li*to*tes (noun), plural litotes
: understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary (as in "not a bad singer" or "not unhappy")
con*vo*lut*ed (adjective)
1 : having convolutions
2 : INVOLVED, INTRICATE
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I am in a canoe-let me make it clear now that the canoe does not symbolize
my life or any other complicated analogy; simply-I am in a canoe. By
myself. Completely by myself in the sense that I am the only one in the
canoe. I am sitting cross-legged between the two long bars that stretch the
canoe's width and the paddle (with three green k's stenciled on the paddle's
fan-not the KKK) is resting across the width of the canoe. Drops of water
drip, pause, drip from the paddle's edge-I glance over into the water and
can see the seaweed and the ripples on the surface but the surface is merely
the surface and by itself is not interesting and look , there just went a
bluegill. I am in a canoe. I love the way that sounds and I close my eyes
and picture myself spinning and spinning with the sunlight bright and
shining and just spinning as the leavers rustle and all I am thinking is
that I am in a canoe. By myself. And I can feel the wind and the canoe
move slightly and I sit very still and wonder if my hair will rustle like
leaves, because I am still like a tree and tall like a tree and have been
here almost as long as a tree. And the water is still yet moves-it is calm
yet carries the canoe over the seaweed that has grown so tall that it clumps
on the surface and algae grows in between its fronds. The islands of algae
that clog the water and-don't move, because a dragonfly just landed on the
edge of the paddle. With large eyes and wings-what it must be like, to have
wings like church windows and eyes like the Bible. And I sit quietly
wondering if my hair will rustle. The sun, the sun, and my face turns towards it as a leaf would. The lily pads scratch to bottom of the canoe and it sounds like no other sound-I cannot and would not describe it as anything else because it is a sound I have to keep separate from all other sounds. A lovely sound that I can hear sleeping with closed eyes-the sound of a canoe scraping across lily pads. I am in a canoe. I am in a canoe. A sentence that is by itself and I am by myself and no longer moving because I am stuck in the lily pads. And I am smiling and my eyes are closed and the sun is bright. And it is summer and I am by myself and there are so many ands because I am here and yet I am not really here because here is home. I am at my computer. I am in a canoe. Typing on my computer. The first time I went out by myself in the canoe I was proud and felt so much myself. I felt very much I and Me. And did not feel at all You or He or She. And after I had paddled around the bend into the sanctuary I simply felt Alone. And nothing else, because I was in a canoe. And I leaned back and looked around at the trees and the edge of the sanctuary fringed with cat-tails that bent with the breeze. Then the sun and I tipped back my head and closed my eyes and drifted and drifted. I sat up and paddled, listening to the slosh of the seaweed-another sound that I have caught like a lightning bug and put into a glass jar with holes in the metal lid, though sounds cannot die like lightning bugs do and will. Lightning bugs that were everywhere and suddenly I wished so fiercely to remain I and never He or She. I did not wish to be We, either. Or Us. Simply Me. Me in a canoe. My first time as I and I had hair that only blew in the breeze. That first time as I did not think of my hair rustling or of lily pads or of dragonflies. I thought of the sun and thought of the sky and could not appreciate the cat-tails bending in the wind. But I have grown up some and will always remember paddling out the first time. I remember it coldly, coldly like an ice cube against warm skin, although it was so long ago, before all that has happened happened, before this summer and last summer and next summer, before now, which is happening so quickly that as I sit in my chair by the computer with a light on I am almost afraid because it is getting dark and there is no wind to rustle my hair. -Jill Wildonger It was the pivotal teaching of Pluthero Quexos, the most celebrated dramatist of the Second Dominion, that in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there was only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between adoring spouses, a seducer or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers, Death. Greater numbers might drift through the drama, of course - thousands, in fact – but they could only ever be phantoms, agents, or, on rare occasions, reflections of the three real and self-willed beings who stood at the center. And even this essential trio would not remain intact; or so he taught. It would steadily diminish as the story unfolded, three becoming two, two becoming one, until the stage was left deserted. Needless to say, this dogma did not go unchallenged. The writers of fables and comedies were particularly vociferous in their scorn, reminding the worthy Quexos that they invariably ended their own tales with a marriage and a feast. He was unrepentant. He dubbed them cheats and told them they