digging through pages of time

Long days of welling memories between the mechanics of living. engineering the sounds and sayings, looking for work and a roof, flashes of each time i've looked for work, a roof, strum and song and all the harsh grating of details. i almost got a whole house for cheap, but not cheap enough, so instead i went to goodwill to look for books to sell and came home with a stack for my own library. i can't help myself. of course there were some excellent finds. a copy of PKDick's Exegesis, a book on missing myths in america, a pocket edition of the surrealist poet Apollinaire's "alcools" who coined the term surrealism (in french unfortunately, but it was only a dollar. these texts can not be lost to time).

the greatest find, comparable to a DJ's record crate digging, was a copy of the Comte de Lautreamont's "les chants de maldoror" which i've been meaning to acquire for awhile and never expected in the snooty shadyside thrift shop. hailed as a masterpiece by the surrealists (it contains their founding quote "beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table") this prose poem was written in the late 1800's by a mysterious youth who died at the age of 24. many of the writers i admire, and the ones they admired, relied heavily on this text, which from the sound of it falls in the same type of journalistic literature as my two favorite novels, rilke's "the notebooks of malte-laurides brigge" or sartre's "nausea". where the "hero" of the notebooks is obsessed with and sees through Death, and in "nausea" with the existential horror of Emptiness, Lautreamont's anti-hero Maldoror is obsessed with Evil and the absence of god and how this is acted out (in apparently disturbing and imagistic passages that almost had the book banned for obscenity when it was first published). i look forward to reading this when i'm done with Henry Miller's "Plexus", along with the copy of Yeat's symbolist text "a vision" which i also recently tracked down. now if i can only find a copy of stephen mallarme's poetry in the trash...

lautreamont is also credited with saying: "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It closely grasps an author's sentence, uses his expressions, deletes a false idea, replaces it with a right one."

and

"Poetry must be made by all and not by one."

mining a map of dreams

...over a large map of forests and mountains and rivers, swirling down slow until I landed beside a watchtower lighthouse on the bluff of a cliff overlooking the sea. to one side lay a low slung beach and to the other was a huge ravine between the cliff and the Vast, the large desert of ruins that lies to the north-east of the city in my dreamworld. turning i entered a large marble open air hallway, towering columns and archways and swarming with a bustle of people all dressed in dingy gray workoutfits and protective coats. i was wearing a black halflength frock coat under a large trench and tall black boots (somewhat like the outfit worn by the alchemist in "Holy Mountain") and had a knapsack with me. none of them noticed me. down the hall they were turning left into a large ampitheatre like auditorium in which the forman was explaining the procedures of the excavation and warning the new workers to keep away from the scourge, who were a bunch of freeloading outlaws who mooched off the operation and just wanted to lay around all day. at this, several members of that band scattered throughout the audience, who looked like a bunch of long haired hippies, started jeering him and goading the workers until he threatened to destroy their camp, at which they got up and left. we were each given a work suit and tools and a locker combination and told to report for the next shift. i got up and found my locker down a hall to the right, near the infirmary, the combination was 601-552 and i dropped off the outer coat and extra boots i was carrying along with the tools before going to look for the hippies, which wasn't hard as they were standing about the hallway literally aping the workers. i approached one, with long hair and large beard named john (?) and explained my mission and asked if he could take me to their camp so i could plan my next move. something about my attire and eyes swayed him. he agreed, and they led me wandering through the halls till we got out the back to where the cliff overlooked the sea. it was really a steep hill and they started down it slowly, while i decided to just slide down it spilling out near the bottom into a pile of red dust, the contents of my bag also coming loose and getting covered in the stuff. i sat down to clean them off while the scourge sat around me and out of the bag fell a round red coin (or ball) which rolled in a perfect clockwise circle around us. john, who was sitting opposite, smiled and joked that i was casting a circle. i shrugged and he suggested i should probably talk to mambie (?) since i was one of "those ones". he led me through a grove of palm trees to a wicker hut on the beach. inside was like a storehouse hung with food items, fruit, fishing nets, etc... in the back was a smaller room also crammed with stuff, but of a strange and voodoo-like nature. laying on a cot by the wall was a young woman who seemed incapable of getting up. around her stalked a yellow catlike creature that seemed to be made more of liquid than flesh and bones. i approached, and she began to explain to me the nature of their tribe, how they had a somewhat symbiotic relationship with that of the mining operation (though in what way was left unclear) and that her community felt she was more a burden at this point since she lost the use of her legs, even though she was the one who predicted the tides of the dunes and sea which dictated both were they would move next and which ruins would be uncovered. as she talked she unshelled seed after seed and tossed them in a large basket/ pot in which was the pulp from what must have been an enormous amount of cantaloupes. she seemed sad because they would probably off her soon and she suggested i get out of there before i was recruited in her place. on the way out she pressed several tattered pages into my hand.

