Tag: fiction

Interstitial

On By NW FilbertIn Experimenctes, fiction, Interstitial, meaning, Writing1 Comment

part two of a rambling….

visual fields

– 2 –

            Suffice it to say, I’m not much into “proofs” – in language or tone.  Suspect I can’t believe them.

I won’t be able to prove there’s an interstice – I know that.  Won’t even attempt “within reason.”  Suggest.

There’s no “let me explain” to this.

– “Explain what?” she inquires, “exactly?”

The point, I would say, exactly, or nearly precise – that there isn’t.  I don’t know.  But it seems we converge – in some tiny remarkable space within time (or vice-versa) – we’re dis-missed.  Or not missed – how to say it?  There’s a meeting.  It seems.  In a margin, or more.

Our hallways (think architecture?) overlap?  I don’t know.  I’m just saying, in hopes to be, to look at you longer.  Longer.  It’s a fight against death, that small word.  Simply, longer.  With you.

Am I clear?  Making sense?  I don’t know.

– “Clear as mud, what you’re saying” she says, “near ‘exactly’.”

I don’t know.  It’s unwise.

And I hum when the words sound just so.

– “Just so, how, exactly?” she asks.

Interaction.  Locution.  Between.  (I am thinking).

“Interstitial,” I say.  Interstitially?  I wonder.  How could I know.  It’s all susceptible to the mark.  The mark of the question.  I think about changing my name.  Did before.  I like titles.  It was “Mark” for the question, the sign, and its music.  I would be Mark, Remarking.  The one with the curlicue brand, like the Zorro but curved to a point, on everything : ?   “My point, exactly,” I tell her (she stays) – leaving my mark.  (If she’ll stay, I’ll rescind…anything).

It’s okay.  I’m familiar.  Not that you’re worried.  There’s no worries, it’s all temporarily temporary – both state and enaction.  It’s just so (so it seems).  “Just-So Stories,” he wrote, long ago, relatively – they’re alike and akin, episodic.  We describe.

Neither here and/nor there.  Interstitial.  In-between.  What I wanted to tell her, to say.  And I would have, had I known.

– “Known what, exactly?” she’d once said, and I’d stopped, for the meanings were lost, non-existent.  Just so.

“That’s just how it is” I had said.  And don’t know, was surmising.  The world hypothetical and inspired (I’d thought, at the time) – simply possible.  I was wrong (perhaps).  But she stayed (temporarily).  The words lose their meanings.

I hum.  To myself.

I write: “This is what I wanted to do.”

All that’s required is a ‘trigger’…a rule.

We

NANOWRIMO Reminds: Any Excuse to Write

On By NW FilbertIn creative writing, Experimenctes, Interstitial, Writing2 Comments

THE INTERSTICE

I told her that I would have told her, had I known.

-“Known what, exactly?” she said, “Really!?” she said.

Yes, I said, yes, I would have explained what I felt to be true – about the “interstice” – what I felt I understood, I would have said.

As usual, the sighs, the diverted glances, the “I-don’t-knows.”

It’s okay.  I’m pretty used to it, not that it still doesn’t hurt, or squash some deep part of me – annihilate, erase – but familiarity breeds, and it’s not contempt, at least not for me.  More like resolve, or, well, accustom, I don’t know.

Still I would have conversed about the interstice.  Or its plural.  No one can know what we’re talking about (in my opinion) – that’s why we talk (in my opinion).  But I like to look at her.  Very much.  So sometimes I keep talking so that I can look at her longer.

Thus I would have explained – tried to – about the Interstice…had I known, I tell her.

-“Known what, exactly?” she asks, “Really?!”

It’s okay.  I’m used to it – exasperation.  It’s a sort of fatigue that settles on my interlocutors – my family, my friends, my lovers – as I triple/quadruple/unendingly (exponentially?) second-(meaningless term in this accounting)-guess whatever it is (emotion, idea, memory, event) I attempt to convey.

I don’t trust a thing as long as it’s questionable, and I’ve yet to discover something unquestionable.  I like inventing titles though.

She’s looking at me – softly, sadly, gently and quiet.  Sometimes she strokes my hair with her hands and lets me rest my head (the physical part) in her lap.  It kind of helps.  But the rest doesn’t rest.

It’s okay, for the most part, I’m used to it.  It’s “me” as they say, as it were – what I’m used to.  It doesn’t matter, or does in unquantifiable ways, but I keep at it.  Anyway.  I can’t seem to help it.  Well, some things do – like vodka, sex, sleep – but only temporarily.

