Out lazy indolent peasantry must awake by the lash!
A visit to the empty panopticon as devised by Jeremy Bentham will convince the guest of his method’s wisdom, the skylights in the domed roof blinding the guard box and stairwell with several shafts of sunlight, at nightfall the harvest moon descended. A flock of crows visit the powerlines. Irradiated melons growing as large as unlanced boils. So the poete maudit in his night-robes sung to the broken Doric columns and to the trees. When you grow up son, what would you like to be? How’s your report card? Which bacteria can consume both banana peels and coffee-grounds? In the dormitory courtyard he practiced the high-pitched peals meant to shatter glass as in those old Memorex commercials. And glasses of daguerreotypes and plate glass windows. But instead he sounded like a banshee and they wanted to lock him up. The very cover of the book announces an important cultural moment, an arrival. Significance before meaning. I am writing as if English were my second language—this was intended. In the cafeteria the jocks are still drinking two chocolate milks and double scoops of mashed potatoes. Another fight breaks out at Chuck E. Cheese. With the rain the summer vacation at the camp is ruined. A bundle of clothes in the dryer awaits my hand. She wrote entirely about the displaced people she had settled, mixing their dialog with bits from their own language. The skin of smoked trout as if flayed and peeled away.
Let’s face it. When you’re not opening old wounds, you’re opening a new can of worms. You’ll eat some worms since nobody likes you enough to visit you. Worms in compost work. They work through the various foods buried there. I lick the wounds I open clean.
Yesterday I ran part of Lake Morey. Summer camp was in session, and there were two camps. The tents were set up like barracks, their flaps open. One camp was for girls. Many bicyclists appeared, making me wish I’d brought my bike, although the sky had been overcast when I’d departed my house. At the end of my run, I picked a few ripe wild strawberries growing at the edge of the road, then walked upon a footpath that coiled into the woods, scattered with needles. A brook pooled before me. The fallen logs by the brook were matted with moss. The shade was thick, cooling the footpath. At some point, you could barely see the summer houses through the firs.
But before my run ended, a succession of exploding thuds sounded above me from a modernized log cabin on the hill, agitating the beagle led along by a short elfin woman whose face was strained as she upheld her arms almost as if in supplication, the leash in one hand, the tail of the beagle with its white tip waving wildly as the dog turned whichaway seeking the noise’s source—the explosions (M-80s) drowned the music in my ears, played to establish rhythm, boost the runner’s adrenaline level. The old woman’s eyes were turning wildly in her head as the beagle thrashed its tail as she wished aloud for an end to the noise, to the thudding explosions, the percussion shaking the air. When the V-2 dropped, the children died from the evacuation of air from their lungs: the blast was noiseless. The beagle, a pointer, moved in circles, searching for the source of noise, the tips of its white tail swinging. In thunder dogs do not know where to turn. The old woman shook her arms in the air.
The tiny succulents on the rock have bright yellow flowers. Beneath them stands a dwarf arbor vitae purchased on sale at Shaw’s. I filled the bird feeder to the top—that’s why I’m hearing so much bird song—or was there just a squabble? I’m waiting for the time when I can pluck the fruit from the vine without worrying where the rest comes from.
The worm in the compost forms a thread of air behind him. Thus all signs of his work collapse and leave no trace.
Moving in circles, the beagle’s tail wildly flailed as it searched for the source of those booms from the M-80s launched by the household up hill, a modern log cabin atop a lawn made by driving trees and boulders back, made from what must be a thousand trips to Home Depot. A faint memory of the sacrifices of pagan antiquity in the barbeque, lighter fluid and charred meat, fat off the bone sizzling among the embers. The smoke from the barbeques rises to the gods, Mars savoring the smell the most, appreciates the offerings. Would not the crash of a passenger jet smell like that, the fuel tanks torched, the victims twisted and fallen? His nostrils flared wide, Mars appreciates the comparison, not thinking it hyperbolic in the slightest. Offerings of modern life far exceed in number and scale those paltry offerings of the bronze age. Hats off to Vulcan the ironsmith, deft facilitator! Metallurgical advances intensify the event.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
March 26 2011
An elegant algorithm should unfold like an origami plant in the halls of the crisis, a delicate web membrane whose veins you can see. A delicate artifact whose purpose no longer appears above the earth in the enlightened present. Pack in those vowels, those gluten-rich modifiers.
At the camp, I changed my regimen instantly. You could be fast, but that wouldn’t pay. Mammals are not sui generis communal when in families. Had the reptiles advanced instead, imagine the coldness of their reflections, upon their sons and daughters, upon their siblings. Imagine the beetling of their brow in the deep thought required to ice their competitors, the mammals. No Harvard behaviorist highbrow could compare to them in the purely cold courage of their arguments and calculations—sink or swim.
