Monday, June 17, 2013

epi/aft a


(the first thing that most people noticed when they stopped by the factory settings in pittsburgh was the mythological substructure, the autumn rhizome, the ethos, the almost pathological 


attention to visual detail, cattail hollow, a lattice, a screen turned in and then back away from 


the public, quite a bit of talk about mystery, many atomics allegedly attuned to the dimension of mystery.  late-night parallelograms slithering over the table and walls, hidden away 


in hotels, whispering about working for animals.  endlessly. that's one of the most dynamic parts of the conceptual narrative!  our own original 


artwork!  appropriated identity!  the fretted colors and textures that the factory settings more or less claimed as their own.  our little visit, followed shortly thereafter by a more significant visit.  fog of


breath noise,  i need sleep!  why are you stalking my dream-states?  may not be very educated, may not know where or how to attend the recital.  but somebody will, nonetheless.  just not sure who that somebody will be.  a list of names and pocket photos.  a similar list of charcoal


themed sketches.  the second thing that most people noticed was in line with a certain how-shall-we-put-this-delicately-but-still-maintain-rigor-inside-a-prison-building-mentality total disregard for statistics.  the statistics were told, in essence, to go take 


a massive hike thru the canyons.  we had gradually moved towards and then into the middle-aged portion of human experience.  taken all-in-all, it was a highly satisfying excursus.  we took our radicalism where we did and could, for the most part.  the basic and agreed-upon factory set of ladder-down-to-core  


satisfactions.  the third thing that most people noticed were a series of digital bridges.  these were based in part on bricks and mortar, and the muddy rivers that double back to the older part of the city.  basel.  pittsburgh.  decatur.  winston salem.  turin.  barrytown.  freiburg.  


chicago.  boulder. vienna.  ames.  london.  mankato.  wilmington.  tokyo.  we wanted to live in that older part, even though we were still very much middle-of-the-road-and-the-age.  the fourth and fifth things had to do with the so-called apocalypse; certain trends in pop culture had infused the old hollywood 


visuals with a new sense of urgency, a sense that this-time-it-really-is-going-to-happen-to-everyone!  not just the shantytown dwellers and not just the privileged few in their towers. for those of you who are interested) (golly jeepers i've already been wrong so many times, golly jeepers, it's almost like my full-blown career) people expect me 


to say "golly jeepers" over and over for no discernible reason and i will indeed i shall at some point i shall say i have a clear cut profession golly jeepers it will be a direct and actual quote not an indirect and oblique 


form of reaching out to infinite strangers although golly jeepers that's sort of how i prefer to interface with quote the general public) we will not shy away from the mythos!  it's the only 


thing that infuses the narrative with a semblance of actual life.  for those of you who are interested, the whole thing started out with a poem.


this poem:


epi/aft


as if remembering a nu time when

the moon never ends its old ocean

orbit. as if reconciled with the cathedral 

of headless and unlettered statues arising 

to view Love Locks forged in the back 
alleys of Logocentrifical Way fare

three rivers converge much like 
arteries driving directly into Saint Heart

and even Candylands Of Pleiades
gently play with Black Satellite Images

housing nipples and phalluses and
a tongue's absent powders from

split pills, distilleries, splintered trees double as 

readymades strewn by thunderstorms and

kinesis ornamenting a pragmatic memoir's
grass of leave's infrared readers.

as if finally reckoning how smooth the roc's
use increases over temperature/friction

folds to infolds under pressure;
the fingers the hands the bones polishing 


the planet's outermost & near-invisible 
layers. as if dreamed and waking bodies 

polish each other digitally and in analogue: 

protolith flowpapers tracing sub-anatomical grace-

bodies between them form chance
revolutions in the deep by co-piloting

collages & diamonds take all the time
in the world to deform their creators.


(written by readers)


(and for those of you are still interested, let me segue right into the follow-up:)


epi/aft 2


(afterwordless)


a sifted remembering 
anulled time carves 
its own primal ocean
curled back inside 
the next handful of quarters

orbit infinity's black
silent, deep, empty, cold, still 
stone cathedrals
headlong silver rushing 
toward dawn pennsylvania

living istats sink down to look 

side-by-side up and out 
into cat's naked hollow
quietly foraged, simmered, and tapped 
in the back alleys of the so-called eBook Highway

where three rivers converge
arteries into doublestained hearts 
and island-chain candylands
seek other tantalizing pleiades in 
one dark huddled mass, almost silent,
amidst countless whispering strangers
who might one day or lost night 
recall the bizarre yin-yang of voices
privately counting down 
to 
the 

next 




escape 







of 











velocity





velocit







veloci me








veloc you 










velo all of them










vel the black star in waiting










ve






v




\

housing ripples and genesis and
a tongue's absent powers inside
split peas spliced/ in fur trees
readymade cytokinesis
lies with thunder
leaves with hoofed readers' infrared 
clip-on fantasies
only just now remembering 
how smooth the full moon slowly rocks
our pure razor-sharp incidentals...

