Noteworthy (not noteworthy – “omniscient observing” – worthy!!)

I continually conclude that these two are up to something unique and astounding in American letters:

BEN MARCUS

and….

JESSE BALL

i advise you fervently…be aware

New Arrivals…New Invaluables

“meant to detect just how slushed our insides were from too much speech, how blighted we’d become from the language toxin…

The know-it-alls are always the last to know. Β Everyone’s a diagnostician, and everyone’s wrong…”

-Ben Marcus-

“As is usual with me I would not go on with the rest of the story and come back to the difficult sentence later. Β With others it may be different – but when I am that far in a work the story must exist in each word or I cannot go on…”

-Louis Zukofsky-

-Lukas Felzmann-

I know….there’s a LOT of envy fuming out of you readers eyes!

(use your local library!)

The following stories…

Lifewordthread

β€œLife evolves in a thread of knots that get more and more tangled.

The narrative segments are intentionally dislocated and rearranged,

so the knots become the characters, as it were.”

-Viktor Shklovsky-

Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β  The impression like a manual typewriter’s arm – thunk! – left in either hemisphere… (they say)

begins knotting and tangling

as additional – thwap! – embossings are left.

β€œObsessed, bewildered

By the shipwreck

Of the singular

We have chosen the meaning

Of being numerous”

-George Oppen-

 

The following story.

 

Not that the answers were handled judiciously (judgmentally?) or even weighed or considered.

No answers given to evaluate or direct…

The question(s) already condemned.

Thwak!

β€œShouldn’t be β€“β€œΒ  β€œToo young – β€œ β€œCan’t handle – β€œ

β€œSTOP ASKING!!”

-(Pastor. Parent. Teacher. Friend.)-

But not books, not texts, not words…

…these welcomed them…

…welcomed me…

Words seem to love being dislocated and rearranged and then marked into question.

In fact, for the reader, each word of a sentence or phrase, exposed on a page, seems to wonder itself!

As if language were a query.Β  Inquiry.

Something to begin with.

 

The following story.

Aged 12.

β€œYour reasoning’s wrong” (some voice, any voice, whap!, it stuck)

Awry.Β  Twisted.Β  Disfigured.Β  Maimed.

β€œThat’s not the right question…ought not be questioned at all…!”

β€œThus saith the Lord (a.k.a. the β€œWord”)

(to which I added my mark – β€œ?” :

– is it the Word?Β  What Word? and Whose? let alone How?

and ever the too many β€œWhys?”

(those have quieted now)

But I devoted myself to fashioning questions,

so that even descriptions or

statements of fact…question themselves

as if essential, inherent to this medium,

of its nature

Smack! –

?

Ekphrastic Poem: Apparition: the Artist

new ekphrastic attempt with Holly Suzanne at Combinatory Art in Motion:

http://ekphrastixarts.com/2012/05/15/ekphrastic-poem/

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Another opportunity – for collaborative creativity

my spouse/partner etc. posted this this morning and I find it instigative – love to see/hear what comes of it for the rest of you!

http://ekphrastixarts.com/2012/05/10/ekphrastic-opportunities/

(more pix to work from at post!)

“Some Blind Alleys: A Letter”

Should you have the time…and it requires a bit…I would love to hear responses to the following essay by E.M. Cioran from all you interesting minds I observe! Β Thanks –

“Some Blind Alleys: A Letter”

-E.M. Cioran-

New Ekphrastic Works from myself and Holly Suzanne!

New verbal/visual work from our studio at home!

http://ekphrastixarts.com/2012/05/08/a-portait-of-an-us/

Unknown and Unnamed Undoing: the swoon and the swarm (a kind of mathematics to be continued in rain)

Unknown and Unnamed experiences: the swoon and the swarm

Β 

I hadn’t remembered it like this (trying not to remember).Β  That all of it got into you.Β  That all of it came out!

Immersion.Β  Enthrallment.Β  Ecstasy – words that come, to mind.

That if en-joined, then out-sourced.Β  Becoming indecipherable – like epistemology.