Calculi were small stones, also beads of the abacus. How could they calculate without Arabic numerals? I was driving over the bridge to White River as I thought of this. The sign said SPEED LIMIT 55. We drivers ignored the sign.
In the cleanest most immaculate houses, worthy of the photographic features in Home and Gardens, there is an unlit corner relegated to chaos and abandonment—loose brick, empty paint cans viscera of water-hose and wire. It’s a room full of matter out of place, unlocked only when the residents know that guests would never venture near it, never cross it. But when the house expands, a neighbor’s land bought, the room’s cleaned up, remodeled, and another corner takes its place, but already a dumpster is moored nearby to accept its junk, its records, and its embarrassments. What local weekly, what student newspaper doesn’t print a verse or two about the reliquaries of attics, about faded photograph albums, grandmother’s old photographs, about the continuity of the past from which we were unduly severed? There’s some sincerity to these expressions. But that is not the true subject here, those albums are a digression. Does the visible neglect of these corners come from negligence and exhaustion or from willful forgetfulness? Or is the photogenic order of the household grounded in this disorder? Without it, a quiet and staid inertia, the household a mausoleum, indifferent to fashion.
Surely the last episode of the series must be about aquatic mammals, about the adaptation of mammals to water, whether porpoise, whale or manatee. Meerkats who mount the shoulder of a host, as if a tree from which to peer. Hit the supplicant with that birch switch, while the steam expands in the cabin. In Arkansas, truckers sleep inside their rigs, and the rugs in apartments double as prayer-mats. A fjord holds more than fish roe. Salmon-enriched rivers, the spawn of fingerlings, bifurcates the valleys.
Her mother suffers from allergies, as she does every Christmas. She has a mildly disapproving demeanor. Her taste in art is more advanced than that of her daughter. Her daughter takes no interest, for example, in David Hockney, whom her mother just loves. She loves the pastels, the pinks and aqua-blues, their serene and depopulated blankness. But that’s OK, because the daughter inherited the business, and works long hours managing it. They evaluate distressed property, which means when property goes down, they really make out like bandits, but when it goes up, they make out like bandits too. So they do well. I’m there for the ride. But there’s a daughter out in Los Angeles, and her eyes go strange. I’m no one for scenes.
The oldest daughter takes my mother aside in the kitchen one day, asking her whether she’d ever noticed my pupils dilating or contracting from the influence of drugs. She suspects her sister’s habit, but she doesn’t want to divulge as much.
And another thing: the mother drives her older daughter’s husband to drink or to illness every year.
“Should’ve salted over some money before you were out of work” said Pilgrim when driving Manuel home.
The phrase “to salt over” connotes little interest is earned in the savings, as if the money were being put in a change jar instead of a bank.
Of those untidy corners one always persists.
As if neglect were purposeful, to remind us of the huts in which we lived, or the river side settlements, the houses on stilts falling into floodwaters. Bring your incisors, the means by which to part the meat from the bone. Bring those fabulous triangular back teeth to excavate the marrow. It’s the dentist who excavates the tooth to fill, but where’s the plunger cusp? Loser, you ground the amalgam off. It’s you, said the dentist, who ruined my plunger cusp, the flying buttress I deployed in your mouth. You ground the amalgam into saliva, and I must slave again to put it back.
Thank God there are no spell checks on paper, no red and wavy lines beneath the malapropism or misspelling, no green wavy lines beneath the grammatical error, beneath the lack of agreement especially when the agreement has not been decided upon, the new sentence frankly unfinished. And to be frank is to be free to be incomplete. The condition of writing in the journal is a kind of freedom that is finally unsatisfactory when the faculties are not required to commit themselves to a final work. But laziness is a healthy suspension of the faculties, a necessary indirection. The sun falls outside, but how chilly it will be when I go into the work shed, try to unlock the bikes, untangle the water hoses. The shed needs new florescent lights.
The floor bows when I walk upon it. Nocturnal mice eat the bags of birdfeed or the grass seedling. The floor-boards of plywood are oily. In the recycling center free sand can be had for anyone who wants it to shovel onto their icy driveways. But spring is winning, the winter embodied in snow banks is retreating, but persists in the fields—its officers encourage fortitude against the enemy, saying “if we can only last through the summer our forces can prevail. October is a safe zone. With December’s reinforcements, we can accomplish the mission, return the world to ice. We’ve failed before, but we’ve only learned lessons that make us stronger. Don’t fail us now. Stifle the growth of the grass; Resist the blandishments of the sun to join the plants, the succulents that imprison you. No more water-fairy stories.
Stroke the back of the couch for the dust that entraps you. I’ll tackle and maybe unpack Marvell’s Horatian Ode on Cromwell.
At the camp, I changed my regimen instantly. You could be fast, but that wouldn’t pay. Mammals are not sui generis communal when in families. Had the reptiles advanced instead, imagine the coldness of their reflections, upon their sons and daughters, upon their siblings. Imagine the beetling of their brow in the deep thought required to ice their competitors, the mammals. No Harvard behaviorist highbrow could compare to them in the purely cold courage of their arguments and calculations—sink or swim.
