epi/aft c

at this point the action fades.

everything becomes more mysterious.

you were probably expecting something, and then guess what- it turned into something radically different.  unforseeable.  cryptic.  good dramatists do that, you realize. they like to mess with people's heads.  their space, their time, their identity.  they like to pick you up by the scruff of your neck, bring you up to eye level, blink a few times, and say nothing.  hold you there for awhile.  set you back down in an entirely different part of the landscape.


epi/aft 11

one random version of the so-called "heart" of the matter

if forced to reveal my metaphor...

well...

this is the best i can do:

darkness = mystery

...............................

(contextual note: cuspin has clearly been influenced by the various "writings" of taoism, as well as those wordless things and non-things to which the various "writings" purport to refer.  here are three different translations of the first verse of the tao te ching.  note how different dimensions/elements of iricoila's question are addressed by each one.)

__________

the tao that can be told

is not the eternal Tao.

the name that can be named

is not the eternal Name.

the unnameable is the eternally real.

naming is the origin 

of all particular things.

free from desire, you realize the mystery.

caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

yet mystery and manifestations 

arise from the same source.

this source is called darkness.

darkness within darkness.

the gateway to all understanding.

(stephen mitchell)

________

the way can be spoken of

but it will not be the constant way.

the name can be named,

but it will not be the constant name.

the nameless was the beginning of the myriad creatures;

the named was the mother of the myriad creatures.

hence constantly rid yourself of desires 

in order to observe its subtlety;

but constantly allow yourself to have desires

in order to observe what it is after.

these two have the same origin but but differ in name.

they are both called dark;

darkness upon darkness;

the gateway to all that is subtle.

(d.c lau)

______________

the way that becomes a way

is not the Immortal Way

the name that becomes a name

is not the Immortal Name

the maiden of heaven and earth has no name

the mother of all things has a name

thus in innocence we see the beginning

in passion we see the end

two different names

for one and the same

the one we call dark

the dark beyond dark

the door to all beginnings

(red pine)

______________

?

epi/aft 12

the so-called "heart" of the matter in the fourth dimension

1. 

the heart that can be summoned

will not even understand what you're saying.

the identity that can be solidified

ends up in the same museum eventually.

the unnameable is the eternally real.

naming is the origin 

of all particular things.

free from identity, you realize the emptiness.

caught in anonymity, you see only the manifestations.

yet identity and anonymity 

arise from the same intangible city.

this city is sometimes referred to as wilderness.

wilderness within civilization.

the paradox of all understanding.

(evan raymer)

________

2.

the way can be written over 
but it will not be the imp of pure creativity.  
the name can be subsumed, without effort, 
but it will not be the name recorded by "history." 

the nameless was the beginning and end 
of the library; the named was the mother 
of the deep wilderness already referred to.

hence constantly observe perfect stillness,
silence, darkness, emptiness, solitude,  

in order to observe language's subtle liquidity. 

but constantly allow yourself to utterly abandon
these practices in order to observe what
the many languages flow toward outside perpetuity.

these two have the same origin but differ 
in something that cannot be identified.

they both emerged from the ocean;

liquid inside deeper liquidity.

(jason)

______________

3.

the way that becomes a way

is not the Immortal Way

the name that becomes a name

is not the Immortal Name

the maiden of heaven and earth has no name

the mother of all things has a name

thus in innocence we see the beginning

in passion we see the end

two different names

for one and the same

the one we call dark

the dark beyond dark

the door to all beginnings

(red pine)

______________

4.

the emergence of language

is not apriori recognizable Language.

the name undefined is formatted

almost free from infinity.

that which has no name

names itself. desire deepens and 

opens its own place in the syzygy.

the suspension and stimulation

of desire is "the darkness of mystery" 
unformed free from what wanderers
keep calling "infinity."

when matter interacts with 

a photon, darkness is given

a nu nickname: "lite."

darkness and light arise from

the same unknowable source.

the gravity-matter of language 
unnames even 
itself.