(or our own private emerald in 
neglected evergreen forests)

increases in temperature or
decreation of pressure;
the fingers/hands publishing the
poem bone's outermost layers... 

as if just now semi-dreaming
awake bodies still polishing,
ache-pulsing in digital and analogue forms 
protolithic, flowpapers of traced 
subatomic grains in the gravity
veined over and tangled in
semi-prophesied grace
(well-deserved)
faucets carved out under bodiless 
food from the wide place in the road
forming chance revolutions in the ash of dark 
by co-piloting
collaged 
diamond
bars 

take 


all 



the 




time






in 












the 


















nu-multiversal


















to 










def ormth eiri magi naryc reato rs





afterworldless

(written by ever-so-slightly-more-adventurous readers)

the train ride, the mainline, the tao te ching, and the overtime.  a wild series of costumes, dress rehearsals, delicate 

late-night strategy sessions, like one might imagine in the governance of an actual people.  does it come as a shock?  well, it shouldn't!  golly jeepers, have you even been paying attention?  


it's a pricey commodity, "true", and people are people are people are animals minerals ethers merry months of may many moments when the crowd isn't looking why why why do we why 


do others gumdrop living alone in an overgrown field summer spear of anonymous grass snaking up leaving blank spaces along the upgrade of living poets' oblivion:



epi/aft 3

(foreworld/forewords)

how much in time does it take to sift the
worlds from their meters? how many

quarters how many full moon cycles
does it take away to make change? why

do the hands stop crafting minutes
and seconds to paint their tips black

like infinity, which has no obvious afterword?
what orbit does the clock take as it

dismantles us headlong, leaving silver
and emerald in its ticking dawn wake?

can writing side-by-side hollow out a
deeper arch for eLove, elov, elve, lov

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
? how high can a back arch with the e
Story 

arch under it? how silent must a heart 
beat for the sea to hear its ostensible own?

how loud must the water roar for certain
hearts to quell their escapes? what

breaks the nexus chains that regulate
and count the nu beats? what velocities

does the v use in its folds of timeless
age cities? what black star does infinity

replicate to cloak its last disappearance?
and when did the spliced hoof of Pan

become a readymade in the fantasy
pulsing a nu dream directly into the widest

place in the inter-state, where the v veins
like the l loves: a perfect play's private layers.


(written by increasingly astute and affectionate readers)


the sixth thing that most people noticed was that the so-called initial online encounters were derived 


from a photograph, a single open aerial shot.  wave forms proliferated as their old favorites embraced them, impressed that they were willing to 

venture so far out onto the ledge.  iricoila posted some of the initial results in the coffeshop.  cuspin told her to leave a note for him on the balcony table.  when he arrived 

home, he read it.  and when she saw him reading it carefully, she remembered what she wanted to ask him.  a faint series of 

images had begun to take shape.  the words matched the voices.  the eyes matched the long silences.  after a little more waiting, she enlisted her old friend bp 

nichols to secretly intersect the dynamic while they were out for the day visiting the shops, bridges, and prisons.  iricoila looked over at cuspin 

as they drifted down the boulevard of the allies- "are you paying attention, sir?"  "yes, i am.  the gps indicates that we are on time and on track."  "can we trust it?"  

"i'm not sure that we have a choice at this point."  "i thought you lived here in the 90's."  "yeah, but in an entirely different part of the city."  "oh... so you've never seen the Convergence?"  "only in 

photographs- does that count?"  "wait- is that a trick question?" and thus the conversation continues all the way to the atlantic, where iricoila is considering 

having her portrait painted next summer.  it's a test drive, so to speak, a little spin thru the vortex of space-time, and cuspin is pretty much just tagging 

along for the ride.  he may be rickety but he's clever, and has learned what money can and can't buy.  iricoila trusts him, emphatically.  she doesn't know why, exactly.



epi/aft 4


pier into the vastness  (a late night exchange between almost perfect strangers)

the setting: the distant future. the far end of a splintered boardwalk unraveling out into the atlantic.  cuspin, a tattered, rickety man of indeterminate origin, is calmly leaning forward on the railing, hands folded, gazing out into the stillness, silence, darkness, emptiness, solitude, etc.  after about 4 minutes and 33 seconds, iricoila, smartly dressed and extremely attractive, of equally indeterminate origin, approaches the railing, about 11 feet to cuspin's right.  she too leans forward and begins to gaze out into the vastness.  another 4 minutes and 33 seconds pass uneventfully.  iricoila discreetly glances over at cuspin .  he does not seem to notice this.  another 4'33''.  cuspin discreetly glances over at iricoila.  she does not seem to notice this.  another 4'33''.  out of nowhere, iricoila begins to question the vastness itself.

iri<<< how much time does it take to sift the words from their meters?

