Tag: creative writing
Breaking down breaking it down
He is breaking it down, they say, breaking both the mind and the meaning (was that ‘minding?’, ‘minding matter(s)?’).
– But is it undoing? someone asks, breaking down towards what’s beneath (or behind or before)? One might ask.
In other words, do we detect a purpose, an intention to his breaking? Is he listening? Does one see him look?
And what is his name? That is, what does it ‘stand for’? He once said “for the entirety.” At which point (as in moment, context, hic et nunc) it was assumed or inferred (interpreted, understood?) he meant. Meant, with those particular terms, within that saying (that action, movement, that changing of things), meant: every form and scale, layer and convergence of space and time, world and universe ever nexused, woven, tangled with this organism labeled thus. What was his name?
A beginning, like reality, reduced. Already begun when started, thereby limited by selection and activity. The sentence finds its way via the words and marks that follow, and while variation is potentially endless, it is not infinite. As this genetic package and all its cellular, processual interactions are inexhaustible and basely finite. And so on.
The breaking down reaches far and travels everywhere but won’t arrive, that is arrest, accomplish fullness. Breaking or building is ever partial. The sum never equaling parts.
Like his name (what was it?) – the one so applied (and distinctively so) – i.e. different from you and you and you – that name though is shared. He is not the only one, even if we cannot recall what it is.
– The only one of those variations though? you pipe in. Perhaps. He did not know. But not only the one so called.
His name, his form and structure, and many patterns of perception are quite common, however he goes about them. His going-about is even similar, when you think of it, as well he would, and we might, yet also not. Not precisely so, more variantly the same, as it were. Normality with particulars then, or occasional surprises.
Something unexpected then, about this one and his efforts of breaking it down while breaking down? Not exactly surprising, from a general fund, the process has its predecessors and is likely to go on in many person at many times, perhaps even widespread and concurrently – other places at the same time with slight anomalies, or other times in the same place with concordant alterations.
– Not uncommon then? Not uncertain?
Uncertain, sure. No more or less than anything. Uncommon perhaps in extent or intensity. Perhaps not as well, given principles of relativity.
– Relative to the subject/objects situation then? she says in a questioning manner, or in her questioning manner, or a manner of hers I take to be questioning (and so on).
Uncertainty, sure; relative, yes; unique, undoubtedly; repetitive – of course…
…he is breaking it down, breaking mind and meaning, breaking down…
– What is the matter? another inquires.
The matter of his senses, yes, that sounds right, for now, at this moment, where we are. What is the matter of his senses, or his sense of the matter that eventuates as breaking down, breaking it down, getting to the bottom of getting to the bottom?
– I doubt he’ll reach the bottom.
– The bottom quite unreachable then? someone adds.
The bottom has never been found or reached or approached for all we know we don’t know, they say. In fact, many question the use of ‘down’ for a practice of dissection – what is excavated in undoing, piecing apart, isolating aspects or fragments? Where does one get by reducing?
– Or what?
A lot of objects without sense? Locations with no map?
– Or less, meaning-less, she says with intonation generally accepted as interrogative.
Perhaps meaning less than when together as occurring – fitted, reciprocal, converging and emerging, like cells in Petrie dishes versus cells moving in the bloodstream, performing functions – but perhaps wildly possible and free, ready-to-use, available some other way, he doesn’t know, nor do I, nor do we.
Facets, elements, aspects that he cannot quite assemble and yet they already are by virtue of being broken yet held together in his failing efforts at assemblage. Welded in the effort – imagined apart in a situation of thought – thereby joined.
– It’s enchanting, someone speaks.
– And depressing, reports another.
But is it useful?
I find it of interest.
A Provisional Writing
He, frightened, uncertain, inexhaustible and weak, somehow mustered the strength to ask or act for what he wanted.
Perhaps she would not comply.
Or could not, and remain who she needed to be.
Yet there would always be response –
– even ignoring, diverting, pretending to sleep.