(iricoila)

_____________

?

epi/aft 13

deep time

the emergence of so-called "separate" continents

happened imperceptibly over billions of years.

too much of the pure dialectic 

and people just end up back in babel.

language 1 is not apriori 

in the sense that language 2 is 

ostensibly hiding its cards.

both play close to the vest.

the gold medal refined is formatted

without recourse to infinity.

that which has no name

names itself. desire excavates 

its own mystery.

the suspension and stimulation

of desire is akin to "music formed 

from a cosmos-ladder of spaces."

when dust interacts with 

a photon, darkness is given

a nu language: light.

darkness and light arise from

the same unspeakable source.

language 3 unnames even silence.

deep.time.eventually.restores. 

what.is.fractured?






?

idutowrnsya

i shall edge behind them said william

i shall not overstate them said nathalie

as if "i" or "u" actually noticed some person we gavelled once

inside draughts of oblivion 

the door is cracked and then gently opened

the tiger leaps 

o the horror

let me then visit you furtively

treasures laid apart from the huddle

world of moons

verses cited

arts of absolutional healing

empty phrases cracked and forced open

of course in deed there is paradox

masquerades as peeled-back psychobiography

the best work speaks intimately

even though it's been laid out for and by oth-ers

to rivet/edit/termite the properties of 
the matter/antimatter conundrum speaks

for large scale asymmetries coiled down there 

at the core level of nothing...

it is the ground as the "medium" that holds one being inside of another; 
the nameless poem as the adventure outside the draft of pure gravity;

fling free what is ventured.

when the fire burns, the stone shines.

and when the fire fades, the dust that is leftover hides.

its light goes to the sun, 

and its breath of night becomes wind.

the scientific method is simple.

a characteristic wavelength of echoes.

we do not know precisely how far away 

these phenomena are ob-or-under-de-serviced.

this table of predications calls out to the telegraphs.

an "immortality pillar" collapses around the eco-minor depression.

dense squid-like minerals solidify and telescope gradually,

fall to the pavement, re-establish the ur-erotic container...

and sleep, for a moment, the collision of vibrating theories,

strings encountered in play,

instruments designed for re-ibarbelith-leasing... 


...
...
...



so,

now, 

ancient friend, 

as a proof of my susceptibility,
here, in this room, very much alive and alone,
on the bed, with your book resting on the pillow beside me,
my gown lying negligently over the back of the chair,
seeking stories, imagining that you are still far away,
these environs remember what it was like at the edge of the spacepod,
the old irrational world streaming past us, alchemical,
light and dark to the touch, unrewarded,
high quality co-gas, like the crystal of lidless victorian tableware,
is often used in lost hyper-iatlas defections, 
mini-volcanoes of electrons, photons, wormholes, and positrons,
which unearth the brand-nu secrets until all the 'why?'s 
have been dissipated...

whenever light happens- that is, whenever a debt is forgiven-
a thrust enters history- it either begins for the first time
or commences again without fanfare.
beholding, beheld, worshiped, or nearly frittered away,
like blue carbon density, lower than x's critical value,
the multiverse will continue to extend past anonymously,
intertextual, simultaneous, diachronic, repeatable...

the background image is layered over by formless convection, 
a fine scum sinking back but slowly collecting nevertheless...

the sea scales the chemistry's particular view of the spectrum, 
a theory of how to vanish in the blink of an eyeless epiphany...