back at the watchtower i examined the pages, which turned out to be several maps. the first, which i got the best look at, was of the cliff face below the tower marking out all the tunnels and bridges that had been carved out of the side of the ravine. the others were of the beach and the desert ruins. i quickly stuffed them in the pocket of my jacket as a bell rang, and hurried back to the auditorium for the next shift meeting. there i ran into M, wearing only a leather bra and leggings who was laughing and teasing the workers, i tried to see if she knew anything about what was going on at the dig site but she was too distracted. several other strangely attired characters filed by. soon the meeting was over and i went back to the locker room and entered my combination. however, since i hadn't reported to the shift (i assume this is the reason) the locker imploded and destroyed my belongings. for a moment i tried to entertain that it was the wrong locker, but no i was out of luck and thought i would have to give up my plans. but then Spat came up and gave me his tool bag and told me he'd find me a coat since it was deathly cold out on the Vast. he did so and i geared up in the leather work outfit, strapped all the equipment on and placing the goggles tight on my eyes clambered down the south side of the cliff and out onto the desert. towering dunes of stark sand, craggy cliffs and a biting wind, in the distance ancient crumbling structures swam, old marble and caryatids decimated by the centuries of sandstorms. checking the maps i pulled myself together and began to walk... and then woke up.

word is gold

i knew i wouldn't be able to sleep, so i went on a long walk around bloomfield from the hollow to the playground swings behind Ritter's, scheming up the next piece of 'anamnesia' and a counterpoint to last night's ramblings on language. then when i might have passed out i got my nose stuck in the anthology of surrealist poetry i picked up last week and ended up with this whimsical little ditty about four in the morning (the excessive ellipses are only in leu of indentation, and not morse code):

I am beginning to see whatever I say becomes real.
Birds
. . . . . fly fluttering feathers from lips,
cakes and carousals
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . turn round the tongue
and every secret is illumined with
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . .starlight.
I will never thirst again, sleep when I whisper
can tell the helicopters to finally
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . be quiet
and always have the most exquisite
. . . . . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .beautiful day.
Immediately I called for a parade:
. . . . ... . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . .. ... . .elephants
acrobats,
. .. . . .. . . brassband banners
. . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . .. .. . billowing out,
huge crowds promenading down the boulevards.
Called for
. . . . . . . . . insane ecstasy
. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . .. .. . . nonstop laughter,
what the gods felt when they spoke the world.
I began to experiment,
. . . . . .. . .. ... ... . . . ... porcelain cacophony
rained tea cups and toilet seats for weeks
and no one could keep their hands off
the insatiable piano
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .or the velvet sunrise,
even if it burned a little on the edges.
I quickly learned to not say words like
pain or police or palpitate
. . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . . .. . for fear
of the red jagged beating and woe
if I ever uttered
. . . . . . . . . .. . . a final Armageddon;
loose, these lips really could sink ships.
But this is no big thing, we do it every day,
most of us never noticing how with a word
we bring the heavens down on our heads.
So I kept at it, crying for
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. . peace
possibility,
. . . . . . . . . . full bellies
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..and free speech,
and all the war machines sprouted flowers
prison bars bent into ornamental gates
groceries exploded across the streets
and everyone said exactly what was on their minds.
It was sheer chaos and reveling and many asked
me to say
. . . . . . . . .normalcy
. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. .or at least
. . . . . . . ... .. . . . . . ... . . . . .. .. .silence,
but I only smiled, and said
. . . .. . . . . . . . .... . . . . . .. everything.