(another 4'33'')

iri<<< how much space does it require to give the terms enough breathing room?

(another 4'33'')

iri<<< (looking directly over at cusp) excuse me, sir... do you know what time moonrise is this evening?

(another 4'33)

cusp<<< (looking directly over at iri)  no idea... no idea... sorta wish i had an idea... but my wishing doesn't seem to change anything... no idea... no idea...

(pause)

iri<<< how many convergences do you think so-called "change" might require, sir?

(pause)

cusp<<< no idea, maam... no idea... but to be perfectly honest, i don't even really know what you mean by "convergences"... but my guess would be... a goodly amount... indeed... quite a few of these so-called "convergences"...

(pause)

iri<<< so it's a matter of quantity, then, you imagine...

cusp<<< that's right, maam... that is what i in fact imagine...

(pause)

iri<<< you seem to have quite an intense imagination...

cusp<<< intense... huh... intense... (pause) ...funny you should mention that, maam... i was just thinking tonight that it seemed to be a little bit tense...

iri<<< well, maybe it's both...

cusp<<< that could be...

(pause)

cusp<<< what about yours, maam?  your imagination, that is... could you fish up some adjectives for me? ...throw a scraggly net out into this anonymous vastness?

(long pause)

iri<<< it's beautiful out here...

cusp<<< you mean in there, maam?

(pause)

iri<<< i'm referring to all of it, sir...

cusp<<< oh... i see...

iri<<< starting to get an idea, then, sir?

(pause)

cusp<<< by golly, maybe i am!  

(another 4'33'')

cusp<<< why do the hands stop crafting minutes and seconds to paint their tips black like infinity?

iri<<< infinity often has the last word, you realize...

cusp<<< yes, I realize...

(long pause)

iri<<< wow... it's staggeringly beautiful out here...what orbit does the clock take as it's dismantled, sir?

cusp<<< no idea, maam... sorry.

iri<<< no need to be sorry... it's a really difficult question... no one has answered it yet... 

(long pause)

cusp<<< are you some kind of person in the arts, maam?  in some kind of artistic profession?

iri<<< funny you should ask me that, sir...

cusp<<< call me cuspin...

iri<<< ok... funny you should ask me that, cuspin... a cop asked me the exact same thing a couple hours ago...

(pause)

cusp<<< hope there wasn't any trouble, maam...

iri<<< call me iricoila...

cusp<<< oh... ok... hope there wasn't any unpleasantness...

iri<<< well, cuspin... sorry to disappoint you, but there was... there was in fact a little unpleasantness...

(pause)

cusp<<< would it help to go into it?

(pause)

iri<<< that, my dearest cuspin, is an extremely provocative question... no one has ever asked it of me...

(another 4'33'')

cusp<<< did you say it was going to be a full moon tonight, iricoila?

(pause)

iri<<< how silent must hearts beat for the veins to hear the sea's language?

(pause)

iri<<< what vellum cities does the v use in the salty folds of its soft timeless meter?

(pause) 

cusp<<< you're referring to the tides, maam?  the waves?

iri<<< my name isn't "maam", cuspin...

cusp<<< oh right... pardon me, iricoila.

ra<<< my name is not "iricoila" either...

(extremely long pause)

cusp<<< any chance you know when the spliced hoof of poseidon become a readymade fantasy-ache? 

iri<<< pulsing to be dreamt near the widest place in the inter-state?

cusp<<< where the v veins just referred to like the l laughs and loves?

(pause)

cusp<<< do you remember facebook, by chance?

(pause)

iri<<< exactly, cuspin... you nailed it... it's just like the liking behaviors chronicled in classic facebook mythology...

(cusp and iri discreetly move a few inches closer...)

(note from dramaturg: "every play has inexhaustible layers, most of them unspeakably private, intimate, secret, unfathomable, shipwrecked, etc...")

(written by the actors themselves)

(intermission)




?





















epi/aft b


"was there confusion?"  

it was one of the first things that people usually asked.  was there music?  carefully selected?  carefully awaited and listened to?  or was it just a radio playing somewhere in the background?  

heavy matters, heavy matters, as the shepherd in the winter's tale puts it.  he would have appreciated iricoila and cuspin immediately.  

so the mythos continues, thru countless other cities and seasons.  they lose and find each other many times.  sometimes they get lost in the crowd.  they are caught in storms, often shipwrecked, have to spend 

time in the hospital, visit relatives, secure low-income housing and food for the winter, etc.  

they do so.  

the night remains undefined, though.  an unspoken awareness threads the next needle: 


epi/aft 5

Obsessed, bewildered

By the shipwreck
Of the singular

We have chosen the meaning
Of being numerous

--George Oppen, Of Being Numerous (1968)

pier into the vastness  (a late night exchange between almost perfect strangers, continued)

the setting: undetermined spacetime. iricoila and cuspin are still at the far end of a splintered boardwalk unraveling out into the atlantic. they are now close enough to touch each other but don't. 


iri<<< (staring at the ocean) speaking of nailing it, "There are things/We live among and to see them/is to know ourselves.'"



