the geese who sought young shoots amid that grassy plain. a third had become ursine in appearance and speech, continuing his fearsome slouch, intractable within their storied boundries. in order to disguise these corollaries, new bright blue and silky uniforms had been purchased. everyone who remained smiled and showed off their novel sleeves and zippers to one another, laughing and shrieking with delight, imagining the springtime at night and the world as it was. and the room they sat in was filled with candles, clothing the air with smoke and little flickering islands of light.
come back, come back to us, they bellowed at the shadows which waded through that space. calling out to their lost friends and enemies, too, they passed empty bottles and handfuls of straw amongst themselves, realizing their isolation but still demonstrating a sort of unity that might be termed as perplexing to an outside observer.
as the night waned and the sky became purple, that second man, who had gone to live among well-groomed monsters and hungry geese, made his way into the chamber. Now, he was made of wood and was hollow, with joints made from birchy dowels. inside of this doll there dwelt a hairy imp: this homunculus was only slightly smaller than the vessel which he made his vehicle. greeting the others, he called for his new costume, peering through that wooden shell. the resulting echo brought forth silence and falling dust.

the third dimension

i.
bone is surrounded by flesh and flesh by skin. fluid which bears sustenance circulates about these formations. the objects that are described by such complex relationships move, albeit briefly, upon the earth, through crevices, manufactured structures and other abstractions which originated in nothingness. the liquids which sustain this process can be further elucidated by symbols, vocal iterations, words: life. though ultimately undecipherable, such semiotic units provide their progenitors with comfort and the illusion of understanding. none of the creatures who experience such phenomena can really perceive the ultimate meanings of those proceedings, though many attempts are made in the transitory moments marking their passage.
ii.
from the location referenced above, it is possible to slip away into other realms which are not dependent on matter for their identity. there is no language for such bouyant voyaging and the associated representations are often vaguely envisioned (whether upon silvery screens or upon capillary-laced ocular coverings) as a consequence of energy being bound to temporary material assemblages.
iii.
blinking lights, reflective surfaces, the coolness of concrete in february, tears: the influence of other similarly defined mechanisms may delineate or point towards a crystal walkway, a dangling web or the bent spine of progress. before, there was only noise, unperceived starlight and blood.

soliloquy after envisioning ahab

i shall not cast my pipe into the sea. there will be water, surely. but even as it surges around me, carving unlikely and grandiose monuments from the objects which expose themselves to its frothy movement, i shall remain, gripping its elaborate length with the earnestness and permanency of the planets. the tactility of its smoky possibility will continue to fascinate me and i will draw my dreams from those plumes and ribbons which i pour into the air, nostrils flaring and mouth shaped into nearly the same form as that which describes surprise or the anticipation of temporal pleasure. in that moment, yes, in that brief corridor where decision races upon and throughout axons and is chemically replicated, there can be no abandonment of hope, no reshaping of the waxy moulds of future action. through the engagement of this methodology, peace will be established, will become normative, even as the waves complicate themselves with geometries signifiying curvature and a progression towards stillness.

chapter 57

i will retrieve certain structures, misty clouds and rainbows, he said, from the backward looking box that you have summoned from the other world, using the voice of a lamb and the constantly shifting utterances of the raging sea. these sounds will draw out new meanings for you to ponder and decipher and will be positioned like a lovely, lonely, ornate cross perched upon a hill. But that is not all, he intoned: on the velvety and sometimes bloody inside surfaces of that wonderous cube, filled with air and reminiscence, producing intoxicating fumes and dust which will inevitably bind itself to your hands, there will be tiny flaming hearts which you may remove, at your convenience and place in your mouth, upon your tongue. the results will be transformative and you will awaken with humble realizations and the taste of reality bound to the surfaces of those nerves which serve that portion of your brain where objects are fashioned from the most elusive of your memories.
here, here are my hands. they will do the work that is required of them. small voices and whispering willpower will cause them to bend toward you hopefully, much like the floating and patient tranquility of geese upon wintertime waters or those kneeling parishoners who seek communion with the mysterious fluid of life.

poem: determining factors

we shall fly through the air, mightily, and with the wings of broken, accumulated experience flapping, denounce the fallacies of hypercaptialism and reveal, quietly, while floating and gesticulating (with busy feathers and iron words) the reasons underlying the misconceptions which we have accepted like blind worms, like planaria that have been split to demonstrate regeneration.
in that imagined flight, dwelling upon starry mid-winter skies, as the taste of gun metal collects in our collective mouths, we shall be free of advertising and all the admonitions of textbooks which urged and demonstrated, heartily, the proficiency of management, the grandeur of american business and the efficacy of profit.
rumbling gray clouds, like the kind found in the best science fiction films, will annouce our presence, our discovery and, ultimately, the emptiness of this sort of heroism.