when language spills over...as opposed to that purity and fullness of language in which every word becomes real, which harks back to the work Ezra Pound and others did in showing how ideogramatic (Chinese) poetry relied purely on images working out their own fate, words also have a tendency to fill up with so much meaning that they overflow, and produce all manner of absurd juxtapositions. This is pointed at in Hakim Bey's article on the taoist philosopher Chaung-Tzu's idea of spillover language, refers to the process by which images fill up with so much meaning, or minds with so many images, that they spill over like a full gourd and create new unprecedented ways of looking at the world. This idea found its peak as a body of technique in the surrealists with their automatic writing and exquisite corpses, that while sometimes being just ridiculous (like the meeting of an umbrella and a sewing machine on a dissecting table, the line that sparked their movement) also have a way of recreating the way one looks at the world in every moment. in relation to the pure expression of language, this sense of bizarre juxtaposition can both mask the image being presented and express more facets of it, for example saying "oceanic swiss" both masks the reference to the moon, and highlights its cratered landmass and gravitational pull on water, and has the added benefit of positing a fleet of scuba-diving mice upon the moons surface, if your brain takes you there. of course, not all these images really carry such a surplus of meaning, and we haven't yet accounted for where these divulgent images come from...

hunting text

Current research on schools of poetry, tracing back technique and themes through all outsider literature, from the beats back to the surrealists, the modernists, etc etc... curious to find the strain of occult/ spiritual practices that underlies most of these groups. was blown away reading a biographical sketch on Yeats, too many parallels to my basic belief systems, he even created a whole system of personality types based off the phases of the moon, and recorded in his poetry.

also this, from Jean Baudrillard's "Simulations" (semiotext(e) publications):

"This would be the successive phases of the image:
-it is the reflection of a basic reality
-it masks and perverts a basic reality
-it masks the absence of a basic reality
-it bears no relation to any reality
whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum. in the first case, the image is a good appearance- the representation is of the order of sacrament. in the second, it is an evil appearance- of the order of malefice. in the third, it plays at being an appearance- it is of the order of sorcery. in the fourth, it is no longer in the order of appearance at all, but of simulation."

this last being about where our culture is right now. the question being how to take it to the next step, to reclaim the image by positing there is no difference between the image and reality (at least as far as we are able to percieve it), in that to say there is a difference between images and reality creates a false dichotomy. everything is real, even those things resigned only to the imagination. to give something a name, a function, a relation to other things, is to give it life. this applies equally to poetry/ art as it does to sensory perception. for example, when i write moon, beggar, glass of water, i am talking about these things (even if they are not specific moons, beggars, or glasses of water in front of me). when i see these things i am seeing a moon, a beggar, a glass of water (even if it could be argued i am perceiving merely lightwaves and assigned mental labels and not objects at all). the image of something is what it is. what it means however, is a whole other issue, and dependent on both cultural and subjective reference to these things. when i say or see "moon" it brings up a host of connotations and allusions from anything as ancient greek mythology to my own life, etc... which i imply in my use of the image, but are not extant in the image itself, and this is the key point, if someone else reads my word moon or is pointed out the moon in the sky, their interpretation of moon may be vastly different from their own experiences of moon (unless of course i give proper context for my own interpretation). but this does not change the fact that the moon is still the moon. even to create an artificial moon (orbiting an artificial planet in an artificial galaxy) is dependent on that it is still a moon.