(pause)

iri<<< (glancing at cusp, then back at the ocean) "So spoke of the existence of things, an unmanageable pantheon..." 


(pause)

iri<<< or so they say...

cusp<<< (looking behind iri back toward the shore line) 
"To dream of that beach/For the sake of an instant in the eyes"...


cusp<<< (glancing at iri) "The absolute singular/The unearthly bonds/Of the singular"...

(pause)

cusp<<< (looking behind iri back toward the shore line again"Which is the bright light of shipwreck"... 

(pause)

cusp<<< (glancing at iri again) or so they say...

(pause)

(cusp and iri look extensively into each other's eyes for the first time)

iri<<< or so they say...

cusp<<< (looking out onto the ocean then back at iri) "Obsessed, bewildered//By the shipwreck/Of the singular//We have chosen the meaning/Of Being numerous"... 

iri<<< (looking into cusp's eyes) what does it mean, liam?

(cusp takes one of iri's hands, lightly grasping a few fingers)

cusp<<< (looking into iri's eyes) what does it mean, azzie?

(pause)

iri<<< (gesturing directly behind her at the pier) perhaps the audience knows...

(as if by cue both turn around to face the length of the pier with the ocean behind them)

cusp<<< (staring straight ahead at the pier) perhaps this play is the play within the play...

iri<<< (laughing) how lucky we would be!

cusp<<< (laughing) indeed...

(pause)

iri<<< (turning to cusp) if this play is the play within the play, which of the audiences shall we ask about the meaning of being numerous?

cusp<<< oh...golly...all of them, I would think...we could ask the audience for the play within the play as well as the audience for the play...as well as the audience for the play that we are now writing...

iri<<< which is us...

(pause)

iri<<< we are the audience for the play we are now writing together from very great distances...

cusp<<< yes... that seems to be the case...

(pause)

cusp<<< distance gives us time and space and clarity...

(pause)

cusp<<< "Clarity"...

cusp<<< "In the sense of transparence / I don't mean that much can be explained"...

cusp<<< "Clarity in the sense of silence"...

iri<<< sure...clarity...time and space...Silence...

iri<<< (looking at cusp) "what is communication?...is what's clear to me clear to you?...what is important?"...

(4'33 goes by)

iri<<< (staring at the ground) why do I feel so...

(pause)

iri<<< like I've lost something... yes... there is much to be gained by being in any good play, of course... and this is a sublime one, no question...  I'm always looking forward... i love it... the visualization, the dialogue, memorizing my lines, blocking it out on the stage... distilling the essence of moments... of gestures... of scenes... of entire bodies of work... a whole lifetime in the theater... and all the other plays that will be revealed by the play I am presently in... but something happened, cuspin... is happening... that redefined my dreams and instinct for drama. an unfathomable play within the present play inexplicably came to the foreground... it felt so charged to be in a play where almost anything was literally possible. the borders between plays became blurred. but now it seems to be over, or we're in a part 2 that is being written as we speak, and like all the plays within the plays, that first play is in the background again, as plays within the plays are by definition. i miss the play within the play being in the ostensible foreground and being forced now to reorganize everything around it in reverb. also, there seems to be no urgency or desire to live at the foreground. i think i have the urgency and desire but am scared of it, somehow, and i don't feel it coming from...um, the other actors, so...i'm getting... numb... nervous... anxious.  what kind of blurring could happen if the secret play within the play was always unfolding? i'm scared to even ask that question! i guess i overstated the facts in that other play; i/we are not "all in."


(pause)


cusp<<< azzie?

iri<<< yes, liam?

cusp<<< every play has inexhaustible layers, most of them unspeakably private, intimate, secret, unfathomable, shipwrecked, etc....

(pause)

iri<<< for which play are we now unraveling all of this, do you think?

cusp<<< it's hard to say. there is always another play at play, of course...


(iri and cusp smile. they both look ahead at the long pier ahead of them.)

iri<<< the script says that if we decide to walk along the pier we'll begin "to dream of that beach" (gesturing to the shore line). we'll also see the "bright lights of shipwreck" along the pier's edge that are only discernible well after dark. i hear they look a lot like the local pleiades...

cusp<<< let's do it, iricoila...I mean, azzie...I mean...uh...

iri<<< oh cuspin! I mean, liam! I mean...uh...