tethered

the sky is clear and the air is cold. small pieces of ice remain, though the landcape, previously transformed by the former and whitening grandeur, now re-asserts its original form, full of friction and advice and the crumpled brown simplicity of the relinquished motility of other, more timely winds. i protect my memory and pierce my face while bells chatter and boom.
turn down the noise, darken the lights and pull the plugs from the walls! pour salt on what remains.
i wrapped the white cylinder in plastic, found some duct tape to ensure its borders and watched as a small balloon proceeded to limit the formation of moisture in the back room. occassionally, the sound of metal reminded me of my success.
the previous morning was spent dialing up phone numbers which had been revealed during a very dark and windy dreamtime, while i kissed a stranger. sometimes, nobody answered, or the phone was disconnected. once, a faraway voice told me about dead dogs and new boyfriends. at least three times during this extended procedure, I walked through the house naked and laughed at the way time seems to slip by like gravy or beer. my watch used to be beautiful, i marvelled, stepping gingerly through my sleeping lover's room: now the brass is showing and i await a new and marvelous chronograph, with dials that spin and hands, that like my own, glow when commanded to do so.

rudolfo n. carrillo

what is left of those moments, dear father, abandoned in the objects and particles of the past and although immutable, which might possibly blossom fantastically and like a white crystal from the passing clouds, into a sort of skin or covering provided for warmth and continuity? although similar to flesh and like the green shovel which you left in my yard, those fragmentary seconds can only be accessed as dreamy metaphor. i know that is a complicated sentence, so here are some examples of its essesence.
before he left, all tired and thin, wearing the cowboy hat composed of spiders and mustashioed evidence, my father drove to my home and left a bag of salt on the porch. he said that i would need it in the future, even five years hence, when snow would overule the cold and dry winter to which i had become accustomed. we had argued that last month because i would not kill his dog.
he smiled at the chinese buffet, distracted by christmas music and high on gin. when we left it was to return to my home, where he would stare at the fire and admonish me to iron my trousers, to shine up my boots, as proof of my interest in the world of success.
my brother dreamt that you would come riding out of heaven in an old thunderbird, to visit and then to contemplate the currency of life which flowed from you, through us. now december unleashes its fury, snow covers my life and i sit up at night mouthing your name and remembering the weeks before the storm, when you led us up the fire escape at the catholic hospital to show us a new sister, then later swept the white stuff away, wearing a scary mask and humming the last song from revolver.

la natividad

Regard this place with caution, though it is blameless and pure. it was late when we crossed the border. Ciudad Juarez was mostly dark, but we heard a few gunshots in the distance. they were too crisp to be from a less explosive form of gunpowder, like that found in a festive holiday round. not a reason to stop driving, to be sure. that sort of unpredictably intermittent chaos allowed us to slip with a slow rumble, unnoticed and listing to the left, which besides being a common feature of the aging B210 station wagon, added to our mystic commonality with those steep and mineral laden roads and towns where we would tread, into the west. black night and the thin ribbon of civilization dripped upon the hills and was made from cheap red sand and oil and some sort of tar and starry starlight. they were frightening guides to us, and seemed to dance brazenly upon every curve.

the first town was made out of coal and molten copper and we were led to it through tunnels and the smoke which poured, even on Christmas night, from the smelter on the edge of town. they had draped brightly colored electric bulbs in all of the tunnels and the town was likewise, full of vivid color reflected on stone and dust. it was very late and I did not see anyone, just some old cars here and there.

by sunrise we had passed a military outpost, where the guards smiled, though wanly and darkly, through to the town with an English name. and the elevation kept dropping and we came upon a salty basin, a desert, filled with unfamiliar succulent plants and palms. beyond this, there was a bright white dense city and we passed through glass doors to find sleep.

the next day, the sea was upon us after roaring as we approached, it seemed impossible and imposing, when placed next to the desert it bounded. old craggy fishing boats and American rvs kept passing us on the highway. roadside palapas offered fresh oysters. a few years later, I would find my favorite one abandoned, but it was also the first time I saw a colony of blue crabs dancing upon the territory which they had claimed.

the next few days are now all mixed together. An empty hotel with a colonial Spanish theme, tribal carvings being sold by the surf, a fish market which had been built by the state, made of heroic concrete. the weather was cold and stormy the first day, but then became bright and cool. some rich Americans invited us to stop at their campsite. they had expensive gin and lobster tails. they never mentioned what their politics or culture or life was, they just wanted to eat and drink and laugh.

when we were done with that, longing for the organization of America in the midst of the wonderfully tactile disorder around us, and had stared long and hard at the unfinished cinder block hotels that were scattered around the small bay, casting their purple shadows onto the water, early in the morning, as the cacti bloomed in white response, we turned, northward. as we entered Arizona and the radio crackled to life, we heard that ceaucescu had been executed.

a stoppage, first part

a square glass bottle. the timelessness of eyes fixed upon a staircase. photos which are lost. there is a collection of true crime stories at the top those steps and outside, the rain comes and goes. it is called upon every afternoon, while i dream of sleep. the one million aromas of the kitchen nearby hide their true intentions, using a calendar of wintertime in new mexico as a method of the proof of their persuasive and efficacious inclinations. it is ok to leave the dogs tethered in front of the liquor store, which is a short walk down the hill, towards the sea. only pleasant men in raincoats and dowager housewives will pass, as you admire that superflous civility, choosing, at the same time, an appropriate bottle of port. in a syncronous rhythm, which mixes the dark and luxurious meat of the pheasant with the passage of one year apart, this is what is noticed, mostly, through the rain: they built a school where once there was a field. that was the december before, when i sat upon the bench, across from the cefyn mably and marveled at the tropicality, even in winter, of your environs.
that first time, you walked me through town, past the stony police station. and then we marched upon a strange hill, past the graveyard, towards a row of chimneyed row houses where we would drink from red cans, the past. i phoned from the train station and you were still asleep. later, i would slip into that same cloudy refuge, which was really a bed surrounded by every sort of human clothing.