Yeats rued the fact that most poets of his time (and this has only gotten worse) did not draw their images (and meanings) from systems of correspondence, large cultural drifts of symbol/ interpretation bordering on the archetypal, whereby the poet showing a particular image is sure to be understood. nowadays the trend is towards reiterating portions of their life without any regard to symbolism at all, turning poetry into a journalistic or biographical medium that when read the audience has very little subconscious imagery to connect to, unless they have had a similar experience in their own life. and even then, how poetic is it, in relation to the epic imagistic poems that have withstood the axe of time? Granted, all one can draw on is their own experiences, otherwise the words do not ring true, but to draw these disparate events into the vast host of cultural, and human, meaning... to say "i saw the moon" and have that imply not only this occurrence of the moon but centuries worth of moons. imagine the force then behind that word, that could send shivers down your spine and impart the physical affect of the moon's gravity on the blood, a language of reckoning where saying "moon" creates Moon. the image not just as reality, but containing the full reality of that image.

on the climb

Wandering around last night decided to stop by sarah and alberto's to tell them of my absurd revelations and see how his art is ticking along. without knowing it i was jsut in time to watch one of my favorite movies ever, alejandro jodorowsky's "the holy mountain"...



Filmed (and set?) in mexico in the 70's, this is the surreal tale of a jesus coming back from the dead and fighting off his personal monsters and the horrors of the modern world learning the secrets of self-transformation from an alchemist and going on a quest to the holy mountain in order step out of time and become immortal. not only is this movie incredible for its use of disturbing sound collages and almost no dialogue, but the symbolism! my gods is just too blatant, nothing couched or hidden and drawing on so many sources at once it hits like a ton of gold bricks, especially the scene where the romans get jesus drunk and he wakes up in a warehouse surrounded by a thousand plaster copies of himself. simply harrowing in the best way. i'd recommend this movie to anyone with a keen eye, but forget that so much of it draws on occult literature and shamanic visions that not everyone can relate to or even has experience of. nevertheless it is a brilliant surreal adventure.

skipping tracks of territory

Behind the box drab rowhouses, the stoplights and straight streets, a road winds down beneath the bridge. taken back by nature, kudzu and trees covering the hillsides and we're not in the city anymore. some kids sit howling on the crumbling steps, a last bastion of civilized life. and down, past the graffiti and gates, down to the tracks were minutes before a train went screaming by. it is dark except for distant streetlamps on the busway, and the fireflies swarming in the green, innumerable fairies or magic lanterns hung. soon you can hear movement, people, vagabonds and outlaws sitting on the tracks, tuning up instruments, sharing the stories of the day and a jug of whisky while swatting off mesquitos and slight paranoia of getting caught, dogs running around sniffing everything and even a family with a stroller. soon one of them begins to sing to the clapping of hands, an old timey folk balad sound with yum diddly ayes and sweet warble and wrapping back time to the contents of this modern life. and guitars, and the hoedown; bass, banjo, fiddle, spoons, mouthharp, harmonies and hallelujahs in their natural environment, and the lightning coming in fast. the kids getting drunk on moments of freedom, in forgotten spaces of true autonomy, we did this together, singing to the one still star and the wide open night where anything's possible. and the wind picks up as the music continues and the baby's started to fall asleep.

"Train!" someone yells, and with that the tracks are cleared, everyone diving into the bushes while one drunk stands defiant against the onrushing light, only to be pulled off quick but still reach out and slap the train as it passes, the expectation of loud roaring thunder and cheers. but it stops. uncertain moments. and everyone takes off running, diving up through the brambles, back towards the tunnel, ahead, afraid, have they already called the cops? walking past the conductor steps out, more concerned than angry, "is everyone okay? i thought i heard something hit." "we're fine, and all accounted for." laughing and running. "what happened?" "nothing, nothing, sorry to stop your schedule, but we're going now." punks running off into the night, and onboard the passengers look around in confusion. one of them, older and tattooed, sees our stream of unruly and begins making cheering fists and signs of success, as if our interruption saved him from the monotony of the journey. as if he'd rather be out here with us and stopping the trains with song. "alright, next year remember, we got to wrap it up before 2:20 so we don't." but how else could the evening have ended?