It hurt to ask. To attempt – its exposure – admission of lack and need – the venture, to try. The fear of undoing, of incompleteness, of rejection, impossibility.
Still he acted and asked.
The alternative grown unbearable over time – constructions and deconstructions, composition and erosion, the living through time and space.
Time approaches in which time isn’t worth it – without.
Without knowing and acknowledgment, honesty and rejection, awareness…
…until the response is given…isn’t there still chance?
Untoward, illusory, unlikely and so slim…and yet?
As if…
*******************************************************
Varieties of presence.
Certain opportunities of world.
Of doing. Being. Making.
As life runs out, so too the prospects of meaning, of experience.
Had begun to feel he must,
or never.
Discover, find out, uncover, unearth, reveal
at least for a moment.
This moment. The moment.
Nearing NOW.
But how? Who? And what sorts of whys were required?
What lent him the right and wherewithal, the luck, the chance, or desperation?
And why now? What for? How her?
Hesitates.
After all, perhaps?
Perhaps its merely panic, neuroses, a fracturing diminishing end?
What motivates? And why? And why this one? And this now? And here…in the midst of.
Always already in the midst of…and always already not-yet.
Between. Desiring a line to be drawn. As if the world depended on it. His world (perhaps theirs?). His life, his living, his NOW.
It remains to be seen.
Ever remains to be seen, evidenced, emergent,
Proven.
Can there be any proving? If things had been different, some slight change in the initial conditions, conditions so complex?
Could it be different?
He must, he has to, he is compelled to act / to ask.
What will she reply?
***********************************************************
The always begin. Begin, begun, always. Climbing the steps of his lack…behaving…becoming. Ever some begin – some something, something shifting, changing, altering, becoming something else, something altered and novel, new, not combined in quite this way before – submerged, emerged, converged…yet differently.
No?
Next?
With N (next) = Begin? +1, +1, +many + again, else, other…Equaling not before, prior, exact…NOT repetition but difference, remainder, chaos, complexity
Impossible,
seemed inexhaustible,
almost infinite,
not quite. Not remotely.
“He,” “She” will surely end (in a way)
as a form of beginning
As a form of
a form of
motion, movement, becoming.
Things happen, or happening produces things (at some scale, interaction, percept)
What becomes undoes becoming undoing
(and so on).
Uncertainty.
Mobility.
Activity.
Becoming.
Undoing.
Undone.
He becomes.
Unraveled enough, to a point (a seemingly certain threshold) he will risk,
wants risk,
feels compelled,
concerned,
for survival, needs, depends,
decides to act or ask for what he’s wanting (needing? lacking? desiring? believing?)
And where / who / what / why / is she?
And there and which and whom and when?
He will act, ask,
she will needs-be
in response to the violence of movement, address,
intruded perception, sensation,
respond.
In what way?
BECOMING: A Something-Writing …Provisionally (cont’d)
Say it – “Mikhail!”, say it “Lover,” “son,” or “dad.”
Give me a robe, a title, anything,
let me to be,
yet call me “Person.”
(same as you).
Just like with all our difference.
Generic sets.
And without cease.
What’s inexhaustible
and finite.
Here We Be.
Call us “Person(s)”
In order to get by, to get along, to carry on, I invade your body as if planned. Swapping breath and sounds and fluids. Making more. A “he” a “she.” A “husband,” “wife.” A “muse” and “lover.” We pretend in our pretense and we become.
Call us Person(s).
We raise the dead and name it “memory,” name it “history,” name it “god.”
We start to drown, but we’ve become, and name it “family,” name it “nation,” name it “state” or “land” or “friendship.”
We disperse.
We send out tracts: “PLEASE CALL US PERSON(S)!”
No response.
And we become what we will be.
**************************************************
I scream your name for I am helpless, “I” am hopeless without you. And so I grasp and shape your body, your behavior, your aplomb. I demand answer for my question is the telling and I need to be an I: “Call me Person!”
It begins.
And it is reckless, it is violent and warm.