allusion

bury my heart in the fibers of wintertime texts. leave the books which i have chosen open to the all important second acts: goethe's faust, perhaps shakespeare's illuminations of human suffering and sacrifice. do not neglect the relevance of hemingway as he waits in vain for more cigarettes or a way out from disastrous african backgrounds, a snowy mountain looming in the distance. let flow the distant and perturbed semen of burroughs, languishing and dying under alien moons, desert landscapes and references to the unknown and appropriated future emanations of becker and fagen.
here is a method for carrying the weight of the world: i walked with my father's remains, contained in a small ceramic bowl, toward the grass we had both walked upon, wind blowing and brass markers stretching for acres across the cold brown surface of a catholic cemetery. i kissed that vessel, teary eyed, and finally, while strange governors and imaginary women wept. decorate it all with dried flowers and fresh marigolds borne upon the plain of justice and the flames of what has passed, i said, as i walked ahead of my brother and sister. imagining the end of starbuck's patience as ahab's pipe drifted upon the open sea, calling out the light from the horns of the moon to provide it with divine guidance and shape, i dipped my hand into the water i had drawn into the small, cold basin of life: all the time crossing myself and praying for summer to restore the translucence of progress, her small hands caressing me.

when i surrendered to the void

my research into the various animal processes available for the human ascent into the multi-dimensional spaces residing beyond mere sentience yields the following statements: we are coaxing heat from reality, wavy and variable, using verbiage and hand movement, darting eyes and willful ocular contact as means of gauging the efficacy of warmth and passionate interaction. further, the homeward journey of the soul, naked and unmappable, wrapped as it is in the thickening water of belonging or attachment requires an obsession with consciousness and a slow rising into wakefulness, daily. wheels turn, the sick glance upward, mumbling and trying to stand. if the fixation with movement during the search for light requires a type of cognition that does not invoke the ego prior to the actionability of touching others, then stillness cannot manifest itself, except as a vague and unattainable concept. continous intrusions of the spine of colorful dissent, playfully demonstrated or outlined in the codices of the saviour, in the songs of popular culture, the voices on the radio or the pronouncements of what we term the knives and wounds of pleasure cannot be used to measure the flow or progress of our journey into the maelstrom.

three nocturnes

i.
the butterfly wings lie on the ground and their owner has escaped into the soil, possibly to torment roots currently engaged in the miracle of sleep and seasonal darkness. initially, they were hidden by fire or by the early light cast upon eastern granite uprisings at the edge of town. they are like the rare rose petals of winter, translucent, resembling thin paper dipped in the pure wax of dreams, gliding down through the atmosphere, from heaven, from stars whose names i can only guess at. the red glow of the music of night accompanied them, a strumming, guitar-like repitition, and used the lonely midnight horns of distant locomotives to punctuate their indecipherable and drifting rhythm.
ii.
all of the clocks in this vicinity are broken. their hands turn too quickly. in their post-modern rendering, the digital interfaces are like films which inexplicably run backwards, ultimately swallowing themselves. they are busy recounting early morning costume parties in brightly painted rooms, floors littered with thick green flakes. everyone is wearing a mask. they point to dim and rough roads traversed in reverse while looking into the mirror for guidance. in either case, ten becomes nine and nine eight, until zero can be celebrated or assigned the role of uncompromising epiphany.
iii.
i watched time flow from my lover's mouth as she slept. tendrils of possibility escaped from her lips and her hand moved towards mine as if there was a poem concerning the continuous fragmentation and rebuilding of the hours floating within the warm air and the white walls surrounding us. i was shocked by the closeness of the coming brightness, of the radiance of the sun.

temporary mantid habitation

one night in november when it was very cold and the streets i lingered on, up and down ridgecrest, collected upon their fringes the heaps of golden, yellow and brown leaves which were the produce of autumn's onset, i came upon a large and rusty mantis, lying on the sidewalk, on its back and legs splayed, just past the house of the dead girl whose daughter had drawn colorful chalk drawings with names like mommy and me and the clouds, upon the concrete and from fragile memory. the animal seemed as frozen as the tips of the trees overhead. with the left hand of a warm diety imagined, descending from the sky, i took this prophet of the order mantodea onto my right palm, blowing the warm mammalian breath of my exhalations (my exhortations) upon its head and thorax and abdomen, upon its prayerful forelegs, until it moved. under the sodium lights and through the cedar smoke about me, i wandered home with that creature cupped in the shelter of those big hands of mine.
once inside and with the quiet determination of bee-keepers or fishermen, i walked into the spare bedroom and let my new friend crawl onto an old sleeping bag that hung in the closet. it was cold in that closet, but not as cold as the hours of darkness which now lay upon the city, vast and shroudlike. the next morning i went to check on the mantis. it had not moved, though when i approached, its eyes darted to and fro and the bristles of its ovipositor twitched. another cold day passed. when i checked on saturday, the mantis was not to be found and i spent that afternoon cleaning that back area of the house, hoping to find her.
finally, on sunday it was warm again and i noticed the big bug, again on its back, near the corner of the closet. this time she crawled onto my hand and i walked out into the back yard while she gingerly inched her way up my arm. i left the mantis on the trunk of an ancient giant cedar which spread its way up toward heaven and was filled with sunlight and robins picking at the blue-green berries that filled its boughs. as it clung to the bark, its wings spread outward, orange and veiny and more like leaves than the leaves themselves, taking up a defensive posture against the birds which were sensed by those magnificently translucent eyes. it waited for me to leave and for its prey to come tumbling or buzzing or fluttering by. and since my aquaintance's color was nearly the same as the bark of that old tree, the birds did not notice her and it grew dark and they flew towards the south, towards the tall pines where they might roost, away from the neighborhood cats. as i ambled toward the back door and called the dogs in for dinner, out of the corner of my eye, i saw the mantis snatch a fly from the air, just as the bright glow of sunset faded.
by monday, at dawn, she was gone, but the birds returned. they continued to pick berries from the old cedar, crying and shrieking to eachother as they wheeled through the morning air.