Calculi were small stones, also beads of the abacus. How could they calculate without Arabic numerals? I was driving over the bridge to White River as I thought of this. The sign said SPEED LIMIT 55. We drivers ignored the sign.
In the cleanest most immaculate houses, worthy of the photographic features in Home and Gardens, there is an unlit corner relegated to chaos and abandonment—loose brick, empty paint cans viscera of water-hose and wire. It’s a room full of matter out of place, unlocked only when the residents know that guests would never venture near it, never cross it. But when the house expands, a neighbor’s land bought, the room’s cleaned up, remodeled, and another corner takes its place, but already a dumpster is moored nearby to accept its junk, its records, and its embarrassments. What local weekly, what student newspaper doesn’t print a verse or two about the reliquaries of attics, about faded photograph albums, grandmother’s old photographs, about the continuity of the past from which we were unduly severed? There’s some sincerity to these expressions. But that is not the true subject here, those albums are a digression. Does the visible neglect of these corners come from negligence and exhaustion or from willful forgetfulness? Or is the photogenic order of the household grounded in this disorder? Without it, a quiet and staid inertia, the household a mausoleum, indifferent to fashion.
Surely the last episode of the series must be about aquatic mammals, about the adaptation of mammals to water, whether porpoise, whale or manatee. Meerkats who mount the shoulder of a host, as if a tree from which to peer. Hit the supplicant with that birch switch, while the steam expands in the cabin. In Arkansas, truckers sleep inside their rigs, and the rugs in apartments double as prayer-mats. A fjord holds more than fish roe. Salmon-enriched rivers, the spawn of fingerlings, bifurcates the valleys.
Her mother suffers from allergies, as she does every Christmas. She has a mildly disapproving demeanor. Her taste in art is more advanced than that of her daughter. Her daughter takes no interest, for example, in David Hockney, whom her mother just loves. She loves the pastels, the pinks and aqua-blues, their serene and depopulated blankness. But that’s OK, because the daughter inherited the business, and works long hours managing it. They evaluate distressed property, which means when property goes down, they really make out like bandits, but when it goes up, they make out like bandits too. So they do well. I’m there for the ride. But there’s a daughter out in Los Angeles, and her eyes go strange. I’m no one for scenes.
The oldest daughter takes my mother aside in the kitchen one day, asking her whether she’d ever noticed my pupils dilating or contracting from the influence of drugs. She suspects her sister’s habit, but she doesn’t want to divulge as much.
And another thing: the mother drives her older daughter’s husband to drink or to illness every year.
“Should’ve salted over some money before you were out of work” said Pilgrim when driving Manuel home.
The phrase “to salt over” connotes little interest is earned in the savings, as if the money were being put in a change jar instead of a bank.
Of those untidy corners one always persists.
As if neglect were purposeful, to remind us of the huts in which we lived, or the river side settlements, the houses on stilts falling into floodwaters. Bring your incisors, the means by which to part the meat from the bone. Bring those fabulous triangular back teeth to excavate the marrow. It’s the dentist who excavates the tooth to fill, but where’s the plunger cusp? Loser, you ground the amalgam off. It’s you, said the dentist, who ruined my plunger cusp, the flying buttress I deployed in your mouth. You ground the amalgam into saliva, and I must slave again to put it back.
Thank God there are no spell checks on paper, no red and wavy lines beneath the malapropism or misspelling, no green wavy lines beneath the grammatical error, beneath the lack of agreement especially when the agreement has not been decided upon, the new sentence frankly unfinished. And to be frank is to be free to be incomplete. The condition of writing in the journal is a kind of freedom that is finally unsatisfactory when the faculties are not required to commit themselves to a final work. But laziness is a healthy suspension of the faculties, a necessary indirection. The sun falls outside, but how chilly it will be when I go into the work shed, try to unlock the bikes, untangle the water hoses. The shed needs new florescent lights.
The floor bows when I walk upon it. Nocturnal mice eat the bags of birdfeed or the grass seedling. The floor-boards of plywood are oily. In the recycling center free sand can be had for anyone who wants it to shovel onto their icy driveways. But spring is winning, the winter embodied in snow banks is retreating, but persists in the fields—its officers encourage fortitude against the enemy, saying “if we can only last through the summer our forces can prevail. October is a safe zone. With December’s reinforcements, we can accomplish the mission, return the world to ice. We’ve failed before, but we’ve only learned lessons that make us stronger. Don’t fail us now. Stifle the growth of the grass; Resist the blandishments of the sun to join the plants, the succulents that imprison you. No more water-fairy stories.
Stroke the back of the couch for the dust that entraps you. I’ll tackle and maybe unpack Marvell’s Horatian Ode on Cromwell.
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