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Tag: Literature
Baffling Wisdom (really a long roundabout babble aimed towards my wife)
Going back through the writings that have been piling up on, around and near my desk over the past few days working out the hoped-for verbalization of whatever it is that’s been stirring around in my brain I ran across a few more pages that seemed interesting / to the purpose…
“I am looking for words….”
i.e. thinking things through
Noteworthy (not noteworthy – “omniscient observing” – worthy!!)
I continually conclude that these two are up to something unique and astounding in American letters:
and….
i advise you fervently…be aware
Borrowed, but WOW! BAM! (and I’ll regale you no more!)…
“‘The omniscient observer,’ Dala said continuing for them out of another day, ‘reads from the first word to the last with great care for the spaces between them so they are unframed by enthusiasts or detractors”
-Louis Zukovsky, from Little“
MAY WE ALL READ THIS WAY!
Out of the Cave
I really don’t know what these things are I’ve been writing (“Ideas of Home”, this one…). Seem to be open ramblings. I apologize if they waste time for any readers, I think I’m trying to open up channels inside of me with less self-conscious shaping and imposition of some pre-formed concepts of style, order, characterization, plot, even poesy. Opening veins, trying to allow swollen connections between pockets of my body and brain that otherwise occur only in dreams or infrequently heightened states. Not sure what’s going on, just writing.
In the Depression, A Cavern
The outlook that prides its common sense (for those who bear it)
“I cannot comprehend our attachments to beings”
-E.M. Cioran-
Airtight logic. Closed circle of belief.
The end is doom and oblivion, i.e. “end.”
Therefore, “I cannot comprehend attachment” –
to things? Well, perhaps, for personal endurance, a comfort while still understanding their nature (“truth”: “things fall apart, the center cannot hold”)
that all become, belong to silence (no total comprehension, understanding) all is constant change, therefore ephemeral, ridiculous to trust or develop dependence – everything changes, and then you die…
that, well that does not seem to alter much. Perhaps it wavers.
As all things wobble and waver, are insecure, uncertain.
Well, but maybe not “ends” and “loss” – almost certain, almost absolutely so,
but then not everything has happened, as far as we know.
Hold on to joy’s illusions – real experiences – and why not?
Embrace.
Let go.
You better let go
or it will be taken, suffocated, crushed.
Smile, but don’t forget to cry, there are many truths.
And much matter(s) to perceive (momentarily)
But then there’s that: the individuality of perception
and the fact that that capacity will cease.
Heightened moments, erasing duration,
fictions of time and space.
Self and other.
World.
Wonderful World of Texts!
Mystery Text #1: Of Origins and Ends
Many have participated – untranslatable translations and definitions undefined – signals of the ineffable.
Speaking of texts…writings and utterances, organizations of alphabets.
Writingreading, readingwriting – with an existing text – pray tell me the difference?
On the one hand – anyone. On the other – the same.
Between = a text.
Words on a page are a circle.
No origin, no conclusion.
Who writes this? Is it me? Who is “me”? Was it you? Who were “you”?
Who deciphers? Is it me? And when “I” read again – is it the same “me”? Later this evening in the quiet? Saturday at the cafe? In bed while a movie plays? Is it you?
Reading as continual rewriting in the same alphabets, same words and phrases. But the content? Denotation(s)? Connotation(s)? Connections? Disjunctions? Referents? References?
Who leads? What follows? Who follows? What leads?
I venture to commend the signs of the text are the subject, the object we observe and receive, perceive and interpret.
Who authors? And what is authored by that who?
Author following, adapting, borrowing and conceiving the text’s arrangement. Or reader authoring the significations, meanings, referents(-ces) and possibilities of thusly arranged words?
Double absence. Absence of the one constructing the text, absence of the possible recipient. Anyone (or no one) at the origin, no one / anyone at the end. Text(s) of no closure and of ever-questionable intent.
Text as ever-ready presents(-ations), like letters – always between the past, the void of dead, or the future, the empty potential and the unformed future, unknowable recipient.
Remarkable, to me, to be capable of participation in such a vital and energetic, ever-evolving and malleable, yet lifeless matter – able to be as stable as an inscription in marble –
the artifact: word or image, painting, photograph, text: gestures of the dead or the missing, yet constantly enlivened, resurrected with each encounter! This is passing strange! Out of the unknown, toward the unknown and lifeless in-between!
Ever a-rising out of no-more and availing the not-yet: unnecessary necessity of authorial entities – the necessary unnecessary of receipt. The still spinning wheel of lifeless matter on a page… in potentia.
A marvelous mystery to behold
“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! Thanks –
-E.M. Cioran-
Dialogue
by Ryan Drake, 2002
There is a tearing sound, as of something being ripped or sundered. She has begun to speak.
He attempts to listen, as if standing on an island of a busy and multi-laned thoroughfare. She speaks fervently, softly.
There’s the tearing. Something rent.
He is unable to hear. Only reverberations, a type of thrum from heavy traffic.
They are alone in an emptying room.
It is silent, but for the ripping, which also is not.
All of her aimed in his direction, what he has trouble seeing.
He attempts to look, as if through the fumes and smoke of a multi-floored building burning to collapse on the ground.
Her mouth moves gently and fierce.
He is unable to see what she says through the sound of the tearing, his searing eyes.
There are echoes, which also are not.
From a distance, things are still, as if a hobbyist set them in place.
She cries in her trying, directed at him and speaking, nearly a whisper, a message so loud.
The thrum and the shredding, the smoke.
Shifting, sifting to gather himself, redirect, organize, to attend. He tenses himself, tightens and coils, as if a reception machine. He is trying, crying, in a land far away.
Alone, they, the emptying room.
She’s given up, folded over, like craft paper wadded to a discarding ball.
A rivening come to its end.
He’s a radar, an instrument, powered and ready.
She falls explosively silent, unmoved.
He sees her, feels her absence arriving, he strains and he beggars the air.
Diminished and shrinking, she retracts to an inscrutable quark.
And he, aware, and alertly entire, listens and looks.
For Communal Delight
If you enjoy, wish to, revel in, feel ecstasy toward, crave and are intoxicated by
the glories of language
I fervently recommend
for your enjoyment!
All my Words are Silent 