Things are only temporarily.

That’s the sort of idea that keeps me alive.  Temporarily.  And second-(exponentially)-guessing.

She’s still there.  Here.  Though.  Hence the interstice.

I try to explain.

As if “interstice” possessed meaning – definition beyond the moment activated or utilized.  As if it indicated.  “Meant” – a convergence-point (limitless above and below and abroad) of conventions of time and of space – a realm that felt (seemed) shared.  Held in common.  Nothing is “held” – or that temporarily.  It seems.  I don’t know.  It’s certainly questionable – is it – “certainly”?

I don’t know.  Which I thought, or I think, is the entry to wisdom, but even that – I don’t know.

She’s still here.  And I question – who is it?  Who is still here?  And what for and/or why?  And where is this trembling “here”?  I can wonder, after all.

-“Wonder what, exactly?” she queries.

I don’t know.  I’m a human.  Some odd conundrum of pieces and parts that cohere, correspond or reciprocate in hold-together activities for awhile…call it “organism,” there’s that, it would seem, but seem only, digging in it is hard to convince – a location, identity, consistency, avocation or being.  It’s just so – apparently – temporarily.

Exasperating.  You see?  You dig?  What I mean?  That’s what we’re after (I think) – what it means.  But what that means is uncertain, I think or surmise.  We don’t know, it would seem, we’re uncertain.

We ask.

Let me describe this – the interstice…

Neuroses : or, why not begin again….?

On By NW FilbertIn Art, Experimenctes, Writing2 Comments

Neuroses: or, Dynamite Walls Contain Us

– a self-help novel (what great novel isn’t?) –

            They said he, well, those who knew him said.  Really it should be “they” – not “ him.”  Inclusive.  “They” (neurobiologists) say neuroses can increasingly be viewed and investigated as ancient and useful survival strategies for our race.  Perhaps misapplied.  (Fragment, consider revising).

How does one decide between active and passive?  Betwixt present, future, past when creating, recounting or telling stories?  You’d think future, past, present, accordingly.  But there’s the aversion.  Aversion to active and present because it’s “suggested” : by programs – institutional and academic, technical and authoritative – software, hardware, “officiated.”  Machinated and conventional.  In stead, he’s drawn (attracted to, magnetized, compelled) toward past and passive – the un-recommended and untoward.  Why?  “They” – the humans.  The neurotics.  The ones that qualify.  Can qualify.  Will, do qualify.  Neuroses = something humans can (be/do/are).

The “they.”  Contained by equal and opposite neuroses: when this is evident, maybe we (or it) is called: “love.”  The balance of tension.  The incorporate.  I don’t like the rules.  I am predisposed.  (Fragment, reconsider).  I’m aware of my predisposition.  Therefore.

She.  He.  They.  Dynamite walls…contain us.  Or not.  (Fragments, reconsider).  The sentence/sentencing tells you – active, passive, future.

I want to tell a story in this way:  sometimes it happened; sometimes it happens; sometimes it keeps happening;  sometimes it might happen; sometimes it will.  Pause, breathe.  You are human – you never can tell.  There will always (perhaps) be too many contingencies, contexts, effects, probabilities, possibilities, variables.

A friend addresses the “four fundamentals of metaphysics” (oxymoron) – the Known-Known; the Known-Unknown; the Unknown-Known, and the Unknown-Unknown.  Makes sense.  Doesn’t.  Think about it:  we are possible, we are already, we have…

She was like, he said.  I said.  The 4th-grader wrote exactly what the adult said “in his head.”  Who could I be?  Perhaps the “he” – to contradict the known – (of the 4th grader).  She/it/he was correct.  I/you/we – were/are/will-be – exposed…via empathy, familiarity – the all that’s strange and true.

We are.  We were.  I am.  She is.  She will have been was.  As I.  As you, as we, will be, have been, was.

And LOVE.  And BE.  And.  And.  And.  This will ALWAYS be a NOVEL (i.e. some timeless combination of the known and unknown – what is, was, could be – living realities unknown as realities).

The she, the he, the they.  The you, the I, the us.  Love.  Hope.  Despair.  Being.  (Fragments – consider revising).

  • Dynamic walls contain us –

And how dynamic those walls!  Which shows the self-helping nature of understanding : knowledge comprehended and integrated…assists.  Assists insofar as efforts are being made at (or toward) making sense.  In other words – when each “individual” comes to realize that the containers are dynamic and uncertain (i.e. active and inter-, ex-changing permeable moment-to-moment[1] – altering apparent boundaries) – it will help “make sense of” why an individual’s “identity” is experienced as so very fluid and variable and shifty.