a reverie

i will sew wings onto the shoulders of my best jacket (they will be made of glass and oxygen), gather up memories of the ocean and push them into woolen pockets filled with cigarette butts, the dried flower petals which were meant for former lovers and black wires used to transfer electricity into a sleeping cell. the passionate rage of the sea, this assembly of water, electronic devices and other memorable relics, will ensure a sort of numinous buoyancy against the air of the night, further enabling my flight toward the half-closed eye which roams the sky and whose setting symbolizes the dawn.
aloft, my hands and feet, large, bare and occlusive, will be as clouds touching the firmament: casting shadows upon the spectacle of earthly existence that has known the temporal intercourse of my passage through the roaring and distant world (rivers, rooms, forests and crevices) below.

migration of non-discrete particles

Lately, he had discredited the part of the procedure during which, the faces of others were observed and then their complex folds deciperered, as a means of discovering purity or its absence. that sort of geometry had done wonders for his relationships with the humans, he earnestly believed, but did not speak to the accuracy standards now being promulgated throughout his culture. and he seached through his drawers and closets many times, hoping to find small manufactured objects which he might use as new models for his interactions with others. crumbs would not do, nor any biological constructs, for that matter: he required the permanence of the artifacts of technological industry. more recently, this predisposition reversed itself when, while listening to the temporary, hoary and vinidicated insects of that autumn environment, later that evening and somewhat ironically, he came across a large orb hanging in the cold sky and the smoke from his neighbor's fire (who had been cutting wood all day, getting some sort of steel wedge caught in a section of bloated cottonwood that he had been trying to split) rose up towards it as if called to that pale sphere by the holy precision of its density as a gas. subsequent to those same observations, especially with that object which became, thereafter, known as the moon, came the realization that any third dimensional emanation of these souls that moved about him, encapsulated, in the atomic flesh of this realm, were valid expressions of the universe and thus to quantified reverently, across all dimensions, even as they looked miraculously upon eachother, upon him, through the limpid atmosphere: into a sky full of nothing but distant substances which they could not touch, but which less subtle energies might engender as a type of flower blossom or something which flew.

some birds like my tree

i.
the free-wheeling and fluttering escapades of those northern robins, who perch for a moment beneath the brow of sunset and the half moon of november's advance, have discovered the ancient cedar which spreads itself calmly against my corner of the earth. stroking the sky with their wings, hovering and then singing to eachother names which they have given various moments aloft and the safety and fecundity higher structures, every bird i see is busy with the fruit of this year's harvest, though mindful of the journey ahead.
ii.
in honor of the eleventh month, i have darkened my house, allowing only the grey light of my terminal to soak up the shadows. outside, some birds have found a place to rest, out of reach of the wind, defering the south for one more night. in the other room, it is raining and here, the sound of fans turning and hardware spinning fills chambers buttressed with faith and hope.
iii.
i cannot walk through the sky and feathers are of no use upon the ground, unless for warmth or identity. so they gather in that tree, over there, near a wall, as we form perfect sentences in our bed.

instructions for singing about metaphysical accoutrements

i.
it is useless to determine a precise time from which to measure the efficacy of this proposed occurance. so like an incantation, this iteration...instead, try this: after the corn has been harvested and the stalks which bore such fruit left as wooden reminders of the summer just past, crush their fibrous lengths, pouring the dust upon closely clipped suburban lawns. when day begins to reassemble, as the sunlight of dusk, heavy as gold and inscribed with a rhythm which subtly repeats itself every one hundred fourty-four beats - until the pursuit of indigo is resolved - in that single moment, ahead of night, measure with units of your own invention, the curling smoke, the shadow which you impress upon the earth.
ii.
in a procedure currently dreamt about, they will discover magic in the ground, using a sort of observable process similar in structure, if not intention, to that used by their ancestors to quantify the metaphysics of sky: the formation of clouds, the production of thunder and the knowledge of the continual growing and ungrowing of the moon. now, rivers will be enshrined.
iii.
there are two dreams available in the metanight of our coming winter; one is concerned with wires and systems and how we will drive through them upon wagons. the other signifies those atomic particles which proclaim either unity or the revolution of form.