I am coddled, moisty, fragile. I need purchase(d). I need won.
You are one, and there are many.
We begin.
“Mother.” “Lover.” “Child.”
Call me Person.
Call me something.
We grow limbs and we grow hair. We swap shapes and alter presence. We emerge and we invade.
I am Ishmael, I am
Allah, I am Sam.
You are giant, you are troll, you are fairy.
I can’t tell but for the asking (as if same, as if identical) – simple call.
Call me Person.
We begin.
**********************************************************************
In some ways our job [for survival] is simply to affirm one another.
To provide response (which is a call) to a call (a form of response).
I affirm you (which affirms I) by telling you (asking back) when you ask (telling me you are – where?).
Co-respondence is affirmation – positive or negative (each a both/and) [as with most things living].
You there –where?—ask me, I will acknowledge – thereby telling “you” –
both of us thereby affirmed, established…
…Being…
Thusly, there are Varieties of Presence.
I am Stephen K. Plato, Laurell H. Hardy, John
Quincy Locke,
call me “Person.”
“We” will therefore become via our calling, our response,
-mutually constituted identities
-for the moment.
Johann Sebastian Souza strikes a note
Federico Garcia Chopin hears that tone,
thereby constituting,
no, co-constituting…
…sound.
Sound, press of fingerpads on forearm, shoulder, buttocks, calf,
breast, or clay,
each,
each each,
resonance, difference, identification,
-a becoming, become-
Affirmation.
Compliance.
What might seem
passive, active, passing to-and-fro, creating “We,” “Us,” “People,” “Person(s)”
Trolls beneath the bridge.
Knocking, knocking.
We. Are. There.
(Which is “Here” for NOW).
*******************************************************************
Being. and Time.
(one might say)
Call me Friedrich, Ortega, Alfred.
or: Being + Event.
Address me Giorgio, Alain, Ricky G.
Actor, actant, the motion of bodies.
Ludwig Joycenstein;
rejoice in time;
Osip, Anna, the noise of time.
Being. Event.
kairos
“it is Time”
fullness.
redolent.
predilective. propicient. promising. proclamative.
NOW.
In the Beginning, the wormy End.
Every Ending a Begin.
Transference. Transmission. Translation.
It is love.
Call. Response.
Affirm
Telling Asking
Achieve.
Archive.
WE ARE
You/I a He/She
(not long before combine, breed, be/have)
–BE-COME–
WE.
“I” was lost, until you found me…
…in other words…
…varieties of presence.
bumping into brambles,
slipping into sea,
hearkening to shriek,
Ask Tell
yay/nay,
no matter,
what matters?
too much, too little?
near enough
Begin.
Become.
just BE.
Be. Be. Bee.
1. B. 2. C. D.
Dee Harvey Osmont.
Olivia Newton jaunt.
Wolfgang Adolf Heisman.
Prince Albert Nobel.
Call “me” “Person.”
Julio W. G. Sebold.
Sign on page,
raised to the eye,
digited “touch,”
BECOME.
Vocable. Insignia. Etching. Stroke. Motion.
WE.
Call us Person(s).
*********************************************
“The pen asks / much more than it can answer /
one word at a time”
-Philip Levine-
BECOMING: A Something-Writing …Provisionally
Provisionally: A Something-Writing
-What I Have in Me to Write Now-
I am Melville, I am Aristotle Dostoevsky. Address me as Plato, Poinsot, Peirce. Franz Ferdinand Pessoa. I don’t care.
Call me Person. Anyone madly bearded and wielding a pen.
The one writing, saying, speaking. The gesturer. Being-doing-becoming. The Nothing-sans-audition. The Singer-without-ears. Seer-without-vision. Images – begone!
Call me Person. Listen! – it becomes.
Wrapped in filthy sweet meconium and lies, lays, swaddling undone. Wrapt, swaddled, held: Become.