were swindling their audiences out of what he called the last great procession, when, after the wedding sons had been sung and the dances danced, the characters took their melancholy way off into darkness, following each other into oblivion. It was a hard philosophy, but he claimed it was both immutable and universal, as true in the Fifth Dominion, called Earth, as it was in the Second. And more significantly, as certain in life as it was in art. -from Clive Barker’s Imagica Quantum physics says to me that not only is magic possible in a world that is infinitely [more?] Chaotic than we thought, but that magic is central to the functioning of his universe. This is a magical universe not a clockwork one.... [For all practical purposes] Relativity, the fundamental physics associated with it, and the causal materialist paradigm of which they are probably close to a final refinement... confine us to this planet forever and rule out magic from our lives. Quantum physics, which I believe currently to be basically an investigation of the magical phenomena underlying the reality most people have perceived as non-magical for the last two hundred years, shows us a way out.... I consider that all events occur basically by magic; the apparent causality investigated by classical science is merely the more statistically reliable end of a spectrum whose other end is complete Chaos.... -from Peter Carroll's 'Chaoism and Chaos Magic' Thank you: audrey, vince, and bea depierre - my creators gabriel druegan - a magus-king and a magician-thief todd alsop - cupid punched him in the gut chryssy, morgan, and rob fesler - pieces of me joshua zacharia ellis - former muse amber grasmick - the imagined lines of love letters etched on loins bradley james moore - a liar of the first rate and he whom i miss the most - john paul vescio. along with: adam, bear, carly, cate, charlotte, cody, david, donna, dusty, erikee, jan, jason, jen, joe, kat, kerry, kristy, kyle, laurel, lauren, lindsey, lindy, mario, matt, nathan, sam, sandy, schumann, steve, taylor, triston, tyler, and wolf |
victory what bargains we have made we have kept and as the dogs of the hours close in nothing can be taken from us but our lives. -Charles Bukowski you know and I know and thee know that as the yellow shade rips as the cat leaps wild-eyed as the old bartender leans on the wood as the hummingbird sleeps you know and I know and thee know as the tanks practice on false battlefields as your tires work the freeway as the midget drunk on cheap bourbon cries alone at night as the bulls are carefully bred for the matadors as the grass watches you and the trees watch you as the sea holds creatures vast and true you know and I know and thee know the sadness and the glory of two slippers under a bed the ballet of your heart dancing with your blood young girls of love who will someday hate their mirrors overtime in hell lunch with sick salad you know and I know and thee know the end as we know it now it seems such a lousy trick after the lousy agony but you know and I know and thee know the joy that sometimes comes along out of nowhere rising like a falcon moon across the impossibility you know and I know and thee know the cross-eyed craziness of total elation we know that we finally have not been cheated you know and I know and thee know as we look at our hands our feet our lives our way the sleeping hummingbird the murdered dead of armies the sun that eats you as you face it you know and I know and thee know we will defeat death. -Charles Bukowski |
The Death of Saint Narcissus Come under the shadow of this gray rock - Come in under the shadow of this gray rock, And I will show you something different from either Your shadow sprawling over the sand at daybreak, or Your shadow leaping behind the fire against the red rock: I will show you his bloody cloth and limbs And the gray shadow on his lips. He walked once between the sea and the high cliffs When the wind made him aware of his limbs smoothly passing each other And of his arms crossed over his breast. When he walked over the meadows He was stifled and soothed by his own rhythm. By the river His eyes were aware of the pointed corners of his eyes And his hands aware of the pointed tips of his fingers. Struck down by such knowledge He could not live men's ways, but became a dancer before God. If he walked in city streets He seemed to tread on faces, convulsive thighs and knees. So he came out under the rock. First he was sure that he had been a tree, Twisting its branches among each other And tangling its roots among each other. Then he knew that he had been a fish With slippery white belly held tight in his own fingers, Writhing in his own clutch, his ancient beauty Caught fast in the pink tips of his new beauty. Then he had been a young girl Caught in the woods by a drunken old man Knowing at the end the taste of his own whiteness, The horror of his own smoothness, And he felt drunken and old. So he became a dancer to God, Because his flesh was in love with the burning arrows He danced on the hot sand Until the arrows came. As he embraced them his white skin surrendered itself to the redness of blood, and satisfied him. Now he is green, dry and stained With the shadow in his mouth. -T.S. Eliot |