ten years from baluwatar: symphonic format

prelude
ten years have dulled my memory, have pushed to the forefront the ghosts of what is to come: weariness borne of travel, wariness borne of the translucent interactions with other souls: the fleeting, flying nature of time itself makes memories thin and waxen. days proceed and recede, flesh grandly and humourously orchestrates its vain elasticity, a mere forebearance of the icy underpinnings where it will ultimately and anonymously reside, still hungry. resigned to this process, reflecting upon its efficacy, efficiency and economy, i have symbolised as musical notes or indecipherable scripts those small utterances which remain, to be unburied by pointy-eared posterity.

i. allegro non troppo
on the corner there is a veterinary clinic. it is across the street from the prime minister's grand and rambling yard. down the road there is a store where you can push back the burlap hanging against the door and in the cool darkness within, buy san miguel beer. further up the hill there is shack near the chinese embassy where small, dark, sandaled men sell western cigarettes for fifty-two cents per packet. in between these two shabby landmarks there is a pink home with an iron gate. a nun keeps the yard and on the third floor, there is a small apartment. this is a place where we can whisper and dream. the kitchen smells vaguely of propane. a large spider with one missing leg and who lives in the sink greets me every morning as i mix up milk from powder, for the coffee. you are asleep in the first king-sized bed i have ever slept in. there is a stairway to the roof, where i wash my clothes in buckets, wring them and set them out to dry on the home's edge or on an unused tv antenna. every night, dogs bark, as if their lonely and forlorn sounds will rouse the day's sacrifice of goats and chickens, which i notice as i walk down the alley in back toward the bluebird market.

ii. poco grave
the flight from pokhara to jomsom: watching the old soviet helicopter above and the himalaya below. the children ran from the cobbled streets to greet our aeroplane. i dangled stolen boots from my backpack and picked a place called the moonlight lodge where we could stay the night and view in its completeness the milkyway. some drummers and musicians came by after midnight, rambling rhythmically and magically till the sun and cold wind returned as we slept. the long walk to khagbeni: an ancient and trickly river surrmounted by dry hills and small farms of apples, buckwheat and marijuana plants. someone had painted political symbols, maoist admonitions, on the rocks by the riverside. there were no engines, save an occassional chinese tractor and no electricity. the townspeople took turns tending to the water-powered mill. the adobe homes were covered in red paint and the ceilings of their temples were painted in other, more glorious colors and images of gods looked down upon us.

iii. scherzo
lete: i dreamt of my mother while we slept along the banks of the kali gandaki. outside, a monk in purple and yellow robes played games with the village children. inside, on the metal bedframe, beside you and exhausted, she came to me, wearing a gleaming crown and speaking of the escalator she would ride to heaven.

iv. andante
ghorepani: there is a jungle at the foot of those mountains. there are rhododenrons and lime trees. some of the people, mostly doctors, have satellite dishes on their roofs. they do not offer fried bread and yak cheese, as is common in the higher elevations, but instead offer strange versions of pizza, apple pie and burritos. it is here that i traded the stolen boots for a jacket which i still keep in my hall closet. i took time to notice the geckos on the walls, the thin bamboo shoots beyond the water's edge, the gauzy curtains that hid your form from me in the bright morning. smoke from open fires fills that same air and you can see mountains rising like gigantic blue waves in the distance.

ignition of the sun

not sleeping until the hour prior to townsend's renknowned ignition of the winter sun, she dreams instead of pulsating blue corridors signaling alarm and an underlying nuclear presence emmersed in blue light, the science fiction symbolism of the past, endless crooked passages and the edifices of her former college. after circling this labryrinth countless times, she is led into a crowded room where unfamiliar and young humans eat many types of delicious food. behind the shiny stainless steel appliances and tables, one of the servers, a girl she knows from college, wearing white face etched with indeterminable symbols, asks for her name and is friendly, amid the unfamiliarity. next, that same woman is wiping the white powder from her face, invitingly. somehow they manage to sit together, observing the comsumption of the others. there are still streaks of white on the girl's face, and although she is embarrassed (because of this) she sits next to the dreamer, conscious of the ruby ring she wears on her left hand, yet drawing closer, their plastic lawn chairs separated by a few precious inches . after a fluidic transition that takes place over only several milliseconds of reality, their legs are entwined, feet touching romantically and eyes reflecting eachothers faces. then, a moment of wakefullness vortexes the vision away; maybe it is dawn's light creeping in through the plastic shades. but the dream resumes after she glances at the clock. now, she is sparated from her love and those edifices which were earlier imagined seem like distant pyramids: she stands in a parking garage facing the marble columns and towers of her youth. the buildings are linked by bridges made of glass or crystal. she is afraid to walk across to them and will not tempt their precious fragility, though her heart is filled with longing. in the corner of the room where she stands, there is a staircase made of common concrete. it looks safe to walk upon, so she heads toward it, counting her steps, humming and wondering about the distance back toward her intended lover.