(cusp and iri walk along the pier away from the ocean, hands touching with fingers lightly clasped)

it should come as no surprise that a number of loyal readers expressed some confusion.  iricoila and cuspin knew that they would probably have to draw on something along the lines of infinite patience.  compassion helps, too.  and brilliance.  calmness.  approachability.  laughter.  there were plenty of these things.  there was never really any need for confusion.  they alternated between highly strange and highly traditional foods. 


epi/aft 6

the deep end trails off; the deep beginning commences   (an interlude)

"obsessed, bewildered, paltry, emaciated, bereft... 

the shipwreck of the singular

meaning has chosen its inverse

instantaneous, shattering..."


-Georgie Porgie [from Puddin' and Pie; Kissing the Black Holes and Re-mapping the eSky (1974, City Lights)]


"lay me down in undetermined space-time, my shipwreck...
we have not chosen our meanings.
the numbers are either too vast or too intimate.

the intro-versions lie scattered here and there on the beach, 
some of them bone-dry and splintered,
others slick and sure with the inky spew g-forms 

of the Kracken's secret message to 
unnamed and uncertain starry-eyed lovebirds..."

iri<<< uh... ok... go on...

cusp<<< unravel your separate selves out into the Atlantic...
come on... gracefully lower your singular selves down into the Interior... this black hole of mythology... these famished jaws dripping with orgies...

(relatively long pause)  

iri<<< (looking into cusp's eyes) what in god's name does it mean, cusp?

(cusp takes one of iri's hands, lightly grasping a few fingers)

cusp<<< (looking into iri's eyes) why do you want to know, kitten?

(pause)

iri<<< (gesturing directly behind her at the pier) perhaps the audience knows...

(as if by cue both turn around to face the length of the pier with the ocean behind them)

cusp<<< (staring straight ahead at the pier) perhaps this moment is the lightning flash that instigates the tsunami...

iri<<< (laughing) how lucky we would be!

cusp<<< (laughing) indeed...

(pause)

iri<<< (turning to cusp) if this little tsunami is the impetus behind the possible aftershocks of our encounter this evening, which of the storm chasers shall we ask about the meaning of certain anonymous shipwrecks? or certain ships that just disappeared into thin air?  or certain ships that never launched, despite being fully rigged out, fully staffed, fully fueled and booked... 

cusp<<< oh...golly...all of them, I would think...we could also ask the monster chasers in pursuit of the mythological Kracken...

iri<<< uh... that might be a little too scary... kinda like your earlier question...

cusp<<< which one?

iri<<< the one about us getting dropped via helicopter into the exact center of the Atlantic, late at night, with only a single life vest between us....

cusp<<< HOLY MOLEY!!! did I really ask that???

iri<<< you did, cuspy cusp.

cusp<<< oh man... was i stoned?

iri<<< no, honey... you were perfectly... i might even say appallingly lucid....

(pause)

iri<<< are we perhaps the lovers to which the deep-sea myth refers?

(long pause)

cusp<<< i would not be totally shocked, iri darling.

iri<<< a little bit shocked, then?

cusp<<< yeah... ok...  maybe a little bit shocked.

(pause)

iri<<< you're accustomed, then, to seeing your life thru a mythological lens?

(pause)

cusp<<< uh....

(pause)

cusp<<< let me see here...

(pause)

cusp<<< ok... it's precisely the lack of any identifiable lens that automatically puts life into the mythological realm...

(pause)

cusp<<< so it's not so much something i'm doing or using so much as... er... something i'm not doing or using... 

(pause)

iri<<< i get that.  kinda.

cusp<<< sometimes it offers a certain measure of calmness... of clarity...

(pause)

iri<<< "clarity"...

cusp<<< "in the sense of transparence / i don't mean that much can be explained"...

cusp<<< "clarity in the sense of a near perfect silence"...  per john cage.


iri<<< sure... clarity... time and space... emptiness... stillness... the darkness communing with an even more absolute darkness...


cusp<<< uh...


iri<<< (looking sternly at cusp) what is communication, anyways, dude?... is what's clear to me clear to you?... what in holy hell is important to keep an eye out for in a storm system like this one?


(4'33 goes by)

iri<<< (staring at the ground) why do I feel so...