It begins. A sighing and a sound. A saying and a listener. Bronk, Bakhtin, Blanchot. Call it what you will. Call me Person-with-a-Pen. Number me “Frail Parcel.”
I utter, you reply. I gains an “I.”
She responds and “I” becomes a “He.”
Call me Shakespeare, call me Tolstoy, call me Sterne. I yelp a Joycean Woolf! It begins.
Call me Person.
Damaged, swollen and undone, without a reason, and yet a flailing voice.
We translate love and I become. We cobble names. “Honeywizz,” “Beastyballs,” “Xanadu.”
Say a word, and say again.
It sounds like singing.
Cry out Jeezus! Aquinas! and let us move.
Heidegger, Hegel, Haar. William Dewey, Tomas Pynchon. Another ring, another rung, another syllable.
Translation, transmission, footnoting insertions, assertion. I am John James, Alfred South Hampton. Bewildered and Amazed. Immanuel (God-with-us) Nietzsche, Darwin D. Descartes.
Just call me Person and I will answer, becoming “I” and I become.
The whisper and its hearing,
you moaned and I perked up.
“Yes?” “No!” Otherwise.
We are here.
Call us Person(s).
I/You, Self/Other, He/She, Says/Hears, Touches/Felt, Imagine the memory.
Begin.
**************************************************************************************
At long last, we arrive. Gilles and Jacques and Simon. Luce and Helen and Clarice. Paired, impaired, distorted.
You may call us Person(s). We are named.
Once called, for a response. The asking is the telling.
I cry out.
There is echo.
It begins.
Frail parcel.
Laurence Carlyle.
Samwell Bronte.
Simone de Cortazar.
Someone sings, it garners litany,
“We are here.”
please call us Person(s).
At first I was a scientist: a philosopher of stories,
for you I depicted scenes and portraits,
invented tools.
Everything a bridge.
The word “between.”
We gestured: “Call us Person(s)”
We said Moscow, India and Greece. We stuttered America. We shrieked of Arabia and England.
A run of names and numbers, symbols and beliefs. We made equations, normatives, reliefs. We consulted, constructed, and revised.
All us People. Call me Person. Calling “you.”
I made an image of yourself, and you became…along with “I.”
We shouted slogans, rafted rivers, swam the seas. We scaled the peaks. We dug beneath. We drifted out.
And kept on calling, calling back
and calling forth, all the asking that is telling, and the stating towards inquire.
It began. It formed a we, and that resulted in an I and a Thou, gone either way, but none other.
It plays with brain and body is the brain the body,
call us “Person(s)”
A kind of beast and gentle species.
We, animal and saint
because we said so.
“Call us Person(s)”
for the asking and the telling
the query-and-response
its to-and-fro
and the becoming
We will be.
******************************************************************************
What we intended – -ologies and –isms and parades.
And “we” begins
Call us People, call us Person(s)
The beasts, alive for NOW –
a simple Zone,
a sphere, an angle,
our “perception” as we say.
I am Maurice and Piaget, von Uexkull van Beethoven
Call me Person
And drunk on signs
(that We developed)
in-between
so we might BE.
(Let’s call them “words”)
Let’s call them breaches, bridges, dreams.
Let’s call it Love.
(and its undoing, its location, its domain)
Let’s call it governance or law.
Let’s make a Zoo with separate cages, create a Zone for disciplines and fields. Feelings. Cultivating crops and crafts and musics. Let’s call it “Science” and beg for silence, and beg for naming and for names, more names and names and things, more names and names for things.
Let’s mix them up and cause explosions.
Me + You.
and co-created.
Please call us “Person(s)”
And let us mark and underscore: Disprove. Debate. Erase.
Let’s say “adjust.”
Let’s try to capture or discover – now we’re we.
But call us “Person(s)”
We will be.
I have become.
Fits & Starts
What scribbles out the sides, longing for a place to go…
while I’m busy with other things
The sentences broke between them. Not twisting or scrambling, no encrypted script noising up communication; more like letter parts and chunks of words crumbling away before they even bridged the gaps. Sayings that collapsed on themselves as they emerged.