an elaborate emergence (from the memoirs of xicotenga)

i cannot name or give symbols to the very fine and fragile circumstances that brought you, through blood, rushing automobiles and the secondary path home, into my life on that waning summer day. in the year of my father's death, in the year of my final trip to the airport with K., at the approaching sullen light of autumn, announcing itself in quiet and particular sentences which seemed to drift through the air, (untethered finally by what was portended at his bedside or in her last kiss) i heard your cry as i rode and rather roared, homeward. that recollection, embellished as it is by the heroic prance, dance and trance of time, the lapse into mid-life of a certain sleepy mexican artist (dressed always, always, somehow in blue, honoring certain hummingbirds) does not do justice to that moment, to the sudden and emergent musicality of fear that we both felt, sitting on the curb, turning our heads and grinning with worry as everyone else rushed toward their small rooms and the warm meat of dinner. i do remember that your teeth went through my hand and that i looked through the resulting hole, pretending divinity. and here is something else that was imprinted upon my soul those four years ago, my dear: the man (a collegiate peer whose ill effect upon your bones shall remain feckless until my last moments absolve his hurried solipsism) whose proudly bourgeois chariot trod upon your spindly legs and who wished to abandon our council to seek out his human children, curving his arabic lips upward and heinously when i told him that i would stay with you. and so i lifted you into my arms and covered your head with the cyan broadcloth i wore upon my back, navigating the oily asphalt while whispering hope and singing to you of the future, the promise of pure milk and home.
(for rosie, a small brown coyote-dog who defied death, walks through my garden while drinking sunlight and rainwater, sleeping peacefully curled up by my head when the stars come out, guarding our dwelling place with a fierce and proud love that only angels can bestow).

now she walks on flowers and rides on smoke

the wind, the darkness and the waning moon will slip away into the rosy daylight of heroes who battle insurmountable seas. the blind poets who speak of them shall finally discern colour. clouds will gather, annointing every garden and then, even the leaves shall seem to weep. geese, fat with the passage of summer and the plush grass of the valley upon which we all have walked, are already taking flight, stretching and bending themselves toward the south, toward constellations which are only imaginable from the small north-facing doors of the village. all of the voices, all of the bells, tacit as spiders or snails, press themselves awkwardly into the room of memory, leaving ornate webs and pearly paths into sleep: we cannot touch the sky or the vehicles which travel against that constructed firmament and will, instead, struggle against their permanence, awaiting an answer in the coming harvest, in the burning of candles and the miracle of photographs.

three paragraphs referencing freedom

i.

so, then, a temporal period again begins its declension: spinning, discrete, insular and atmospheric, a crystalline or fluidic mass gathered upon the imagined table of the ecliptic. those stony gods of heaven cannot bear witness to their own flawless and infinite missions and are at once and instantly dependent for description on pure words made flesh, electricity passing through cellular spaces, observation and the blinking certainty of solitary passages through the highest of the humanly discernable dimensions, whose perception winds through corridors of sandy edifices or soft tissue, illuminating themselves as brightly painted figurines.

ii.

I believe that you dwell in an empty castle, surrounded by sycophants who distill your arrogance into theirs: as an adult, you proudly carry the book of my childhood. it makes you feel magnificent and learned, though I had poured through those mercurial and sulfurous pages one million times by the time I was twelve, burning them as heresy after my final study. I dreamt that your remaining minions would wail profusely upon the newsprint advertising the death of your most perfect robot and that this demise would further demonstrate your cursedness. When the cathode ray tube next to my bed announced this prophesy made manifest, I could only mutter and nod my head.

iii.

there are no last days! only the sun, the air and the horizon: horns blaring in the distance announce fate’s happy outcome. Somewhere else, my favorite aeroplane swoops and dives through clouds of my own creation.

a moonlight lodge which is named orion

the wheel of winter (the arrow of night) an utterance upon whose hoary and archaic staves is written the notation of empty fields, scattered promises, mornings carved from frosted and thereby inarticulate breaths, revolves ahead of the horizon, a small sphere drenched in endings and the light of a setting crescent moon. crawling and crawling toward the dawn, scrawling black words and scrolling through its penchant for decay as handily as any scribe of decompostion or crumbling summertime memories, the rhythm of its coming is not to be awaited and will not be announced, except by darkness and whispered proclamations.
here is an elegy, here is a song: there among the fleeing birds, the blowing leaves on the barren ground and the smoky sky, there is a lodge where we will all reside (guitar-like in its tremulous emanations and hollow vibratory response) temporarily burning lamps against obscurity.

the visible wavelengths

the silence and intimacy of the flames, of candlelight quivering in the visible wavelengths, does not illuminate (any longer) the languid fantasia of night brought forth, engendered and coaxed out of the muddy ground by wire, the book of poetic devices (which you brought to a mexican restaurant, hoping that i would comment on your literacy), dirty bedsheets and the fifth repetition of surfer rosa. flesh is occult, covered in starry coutenance and bats hover around the streetlight nearest my window while i look for a broom to chase them all away, dancing around your kneeling, sullen and shaking form, even as sleep overtakes you, grandly and promiscuously dragging you away from dust, from thought, from feeling. your dreams then, were like small fishes and you kissed them while pressing my thumbs into your busy hands.