(pause)

iri<<< like I've lost something... lost... something.  (long pause)  who knows?  maybe everything!  yes, there is much to be gained by being caught in a storm, of course, and I'm always multi-tasking so as to avoid a major catastrophe... the other drivers, the highway, the weather, the controls, the music, etc... cryptic texts and images streaming thru my skull, night and day... the chance meetings, the play-acting, memorizing my lines, opening and closing night, the little rendezvous in the dressing room, the bump and grind back at the hotel, and all the other gigs that will stem from just being here, alive, at this moment, on this pier, with a near perfect stranger... obsessed... bewildered... multiversal... climbing into bed with black holes and waking up with god-damn pleiades!... but look... no, look at me... something happened that redefined my instinct for drama... an unfathomable play within the play came to the ostensible foreground... I felt so happy to be in a play where for once anything seemed to be possible... the borders between lines... between the cast... became fluid and blurred.  by the end of the run, there was nothing but wide open ocean and ether... maybe a moon now and then... maybe some low-flying helicopters... maybe some circling orcas... but now that play seems to be over, or we're in a new variation that is being written/lived/analyzed/edited/anthologized as we speak, and like all the plays within the plays, one of those creative impulses is in the ostensible background again, as creative impulses always are by definition... pulsing... always pulsing... re-absorbed into the work... then the next round... the creation... the massive waves... the catastrophe... gosh... sorta reminds me of those lines by leonard cohen... let's see... how do they go... hold on a second... (pause)  ok, something like this... "I'm turnin' tricks / I'm gettin' fixed / I'm back on Boogie Street / you lose your grip / and then you slip / into the masterpiece..."

cusp<<< yeah, i iove that one... (pause) look, iricoila, i also miss the play within the play being in the ostensible foreground and reorganizing all of this electricity around it in reverb and gerhard richter techniques and thematics... the sense of urgency and desire sometimes can become convoluted when the x factors of space-time and dual-identity eclipse the immediate life-threat of an actual storm... the urgency and desire are always there but sometimes i'm scared of the over-all context, ya know?  and i don't sense that same fear coming from...um, the other actors, so... yeah... maybe I'm getting a little bit nervous.  a lot of reckless mother-fuckers out there in the theater world, as you know!

(pause)


cusp<<< azzie?

iri<<< yes, liam?

cusp<<< every play has inexhaustible layers, most of them undefined, unacknowledged, untapped, unexpressed...

(pause)

iri<<< which audience are we now playing for, do you think?

(long pause)

cusp<<< that's hard to say, kitten... let's let the academy answer that one!

(iri and cusp laugh uncontrollably for approximately 4 minutes and 34 seconds.  cusp puts his arm around iri.  they turn toward the open sea.  they fall asleep standing up.)




epi/aft 7


the night tulip's soliloquy 


the soil mass is to atlas as i was once to 

homeless in purified drafts the immune 

system cradles me hole without patterns
the same lines i am folding, flowering

out across ancient organs play 
the sea with motives re-inversed

by the black keys swallowed under the
garden close is as far as the 

seeing eye acid rain codes the nu
ecological standards....

maybe i am the flower and everything else 
is the simple flow towards electricity!

reliquify over the spectrum,
the burnished colors reading

the nomad, new found wanders
thru freedoms never acquired officially

memory saturates as fragility
unfolds the intimate and once-only 

latchkey turning timeless, anonymous,
copied only in dream states

question, answer the slew in age
as it signs off for the evening

familiar with all of us,
single, plural, skeletal, axial, prurient,

together our diamonds make opal bones 
out of recycling. together our stem cells

create lizard stars out of prisms,
and cyclops gazes out into its own 

rough infinity!  meet the dark gardener
gently spreading the roots of the hybrid,

dear voids as our lines couple like
fated companions in solitude.


epi/aft 8

the dream they dream while asleep together standing up

"meaning is instantaneous, shattering..."
--anonymous

undetermined, the two of us here 
and there on the beach, sure with 
secret messages from the stars
uh...

"go on...
unravel the Atlantic...
come on...
lower into the Interior
Mythology dripping
with black holes..."

(time has no meaning in the dream)

iri<<< (looking into cusp's eyes) what constellation would you call the pattern of lights I see in your dark eyes?

cusp<<< (looking into iri's eyes) upon waking, kitten? or when we are asleep?

(pause)

iri<<< (gesturing directly behind her at the pier) perhaps the audience knows...

(as if by cue both turn around to face the length of the pier with the ocean behind them)

iri<<< (staring straight ahead at the pier) perhaps these patterns of lights that I see...do not comprise a constellation but a star cluster...called pleiades... how lucky we would be!

cusp<<< (laughing) indeed...

(timeless pause)

iri<<< (turning to cusp) cuspy?

cusp<<< yes, kitten?

iri<<< maybe we are the deep sea...

cusp<<< sure, sure...

(timeless pause)

iri<<< you're accustomed, then, to seeing your life thru a mythological lens?

(pause)

cusp<<< uh....

(pause)

cusp<<< let me sea here...

(pause)

cusp<<< ok... it's precisely the lack of any identifiable lens that automatically puts life into the mythological realm...

(pause)

cusp<<< so it's not so much something i'm doing or using so much as... er... something i'm not doing or using... 

(pause)

iri<<< oh, i think I sea. the lack of a controlling lens frees you...to sea with any spectacle you happen to choose...pleiades, crab nebula, orion, horse head, etc... 

cusp<<< sometimes it offers a certain measure of calmness... of clarity...