***********************************************************************************************************************************************************
At the point we begin imagining ourselves insane and institutionalized, conjuring car wrecks or dreaming deaths in the family to avoid our obligations…we are well-advised that something has gone wrong…
************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Whenever what might be called an “encounter” occurred between them, everything else grew less pressing, less…significant or unsurvivable. She became a solution and a re-solution all at one go…
**********************************************************************************************************************************************************
fragments, in other words.
The days have to be enough…they’re all we have.
Velocity and Friction
This uncovered writing has parts that feel like 16-year-old wordplay mixed with the aging man…sigh.
Velocity and Friction
9 Notebooks
In an act of rebellion and a kind of self-serving exorcism or slate-clearing (what blog is NOT an attempt at an entity’s expression, communication?), and facing the duress of weeks burdened with commitments and inescapable responsibilities…[in other words]…I intuit I am encountering a “time” (weeks / months / foreseeable futures?) that I deduce as laden – somehow preordained – for preoccupations of employment, previously established obligations – freighted with encumberances complexly negotiated…[under pressure I compose]…and so I search for a project [as is my way] that is FOR ME[?] (something autotrophic, self-cannibalizing and nourishing at once, individually comprised and contained) an insurrection and defiance honoring self [so I surmise] facing compulsion…
…and I unearth these 9 Notebooks…all aborted undertakings from the past 12 months…via which I propose to mount mutiny by posting all that seems potentially warranted in them [upon re-reading as if the first time, long forgotten]…toward little other purpose than for purging, opening, erasing – a clearinghouse of efforts – that might evolve toward some novel substitution, unforeseen modification, development, emergence…
“this is what directs him to learning – where he may encounter fragments of his own existence,
fragments that are still within the context…”
– Walter Benjamin on Franz Kafka –
There will be stories, concepts, poems, characters, reflections, essays…and ephemeral scraps like these…
- think feel – attune to meaning – reflect and refract
- befriend your body, take care with your mind
- be gentle, be open. move fluidly, breathe
- go alert to your dreams
- wish more than hope, walk don’t run, run sometimes
- be careful of rules, they’re always changing, it’s the nature of the rule, the measure, the standard
- keep your eyes and ears open, along with heart and mind – only let things close into pleasure and pain – and that more of a wince
- don’t be afraid of your story – write and rewrite it, edit and revise, revise, revise, and write it again
Sometimes it seems, it takes me so much time (it seems) to find whereof I can speak…
An attempt viewed in incompletion
Impromptu
Arid time and things, they pass
Erase, not quite, deteriorate
Inexact as well, but depleting
Depleting.
Depleting.
.
Not exactly end, ending
Never a beginning
Ever picked up midstride
Midstream
Only ever in the midst
.
Tiring then,
Worn down,
Depleted, she said,
Exhausted,
.
and yet what from?
From what is he so tired
unto ruin?
What is ruin-ed?
What never was?
Perhaps.
.
Always midstride, then
Nearer to the end
this depletion
Depleting
.
nothing
Begun ever
Certainly nothing
ever completed.
Always midstride,
and nearer to the end,
incompleted, and
depleting
Depleting
.
Unable to keep up with 1/8 of the 9-year-old,
worrying the 10, the 17, the young man
fails the partner
fails the weather
failing his own mind
own dreams
his own body
.
ideas
.
Depleting
.
Always midstream,
frozen in place
nearer to the end
this present
Depleting
.
Would like to write it out
Write it off
Pick up again
Declare a start
But he can’t
or won’t
.
Nearing the end,
Never getting there,
(near completion, never that)
only begun and that just barely
joined midstride
nearer to the end
simply depleting
.
Inexorably
.
Without fail.
The one thing without fail.
The one absolute success.
The one almost-completion:
.
depletion.
Depleting
.
Always midstride
and nearer to the end –
very much like dancing
on bleeding broken legs
All my Words are Silent 