bifurcation engine for covalent forms

hold on tight to the rain, do not let the water slip through your fingers. do not weep, either, unless, like the small, human-produced monetary devices caught in the other, symbolic hydraulics, the objects of your sympathy, empathy or guilt pull themselves toward oblivion while flattening and pinging with the resonance only metallic materials can make when being lured toward the maelstrom. in a similar fashion, observe the light splitting apart, revealing forked paths, diverging, yet contributing to the shadow of every individual. into the ground, into the sky, so infinite but now and how like a grey room dripping out the future from a soaked and bulbous ceiling! the sound of that touching, that dream made wetly manifold, will resound in your head as you count the flowers which have turned themselves to fruit, towards ripened victory.
walking about this unforseen universe, he trode on stars and moonlight and his feet made ripples which were like smiles and thereby drowned his tears in thunderous laughter.

the year earth was discovered

he spent several days, then months and finally years separated from his brother and sister and his mother and father had long ago been reduced to images. summers would rise up, become fecund and then lapse back into the earth, bringing wind and the long night into perception, even as the season became submerged again, binding itself to greeness and warmth and growth, all of this draining away as if called to the core of the planet itself, to reside silently and patiently, until erupting again, endlessly.
during the 42nd perceivable occurance of this cycle, just past its midpoint, when his world was florid with light and water and an overgrown back garden, he looked up into the rainy sky, and questioned the substance of his world, even as the animals he watched over circled happily about him and the woman with black hair stood by the back door smiling at him.
then, considering his continued consciousness a boon, a gift from forces that he could not really contemplate (except as unrecognizable objects that wavered or pulsated through the space he entered when the environment about was quiet and his eyes were closed) but which he felt around him, urgently and electrically, he walked through the doors of his place of physical shelter and said to no one in particular: " I am a skeleton covered in flesh and walking upon a vast, intricate and unknowable sphere, but I blooming outward also, from another place, and shall return there only after a long journey into this beauty and chaos".

notes on an interaction with Zenaida macroura

my legs hurt and a cat ran off and was agitated and frightened, hissing and looking back with an undulating tail, a glint of disturbance and distraction marking its flight into the tall grass. Forsaking its stealth for speed and escape as my automobile pulled into the driveway, it was gone before I turned the ignition key and stopped the pistons. I walked onto that same porch, formerly occupied by feline frenzy, and found a bird. Nearby, scattered about the concrete, were blood and feathers and the bird lay on its side, empty eyes staring up into the empty sky. I touched the bird and it did not move.
Gritting my teeth and decrying all natural processes and moving slowly through the pain of my own fragile form, I limped into the kitchen, feeling the sharp bones of my hips through the skin. I retrieved a paper bag. My intention was to remove the bird from the front of the house, to give it a simple burial under an apple tree where I used to sit.
Returning, I touched the bird again: this time, it moved and for a moment I was sad for its ruined and predated life. I scooped it into my left palm and stroked the bird's back with the other hand and it sat as if nesting there, a small gash near its beak where the blood had come from and was now stopping the fleshy hole through the work of coagulation.
The young mourning dove (and there are thousands living in my part of the human settlement on the mesa) looked around but did not otherwise move or seem disturbed. A few minutes passed as I walked around the house seeking some sort of solution whereby the bird would either not die (through my intervention) or go quietly. Concentrating on these events and employing Bayesian analysis to contemplate potential outcomes, I did not initially notice the subtle change in the bird's shape and when I looked down again it flew off and went very high into the air towards a group of cottonwood trees that danced when the summer wind blew.

definitions of referential integrity

my dynaset: standing by the entrance to the school in the early evening, a hummingbird zips by. its flight is erratic. the small bird seems momentarily distracted by the colour of my shirt, the red signage on the wall behind me and perhaps, the heat of sun. across town, on the other side of the river (the direction of the hummingbird's flight) the house i live in sits among trees and gathering clouds. there is a yellow bug light on the porch. surrounded by a lamp fixture with vaguely nautical design intentions, its light is invisible to anything with an exoskeleton. in the future, I hope this effect will mitigate the development, growth and settlement of dangerous spiders which may be lurking in area. inside that house two dogs wait quietly. the female dog can hear all of the sounds in the immediate vicinity: the drilling of woodpeckers, the falling of soggy branches, the fecundity of tomato plants and songs being played on the stereos of the cars that occasionally drive by. the male dog likes to keep his eyes closed in what may be interpreted by humans as a mystical bent. it is believed that this action increases his ability to discern the various and infinitesimally small molecular structures which float through the air or are carried by the wind into his nostrils. both associate the recurring darkness, the half-light of the moon, with my return. in my absence, i have left unplugged every terminal in this house, dreaming earlier in the day that the heat generated by images of Beirut and Haifa and Gaza burning might somehow come to reside in the wires of the machinery, igniting my heart and the fragile world where it is embedded.

metafictive devices of the late twentieth century

The one hundred and fifty third epistle of saint jethro the hipster fell towards earth as if engaged in a short, elliptic and magnetically driven dance. Mostly fictive and strangely luminescent, it contained a short presentation (interpretable as a series of projectable diagrams) on the potential for the achievement of world peace, as well as the recipe for a stiff martini, to be manifested prior to the slide show, in preparation. It was better to remain as clothed animals, better to seek hegemony through aggression, began the technically rendered missive, nakedly enforcing its point, nakedly, in red forty-eight point chiller set against a stark, fleshy background. The remainder consisted of some sort of similar nonsense, protesting the harmony of celestial movement, the instantaneous quantum transfer of information between infinitely separated particles and the unity of all living things. As this object proceeded through the atmosphere and landed on a sidewalk in Nob Hill near the former offices of Savvy Magazine, it took on the shape of a pebble speaking in a low voice, encouraging meaninglessness and a veritable sort of vampirism whereby blood had a new, contrary definition and usage. The ones who found and then touched the stone, who heard its pronouncements and then brought in the slide projectors as a means of confirmation, began to refer to the event of the appearance of the letter as the beginning of the age of acquisition.