.......
.......
.......

a poignant shadow, by my body, vagrant and chilled to perfection,
soon upending, soon fading, somewhere it touches
the innermost edge of the forest: a meeting-place,
past and present, a third-class passenger ticket
full of tiny forms heading home for the profligate holidays...

a greedy mind sees rare treasures
a surprised mind sees raccoons and whitenesses
reveling quietly in an all-soul's-blanket-evening of mercy

work is inside
then outside
don't be afraid to look foolish
just keep on reveling, dervishing,
a host inside of the party,
so immense that even its dilutions are homeopathic,
lost in steerage, haven't read, haven't heard, haven't witnessed...

what was needed was detection before 
terms were officially i.d.'d without chambers
the operation is always intimated 
by the cycle of the accelerator that feeds it
the delay between minimum pressure
and the hypnotic flesh allows bubbles
to expand enough to show up in nexus-rays.

meanwhile, the hammer claw traverses in toward the yogurt
and the ifilm is automatically wound to the next available frame; a brief pause; a new law; does not exhaust creativity's ratios; or transform our accustomed ties to a world or an earth; words and terms cannot reach it and cannot be seen by the "I"; one hundred and one subtle ways derive from the cleft heart; here be dragons; quantum gravity; higher dust evocations; opaque nucleosynthesis; 'fireball' radiation; a single point; a torn map; peering back into space; fermions are distinguished from the force carriers, bosons, by an orbital spin-off; leptons and quarks make good neighbors; the second house down on the left is a "strange" incarnation but the "weather" around there is subtly charmed; uncanny superpositions upon the sequence of triangularity's undying theme:

not this, not that, not now, not ever, not cognizant

can the question and answers of the nu psychoanalysis- the dark surfing thru the forces of repetition, desire, etc- be disentangled from the fissures of figure-and-ground style languaging?

well well well-

now i see...

the "point of no return" becomes laughable.
the "process of life" becomes tangible.
the moment of sharing, of yielding, 
of physical and psychic attunement,
optic nerves twined around and between 
the black rivers, a spent lithosphere formed
and then formless across magnetic fee renderings...

the map showed a series of ridges and canyons
appearing like parallel stories on the opposing
quarto, verso, picto, and hollo...

direction of sea plates, oceanic rifts, magma rises, etc;

transform 
the 
semi-
innocent 
fault 
line, 

etc...

(words are never fixed stars.)

u are never alone in the water.

mandalas

[excerpt from 1986 interview between calvin trill and evan raymer]

"... my *look*, believe it or not, more and more began to resemble a sandbox of semi-random or time-warped ideas... a sand of forms... a *sand labyrinth*... or... even a classic sand mandala-face... as it were... if you will... maybe... not..."     (pause)     "...colored sand, you were sayin?"  "not really, evan..."  "not (really?) natural sand?"  "no... *totally* natural, totally immersion-based sand..."  "my 'look'... if it's even accurate to identify it by such a name any more... very slowly began to conform to other people's notion of what is sometimes referred to as *the good life*..."    (pause)    "you hanker after *the good life* on occasion then?"        (pause)        "naw... i got that completely out of my system during that year in new orleans..."  "oh, I see..."  "no, calvin... i don't (really?) think that you do..."  "fair enough..."  "i suppose... that's always been one of my ostensible strong points..."  "who told you that?"                 "people."                 "which people?"                 "certain people down by the interstate overpass... anonymous network of swamps... semi-linked paths to oblivion..."  "sand mandalas as in temporary, eventually blown/washed away by the elements?"  "pretty much classically transient..."  "crouched down low to the earth and the mud and all that?"         (pause)         "so low, in fact, that most people can't detect..."                      (wait)                  "...can't detect what?"  "that the so-called look was in essence, or at its core, *coming apart at the seams*... at its spine..."  *that sounds pretty serious...*  "well, evan... what can i say?  i'm a *relatively serious sculptor*..."  "but you have your light-hearted side, too..."  "that's just another part of being a relatively serious sculptor..."             ("incredibly long pause")           "people still go to disney movies in droves, do they not?"       "evan... disney movies are *the bomb*..."       "shoulda known that..."       "yeah... shoulda kept that knowledge tucked away in the studio..."     "not fair... not radical... not in step with *the good life*..."  "f the ostensible good life, you lepton..."  "ok...  (pause)  ...i will then..."  "i will them to appear and make tears inside the mandala..."  "you're a mind reader, calvin..."  "yeah... that's always been one of my ostensible strong points..."

spectrum

it began (o as usual) with a couple of innocent fevered blue ray-wilderness lyrics:

...when i grow up
i want to be a forester
run thru the moss on high heels
that's what i'll do
throwin' out a boomerang
waiting for it to come back to me...