A moment’s rush, for example.Β  I encounter – which encountering looks like insertion and abstraction on me.Β  I move toward, feel it out, then back off and observe.Β  Active, passive; a swing, a rocking boat.

This is different.Β  Inundation, a flood.Β  Unable to say what’s mine, what’s not; who’s me, who’s you.Β  Unable, frankly, to say, at all.Β  Only be.

Motion, reception; injunction and release.

Think sky-diving: that decision to jump, trusting something, someone will hold together as form in all that air.Β  Like diving the deep blue sea, compression surround, that some element will remain intact without ground or solidity.

It works that way.Β  Give and take, see and saw, this uncanny to and fro of body, perceptions, breath.Β  Eyes contact then fog to some self between.Β  Fleshes – distinct and specific – now con-fused.Β  Who’s sweat?Β  Who’s secretions?Β  It’s sticky, yes, like that – a gluey bond.

Then the wave, the distended moment – incalculable clockwork – where all borders and boundaries seem lost, some extended and mutual sigh or moan within which the voice is other and the same without identity.

The swoon of it.Β  The swarm.

Dizzying rush of blood as warmth or wind; eyes roll back, also in, but not to my darkness.Β  As if limbless or prosthetically invented, my body grows – grows yours or ours or contracts to another covering, but inside-out.

As if leap or let go were no longer options, but instinct.

As if hot and cold – undifferentiated – some something that must define pleasure –

as in emptiness, fullness

the yin, the yang

a cellular entanglement

The swoon, the swarm

emerge

But what?Β  Or whom?

And what occurs in the median?

Who were that?Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β  What was those?

The swoon, the swirl, the swarm.

Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β Β  No one effecting.Β  Effected.Β  What does that indicate?

Nothing, essential to event – if nothing, than an absence utterly imbued.

A radiance, evocation,

like a sleeping brain on dreams…

with-you, the unknown gets no/w/here.

Whatever the constants, coefficients and variables, given the operator as convergence, the equation = whole,

where the w stands for we,

without which none – (β€œhole”).

Affecting substance…no one gains currency…necessity (no 1, but at least 2)… and then – ?

No one, unknown, unnamed, no/w/here as 0+O

where O stands for other

in this case, you

O requiring as much as I

inferring – ?

you can’t have 1 without anOther

but where anOther occurs must be at least 1 (other)

even if unknown, unnamed

in order to be lost and found in the joining

the immersion and enthrallment

the ecstasy

For example…marks the world has left

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The Unknown and Unnamed: Sees and Seems

Unfinished Encaustic by
Holly Suzanne


 

Welcome!

I venture to say this piece is unnamed and unfinished, but I tell you it’s alive and it dances!

I can touch it with my hands.Β  The wax is smooth like flesh, the collage like scars or scabs – where the texture lies.

Up close – I am underwater on sand, watching the fluxing of weeds.Β  Looking for retinal patterns.

At a distance it traces a woman, her dress kicking out, a-twirl and limning the lithe.

I’m entranced!

It’s Chinese scriptwork of wisdom and way, a beautiful nude languidly branding the air with her limbs – fertile signs and images prodding me – β€œmove!”

Move myself.

Activate.

Address.

What looks like dark ink stands out, but in reality swims under the surface – blotting, inscribing and guiding the paths.

Emotion and gesture alike: drawn swiftly and sourced far beneath, or pressed on and affixed from outside.Β  Each leave their marks – stark and prominent, – resonant emblems of what lies beneath, what responds.

I pretend I am calm, blank canvas to world – but when it brushes or cuts, smothers or slaps, what is bold in me reveals.Β  The fears, the wounds, the anger and dream.

My vision scatters in rage.Β  Vehement dashing and strike.Β  I can promise you this: the world will reveal me.

I have told you: you are with the unknown of the unnamed – a nothing answering to nothing – a cooperative become.

At the end I will be named, will have accumulated and inscribed them.Β  Surface, object, ground: our object.

Enaction.