Pleiades (M45)

year twenty six was comin' round like the de-formed chicken she had read about on wikipedia while clicking on the random article link. after that episode she decided to wear a feathered mask, the feathers made into the shape of gorgeous cat eyes, but colored fushia or another tone that was spectrally analogous to the colors that she had painted her finger nails. from that point forward she could not be seen when looked directly upon: rather, I had to tilt my head sideways, in the fashion of amateur astronomers trying to gain a clear glimpse of the seven sisters, faint when stared at. This manifestation was particulary noticable when we drove around in old cars, the kinds made of metal. cars made of plastic, because it perhaps was in general a less reflective material, lessened this ghost-like effect. in those rare occassions i could see her face, reddened lips and the glittery and profoudly festive mask. but, sitting in the back of the 1955 chevy bel-air, (the primer colored version) one summer night with all of the windows rolled down into their frames, the place where she sat in the back seat formed a long grey shadow and her corner of this space seemed like the black sheet brought forth when an object of high density blocks the emission of light from a bright and steady source. my end of the conversaton entailed the importance of hormonal balance (if you want to stay healthy that is). looking askance i saw her nod in assent and the curtain of night and fuzzy starlight trembled around her.

the heroic exploits of their fiery savior

an image of that place has been replicated, here. thin verdant towers aimed towards the sky, and mint plants, too. no tools, only hands to spread the powdery eggs of crustaceans though the small garden, into the soil, under a kitchen window. across an intervening space which can no longer be imagined, surrounded by a wall, there was a small dirt path where marbles were sometimes buried. during this time, but before the awareness of aeroplanes, their eyes were often focused upon the ground, seeking the verdure of the warm season, of growth and movement and small animals which became spheres when touched with a stick. the roaring from inside the house could be extinguished with fire, they imagined, pushing the heads of matches and broken pieces of pine needles into the cracks of that windowsill, believing that heat might erupt from their thoughts, in a fashion similar to the heroic exploits of their fiery savior, innocently waiting for chaos to come down, all shiny and burning, as if from heaven, covering their world with silence, ashes and waxy leaves.

detecting the prevalence of freedom in nature

this year, he decided to catch the mice that lived in his house. he caught them in small and clear plastic boxes. the boxes were oblong and they tapered slightly, so that one end had a larger width and height than its opposite. there was a door on the large side of each of these contraptions and it swung in only one directon, preventing escape. the first night he put the traps out, he captured two mice. that night he dreamt that several had come to reside in one of these rodent repositories. in the dream, those animals were small and grey, like little cats, all smiling, slightly. the next day, though, there were more mice. So, he made it a habit to rise very early in the morning, while it was still dark outside, but when some of the birds were already singing. very nearly naked, he would walk a dozen or twenty yards down or up the street, and let them go free.
There were many types of mice. One was large and dirty, with a mix of grey and brown and white hair. when it ran away, it sort of waddled. Another was young and aggressive, pushing futily against the immovable door until he found himself beneath the sun and sky, apart from familiar walls and smells. There were some that were very young and some of the insects in the house were bigger, he noted.
there was one hot day, near the beginning of summer, when he decided to release one of the captives at the park, which was some way from his house. he made this decision because he did not want to be seen leaving free mice on the sidewalks and streets of his neighborhood, while it was light and bright outside and neighbors lingered over their lawns and boats and dirt-bikes. at the park, the mouse ran quickly up a tree, then seemed to bounce off, racing down a nearby culvert. without warning, a cooper's hawk glided down from that tree, and hovered for a brutal and delicate moment before carrying the mouse away, holding it carefully, with both claws clenched, as it lifted itself into the air.

the night of promises and admissions

a lunar eclipse. they are sitting in the back of the dark auditorium, near the door i walk through to find them. one of them is a girl with eyes that seem painted upon her face: outside, a black plastic measuring device is busily sinking itself into the earth, singing miraculously, through vibration and wavering frequency, as its edge encounters cool bedrock and bones. the sounds it makes are short and truncated but have some of the same qualities as a human voice, sibilance and laughter being among them. after some nervous glances, everyone retreats silently back into the diminishing moonlight where the spectacle continues and is watched closely. inches and millimeters, like the days themselves, sink into the muddy ground until only a stub remains, too dark to form a shadow against the soil where it has come to reside. so, we walk further into the night and the clouds race around circling and cajoling the bright lights of heaven and the sliver of reflected rock which is floating millions of miles away, beyond my reach. suddenly, everybody stops and sits down near a discarded gift box filled with books and circular plastic discs. there are also some hair rollers and a pirate shirt inside the box, but it is too dark, even as the eclipse is passing, to clearly discern all of its contents. the girl with thick black paint around her eyes looks up at me. when she finally speaks, it is with the authority of a wizard and the experience of a bird. the wind and the vibrations from the buried plastic occlude her utterance, contributing to profoundity of the moment.