(and then, for those in the know, the actual sound of the boomerang, hurled out, with great force, spinning wildly, rapidly, disappearing once more thru the lattice of purple shadows and leavings.)

...so splintered ...so what does that mean for the wilderness?...

took the splice around back to the little woodland we conjured there.  put on an ipod stuffed with hard-core, glitch, and emo.  greensward appeared to be following quietly.  nobody appeared to be reluctantly leading.  the soft hum, blending overnight with the sway of the canyon, the hacked-to-pieces gently tumbled in with the glistening tendrils and spiderwebs.

...i want to live near the sea
crab claws and bottles of rum
that's what i'll portray...

...staring at the sea with shell...

...waiting for it to embrace these ...

oh sure, private names...
oh all the way... dynamite hidden between certain memories...
what about uncertain memories? 

i put my soul in what i do
last night i drew a funny man 
with dark eyes and a hanging tongue
it goes way back...

...it never liked that sad look
from some poor ancient sky-god 
who wants/needs/dreams about 
being loved by you at some point...

it began, started spinning, well-designed/ carved/ oiled/ painted/ and executed, spinning madly, ecstatically, thru the brilliant fall colors, flaming and dropping like spent flares at the bare feet of our anonymous "mailbox."  

it put my soul in what x does also.  (didn't know there was any other alternative!)

it goes way back indeed.

reschedule me pretty please

a system

b system

c system

d system

e henry marston, historically known as the “person”-

f “I regarded him as a powerful ally.”  

g and then a similar phrase repeated over again, systematically,

h this time without the incoherent italics: to wit,

i regarded him as an occasional semi-powerful alloy.

(questions upon which to buoy up ancient civilizations.)

my original intention was to secure lodgings downtown. a person b person c person d person etc. is alive and needs shelter, alive and requires some sort of reliable fuel source. a great window, overlooking a great river also, whispers something- what is it? what is the transparency whispering? wish i knew, i heard her saying... wish i had something semi-concrete to show for it...

...your skeleton isn't enough? (I respond.) your finger nails? your eyeballs? oh, those things are more than enough... wish i didn't have so much detritus backed up on the hard drive. (she responds.) well, dump it back into the ocean, then. all of it? no. just a representative sample. will you help me select? dunno- how long you think it's going to take? dunno- it depends on how carefully i want to comb thru your archives...


not a woodland... a valley.
not a valley... a watercourse.
not water, of course, and not necessarily taoism either.
not necessarily taoism and not necessarily not taoism's ancient mosaic and library.
not culture, not ether, not animal, not vegetable, not mineral.
is that enough information?
no, not nearly enough information.

a indeed this may have been a mistake on the anthropologists part.  

b venturing out into nature- indeed, probably another tv-based opportunity lost in the reverberation of lab-based and mind-biased periodic constituents. the table of elements. the fable of an oceanographer's destiny.

c what of henry’s first wave of ideas? second wave of ideas? third wave of ideas? fourth wave of ideas? fifth wave of ideas? sixth wave of ideas? seventh wave of ideas? eighth wave of ideas? ninth wave of of ideas? tenth wave of ideas? eleventh wave of ideas? twelfth wave of ideas? thirteenth wave of ideas? fourteenth wave of ideas? fifteenth wave of ideas? etc?  

d "not the most successful ideas, maybe, I think you were sayin' just a minute ago?" "well, murphy, i suppose that's just another question that the courts will have to decide."

e not the sort of ideas that would inspire a crowd of strangers to gather together?  maybe inside of the home?  or rather, out in public somewhere?  

(the public sphere-share becomes the “arena” in which we are able to “craft” certain ideas. the public skill-share, the crest fall, the star-chamber matter of factnesses.)  