(pause)

iri<<< okay. in the sense of a near perfect silence... the darkness communing with an even more absolute darkness...

cusp<<< uh...

iri<<< so, how exactly... um... is it even...possible...for azzie to be a part of liam's... uh... what's the word for it... solitude? would it be like when we were on the bench that night at the beach?  is what's clear to me clear to you?

(timeless pause) 

iri<<<  i guess there's nothing to lose. I fell so fast that I went directly down through the ocean, the deep sea, down into the seabed, then the underwater volcanoes, and then through the hollow and pulsing core of the earth, which led me to more oceans as I ascended, and then land, and now infinite space, since the planet is a sphere...

cusp<<< uh..

(4'33 goes by)

iri<<< (staring at the ground) why do I feel so...

(pause)

ra<<< something.  (long pause)  who knows?  maybe everything!  yes, there is much to be gained by cryptic texts and images streaming thru my mineral skull, the little rendezvous in the dressing room, from just being here, alive, at this moment, on this pier, multiversal... climbing into bed with black holes and waking up with god-damn pleiades!... but look... no, look at me... 

cusp<<< how exactly does one look at another in a dream?

(pause)

cusp<<< look, iricoila, i also miss the play within the play being in the ostensible foreground and reorganizing all of this electricity around it in reverb and gerhard richter techniques and thematics... 

iri<<< you do? 

cusp<<< yes. but...

iri<<< yes, liam?

liam<<< the sense of urgency and desire sometimes can become convoluted when the x factors of space-time and dual-identity 

azzie<<< what do you mean by dual-identity?

liam<<< the sense of urgency and desire sometimes can become convoluted when the x factors of space-time and dual-identity eclipse the immediate situation... urgency and desire are always there, but sometimes i'm scared of the over-all context, ya know?  

azzie<<< what do you mean? 

liam<<< i don't sense that same fear coming from...um, the other actors, so... yeah... maybe I'm getting a little bit nervous.  a lot of reckless mother-fuckers out there in the theater world, as you know!

(pause)

iri<<< i don't really understand, but i'm trying. i feel your feelings changing. i hear that you're nervous. am i too reckless? am i ignoring the over-all context? one minute we were talking about sailing together, etc. the next minute, it could be months before we even see each other again! and you were so firm about not being with me while i finished my book. i understand why, but i also felt the tides shift. i don't know what's going on. i think i need more clarity, transparency. if this isn't right for you, please tell me. please, please?

cusp<<< every dream has inexhaustible layers, most of them undefined, unacknowledged, untapped, unexpressed...

(pause)

iri<<< including this one...

(pause)

azzie<<< finding a language for a dream is like finding a language for a poem. i miss sleeping with you. then getting tired and telling each other we need to sleep. waking up and feeling our desires. maybe acting on them or sleeping more. i miss waking up with you. touching your skin. looking at you. being touched. the moment. "undetermined, the two of us here." which audience are we now playing for?

(long pause)

liam<<< that's hard to say. let's let the academy answer that one.

(liam and azzie go to sleep in their dream.)




epi/aft 9

the astronomers' late-night symposium  (a sense of ludic joy/wisdom bubbling up around and inside of the interlude)

cusp<<< ok... i think i see what's happening, kitten... a brilliant and subversive move on your part, for sure...

iri<<< go on, then... unravel me...

cusp<<< first of all, and most importantly... there is no so-called "constellation" around here.  we're in a corner of the galaxy where all the celestial bodies are radically unmoored, unfixed, unhinged, and unhinging... a low-gravity site, as it were... like you explained to pyramid in your interview... chagall would be happy here... he would probably be painting this...

iri<<< what?

cusp<<< this sense of drift...

iri<<< what about the traditional 5?

cusp<<< ok... let's go thru them, one by one... let's try and understand how they fit into this equation... first off, iricoila, in your plain brown beautiful dress... let me touch your soft arms... your soft neck.... let me slowly lean in and smell your hair... and your cheeks... i can hear you breathing... and i can taste your lips, even in this brief offline exchange... and then the sixth sense... whatever that is... and then this profound sense of drift...

(pause)

iri<<< the stars don't stay fixed?

cusp<<< just have a look in my eyes... feel my eyes with your fingers... taste my eyes on your teeth... listen to my eyes quietly absorbing the vastness that trickles in from your naked ephemera...

(she does so)

iri<<< wow.  you're right.  holy moley!  it's an entirely different nebula now than it was just a minute ago!

cusp<<< it's like the waves... and the clouds... and the moon... and the foam... and the sand... and the bubbles... and the enveloping creatures... a handful of core elements, endlessly drifting... and playing... recombining... absorbing... transmuting... transcending... embodying...