“Just the facts ma’am.”  Precisely.  (Perhaps).

In fact, no one knows the facts any more than we understand the properties or structures of fluids…of water…[2]  [There’s no footnote there – just a fascination by the conventional procedure of indicating a foot[3] by an elevated marking].  Public agreements – methods for maneuvering a world in concord, together – a gathering-space – endlessly intriguing).

I gesture.  You acknowledge.  (Fragments, reconsider – some conventional-mutual agreements {keep writing “arguments” where “agreements” supposedly goes}, commands/suggestions/authorizings).  I look longer.  Then am hooked.  You ARE curious, novel, strange, fascinating, unique.  AND familiar, recognizable, similar, probable, regular/regulated, assimilable, banal.  Strange AND familiar, novel AND banal, fascinating AND tiresome, conventional AND innovative – all at one go (when I pay attention).  I love you.  I am tired, not tired.

And so it is – the story goes – a familiar plot made interesting via details of circumstance and style.  The story goes (fragment, considered).

I am drawn to you.  BY you, in relation to.  Dynamite walls created interactively, actively, intertwined.  Intermingled and intertwined – intermingling (via gaze, touch, sound and sense) intertwining (via molecules, atoms, particles and waves, genes, movement) particles thereof, actions of particles of particles of = Intertwingled (-ing).  So to “speak.”

Traditionally (convention + repetition over time and selection (“history”)) “neuroses” have been publicly agreed to be “pathologies” – that is “disease-words,” irregularity-actions, abnormality-beliefs.  No longer!  NOW (perhaps?) the disease-describing (INscribing) words are themselves mutual banalities (thank you social sciences, relativism, anthropology + archaeology coupled to psychology/art/philosophy/biology/chemistry/medicine and…

“Inter-“ is useful for this – disciplinary/-mingled/-twingled/-spersed.

As the story goes: actively, passively, possibly.

She + He + It.  Sheheit…excrement with a Southern drawl.  The allure of things.  (Fragment reconsidered).  The taboo and grotesque, the extreme and revolting – and we’re right back to the banal.

Everyday.  The other, (the one eminently important to me, the neurotic) expressed emotion, attachment, attraction and bondedness toward (with) me.

A story began (in this case – BEGINS)

I -too-experienced (felt, dealt, smelt) interest toward / investment in – “her” strangeness (uniqueness and novelty, surprise and specificity) and familiarity (comfort, belonging, accord, comprehensibility) – THEREFORE – neuroses in reaction (alchemy, chemistry, biology, engineering, imagination) – RELATION – “love.”

Successful (“effective”?) interaction – an experience some call “power”(ful) [syn. compatibility, attraction, lust, desire, intimacy, connectivity – convergence – (relationship)].  WORDS.

We have yet to surmise, investigate, explore, hypothesize LANGUAGE ITSELF (i.e. modes or methods of conventional [publicly, mutually agreed] interactive, SHARED expression/impression tactics, activities, gestures, contexts and contents).

Now I stop (writing) in order to read (engage recognition + innovation – “learn”).

Sex is central.  Sex and perspective (in other words, “desire” and “belief”).

Easy to dub it all doublespeak, excepting that it’s the somewhat singular communicative way we humans go about storying our experiences…via dialogue, convention and sensation (conversation) – through one mediated path or another.

[1] -10 to the 10th power

[2] Footnote

[3]note

it might be Autumn

On By NW FilbertIn creative writing, Experimenctes, seasons, Writing4 Comments

It might be Autumn.  It takes awhile to know (here).  In any case, the confusion is enormous, is bewildering, is sometimes stultifying.

Multiple persons – some who know me and some who seem like they do – all seem confident about it.  About the book.  About that “there is a book in me” just waiting to be born or written, composed or transcribed – however a “book” comes to be.  I am certain of none of it, excepting that I love books, in fact I crave well-connected letters as much as (although differently from) my desire for love, for intimacy (or “satisfaction” – itself a kind of surprise and delighted exhaustion), for meaningful connections (being understood, acknowledged, beloved, and so on).  Strange beasts, we.  I.  I-we.

The “I” is “we” if you take into account all the variance – the inconsistencies and variety and contextual divergences.  “Bewildering” is the word I most usually apply to this business or blessing of living… of being alive.