(old people, young people, middle-aged people, other people, other categories and strategies for remaining what is sometimes termed "barely intact.")

f henry marston, the subject/object- gazing out into the emptiness.  

g and then a similar phrase repeated over and over again, this time without the same radii of devastating italics-

h gazing out into the ostensible nothingness.  

what would you do if you were henry?

what would you do if you were no longer henry?

(questions to think about

on one's back in one's dark.)

o citi

burned hand shakes

crumbling bridges

singular

plural

anonymous.

the good, old, and dead world

maybe not so good, old and dead after all...

o horray
o horray
i-e-a-o-u-epiphanies

reclaimed internet sea and dust coinages...

this is how the old world goes to sleep,

falls off the cliff,

jumps the boxcar, etc...

how the new world wakes from sleep,

pauses and waits by the cliff,

waves goodbye to the boxcar disappearing into a system b system c system d system e this may have been a mistake on my part f venturing out into "nature" g indeed maybe another mess of tics and community shudders.  

what about all of henry’s great ideas?

or was there still anyone living there?

the cliff, the canyon, the boxcar, 
the depreciated internet currencies?

what about all of henry’s memories?

were they completely discarded?

hypothesize for me, please, this time it will probably make all of the difference!

o horray
o horray
o come and see where i'm living now

ok, sure...

here’s goes nothing, then, fella! 

the moment he “published” them they were ostensibly "everyone’s"...

the village tailor

the cooper

the cobbler

the goldsmith

the brewer

(powerful friends, terms, and allies)

(repeated over and over again)

systematically.

systematically

systematicall

systematical

systematica

systematic

systemati

systemat

systema

system

syste

syst

sos

so

s

i

l

!

a buggy

(the following conversation kept circling around in my skull last night for some reason.)

cowboy< howdy.
adam< howdy to you.
cowboy< beautiful evenin'.
adam< yeah.
cowboy< sure wanna thank ya fer comin' all the way up here to see me from that nice hotel downtown. 
adam< no problem- what's on your mind?
cowboy< well now!  here's a man who wants to get right down to it!  kinda anxious to get to it, are ya?
adam< whatever.
cowboy< a man's attitude... a man's attitude goes some ways... the way his life will be.  is that somethin' you might agree with?
adam< sure.
cowboy< now did you answer because that's what you thought I wanted to hear, or did you think about what I said, and answer, because you truly believe that to be right?
adam< I agree with what you said... truly.
cowboy< what'd I say?
adam< that a man's attitude determines to a large extent how his life will be.
cowboy< so since you agree, you must be a person who does not... care about the good life.
adam< how's that?
cowboy< well stop for a little second... and think about it.  can you do that for me?
adam< (laughs) ok.  I'm thinkin'.
cowboy< no, you're not thinkin'.  you're too busy bein' a smart alek to be thinkin'.  now I want you to think, and stop bein' a smart alek.  can you try that for me?
adam< look- where is this going?  or what do you want me to do?
cowboy< there's sometimes a buggy... how many drivers does a buggy have?
adam< one.
cowboy< so let's just say I'm drivin' this buggy.  and if you fix your attitude, you can ride along with me...

(it circled deep, long, and extremely late both into the night and my skull.)  

(((((((((((( (((  )))))))))))  (  (( (((((((((   ()))))))))))))))))))) )))))))))))))))))))(((((((((((((            ))))))))) (    (  )))  )()((   )))) ( ( (( ((( )) )   ) ) ) ) ) ) (   ( )  ) ))))( ( ( )))))  (the reasons became clear eventually but I was loathe to acknowledge them.)   )))))))))))  (( ) )))))))))))(((((((((((  ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) (((((((((((())))))))))))))))  ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))     (((((((((((((((((   ((((((((((((((( ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((  )))))))))  ))))))))))))))))))))))))   ((((((((((((   ) )))))))))))))))))