(pause)

iri<<< uh...ok.  i get that.  kinda.

cusp<<< i know you do.  kinda.

iri<<< so what's clear to me's clear to you?

cusp<<< kinda.

iri<<< it's a pretty dynamic system...

cusp<<< way way beyond our control, bunny...

iri<<< yeah... that was pretty clear right away... even though the sense of so-called urgency and the sense of so-called desire can sometimes become convoluted when the x factors of space-time and dual-identity are allowed the sense of drift and freedom that they need and deserve...

cusp<<< wait- what do you mean by dual-identity?

iri<<< nothing other than multiversality.

cusp<<< oh... ok... i think i get it...

iri<<< perfect... and accurate.  because, as you probably know, nobody ever actually gets it...

cusp<<< yeah... i sensed that.

iri<<< ok, then... wowsers, cuspin... how many have we mentioned already?  there's the seeing... the hearing... the touching... the tasting... the smelling... the drifting... the desiring... the urging... the playing... the recombining... the absorbing... the transmuting... the transcending... the embodying... the alchemy...

cusp<<< that's a pretty good start, babe...

iri<<< indeed.

(pause)

cusp<<< what was that other thing that you asked about?

iri<<< let me see here... oh yeah... something along the lines of " i don't really understand, but i'm trying".... or  "i feel your feelings changing" ... or the classic "am i simply too reckless?"

cusp<<< no.  you're perfect.  i love you just the way that you are.

iri<<< but am i ignoring the over-all context? 

cusp<<< how can you ignore something that has hardly even come into focus?  do you realize how new this is?  and like a one day old tulip or infant, how fragile?  how miraculous?  it's not our job to understand, kitten... it's our job to just allow it to happen...

iri<<< "i don't know what's going on. i think i need more clarity, transparency. if this isn't right for you, please tell me. please, please?"

cusp<<< haven't i been basically telling you everything from the first authentic encounter?

iri<<< yeah... i guess.

cusp<<< also perfect.  and accurate... because, as you probably know, nobody ever actually guesses it...

(they continue to dream together, standing up.  at a certain point the wind picks up and they are blown down to the pier.  luckily iri packed some extra blankets and they wrap themselves up in the darkness.  meaning is instantaneous, shattering.  the stars continue to wander.  pleiades, crab nebula, orion, horse head... these are all just as mutable as the words in this ostensible transcript.) 

(note from dramaturg: at this point the audience and readers finally stop asking questions.  not because they now "understand" what is happening, but because it's late.  there has been quite a bit of new information presented.  a slew of names and new faces, an ocean of distinct and discreet potentials for nu intersection.  bp nichols did his job well.  he knew what was necessary without even having been told!  iricoila continued her intensive study of particle physics.  she was invited to CERN and she asked cuspin to join her.  once again, he was very much between so-called "heavy commitments" so he tagged along, and they both ended up learning an enormous amount.  upon returning, iricoila conducted a few public poetry workshops, and cuspin commenced a new series of satellite images.  it made sense, and it didn't.  it leaked out into the ecology.  all of this time, money, and energy.  what will it be put to next?    


epi/aft 10

the physics of darkness 

iri<<< (next to cusp on her back looking at the sky; both are under blankets) wow, well, thank goodness you can so easily...and gracefully...bring back into focus the Saint Heart of Darkness (Anti)Matters at hand! 

(pause)

iri<<< I guess I needed some reassurances...and sensitive reminders of the instincts we have been cultivating...

(pause)

iri<<< (turning toward cusp, her head now resting on his chest) hey, cusp... thanks for the transparency. and the brill creativity and intelligence. and the tenderness...

cusp<<< no prob...

(they rest for a while.)

iri<<< (after a while) liam?

cusp<<< yeah, azzie?

iri<<< in terms of physics, an object is said to be dark when it absorbs photons, causing it to appear dim compared to other objects...

(pause)

iri<<< is darkness more than a matter of perception in relation to the light spectrum? when you use the term metaphorically, what do you mean? also, does dark matter drift?

cusp<<< hm, well, 

iri<<< (interrupts) wait, let's talk about that later...

cusp<<< okay, kitten...

iri<<< I just asked that because I was filling in the space with words...to step in for the other words that I want to say...

cusp<<< oh, yeah...? 

iri<<< i love you. and thank you for loving me as I am.  I'm head over heels for Saint Heart of the Darkness Community!

cusp<<< (laughs) haha...

iri<<< plus, i'm totally in love with liam as well... 

cusp<<< wowsers, iri....

(pause)

iri<<< maybe i shouldn't be typing that in a play within a play within a play within a dream within a dream within a dream...

(long pause)

cusp<<< does liam even know?

iri<<< he does now! (laughs) no, seriously, liam has, like, known this for forever...

(cusp and iri kiss. it makes them feel...mutable. their tongues and mouths...lace. meaning is instantaneous. everything...wanders...)



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