Maybe that’s what this is about, like birthdays.  The strange pivoting celebration of another year undergone or accomplished, simultaneous with its absence and cessation.  Living, dying – same thing?  The introduction that serves as farewell.  A tightly romance.

Does “paradox” indicate two apparently incompatible things being the case at once?  These are not flip-sides of a coin, but two things on the same surface, depending.  Living/dying, suffering/joy, love.  Now as before and after in the same instant, so to speak.  I will always be battling the incapacity of words as the only things capable.  Communicative paradox – language as, at once, in the same sphere/realm/scale/reality – that which reveals and conceals, says and does not say, speaks and remains silent, clarifies and obfuscates, signals and misleads…fails and succeeds.

So that every effort of greeting also grieves, and each introduction is yet another form of farewell.

 

I loved her.

Progress

On By NW FilbertIn Art, Experimenctes, Music, WritingLeave a comment

Introduction - Farewell

 

Work in Progress

On By NW FilbertIn Experimenctes, fiction, relationships, Writing3 Comments

Intro Farewell

a little something I’ll be working on through the Fall… believing, against all odds that there really IS a book in me somewhere….

Reasons

On By NW FilbertIn Journallings, Reflections, Writing6 Comments

Reasons why a novel, memoir, or longer work may never be “FORTHCOMING!” from me: whenever I begin to write I get absorbed in the activity of writing. I seem unable (after all these years) to force myself to craft characters or plots or descriptions… The characters are LANGUAGE, the plot is made by LANGUAGE, and the LANGUAGE only seeks to inscribe itself…

Summer Recapitulation

On By NW FilbertIn Current Reading, Language, Philosophy, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

Given the nature of things… withdrawal from school… disregulation of schedule / child-rearing / presences… obligated projects, desired collaborations, attempts… preponderance of labor… decrepitude and erosion of house, car, body…

Herein lies a revised Summer Reading List – old and new and recapitulatory…

“FICTION”

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“POETRY”

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“OTHER”

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Eradicating Borders

On By NW FilbertIn Experimenctes, Writing1 Comment

A work in progress…

if i build it…perhaps it will come.

Boomerang

On By NW FilbertIn Experimenctes, Writing6 Comments

Another “aside” – writings that happen in the meantimes…

Boomerang

I consider myself ‘straight as an arrow’  that swerves like a boomerang.  In other words, I ruminate clear sensations, desires, opinions – consider, and then revise.  It all comes back to me.

When I was a child, I thought as a child, behaved as a child…but now…now that…well, I’ve put away the childish things.  Now I’m just a fucked-up adult.  It’s hard for me to tell from what’s coming or going.

She’s cumming.  Now she’s going.

I saw a coyote the other day.  I was driving in the country, speeding along a gravel road.  A grey coyote, large, apparently healthy, came streaming through the corn or wheat or soybeans pacing my van like a dog.  These things surprise me.  And  happen.

Now she’s going.

Like a coyote I set out to pace her, run alongside, track and trace her.  She’s cumming, I’m breakneck, I’m hungry, I’ve got her, I’m with her, we’re “in” as it were…

She’s going.

I run straight and fast and hard and she knows it.  I’m honest.  I can’t tell truth from lies.  She loses me, I parallel, and now we’re neck-and-neck, side-by-side, and sprinting, I’ve got her, she’s stretching, I’m on her, she’s spreading, I’m ravenous, she’s daunting, I fear, I crave, on point, in flight, the Caravan has nothing on me.

If I were a sailor.  An aardvark.  A policeman.  I am none of these.  But I love her, she outpaces me, I can’t catch, and she looks back, and she’s cumming, and now going.

I wish.

And that would be how it would end, with my wishing, her being, my envisioning and inventing and conspiring, but there’s more.  And the coyote, and the rabbit, and the hawk and howling wind.  And the mountain and the river and the ocean and breezy glade.  And there’s life – yes, there’s that, and we’re here, or somewhere, and everything rushes, and to be honest I don’t know deception from reality, my perceptions and illusions are the same, but I dream.  And a coyote, and a boy.  And a human and a male.  And she’s a lady and a wolf, a rodent and a scream, and we tossle and we fight, and devour and delight, and it’s all a simple game – a complex, coordinated, disjunctive weather of dance that never quite syncs up, and that’s okay, because the coyote thrives in run, and the owl lives for the hunt…the mouse delights in escape, and the thought its incompletion…

And I straight as an arrow, swerving like a boomerang.