The truth is always new
and if it is to be true
it has to be new.
Excerpt from "My Teaching"
by Jacques Lacan
THE END OF ADVICE
That was when he had realized
that he could not expect
and would never have
any good advice
when he went to wars
because wars
were by definition
processes which strove
to make advice obsolete.
From "The Atlas"
by William Vollmann
GENTLY
row, row, row, your boat
gently down the stream
merrily,
merrily,
merrily,
merrily,
life is but a dream...
INNER CITY BONDAGE
the wheel turns
momentum is contagious
and yet they sit like pigeons on ledges
awaiting a nickel or a crumb
THE ANGEL OF DANGER
I could nonetheless feel
feel danger
withdraw from me
like an angel,
withdraw like a retreating wave
over a quiet sea,
danger sinking quietly into the sand,
and I stood
and then I ran
NEWT AND THE SILVER KEY
Using
the Red Eagle (mercury)
the Green Lion (glass)
the White Smoke (sodium)
and the Pure Body (tin)
and finally the experiment was complete.
Inside the flask was the silver key he needed still glowing hot.
From
"You Bright and Risen Angels"
By William Vollmann
I AM THE KINGDOM
I am the kingdom.
The memories from which you flower.
The ground on which you stand.
The sperm that gave you form.
The egg that gave you life.
The blood that spawned your passion.
The tears that gave you peace.
THE ENDLESS REEL
As the blackness passes and the next frame drops across the light, this
memory will fade and the film will continue. For as long as the film may play, no
mechanical force will ever force the eye out of its colorful, moving illusion.
PARANOID SYSTEMS
"Maybe all systems - that is, any theoretical, verbal, symbolic, semantic, etc.
formulation that attempts to act as an all-encompassing, all-explaining hypothesis of what
the universe is about - are the manifestations of paranoia.
We should be content with the mysterious, the meaningless, the contradictory, the hostile,
and most of all, the unexplainably warm and giving..."
Philip K Dick
LIFE WAS DIFFERENT THEN...
A lot has been gained
in comfort and sophistication and technological power
but what has been lost may be so grand and beautiful and subtle
that only a few mourners will show up for the final farewell.
Have a brief and blurry look at a world that was already fading before most of us opened
our eyes for the very first time.
THROUGH THE LABYRINTH
"...your ancestor did not believe in a uniform, absolute time. He
believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent,
convergent and parallel times. This network of times which approached one
another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries,
embraces all possibilities of time..."
Jorge Luis Borges
IO PAN
Excite with the yielding desire of light,
Come roaring out of the night,
I am Pan!
Come over the sea to rove drunken with your entourage
Of pimps and rowdy whores, wide eyed party girls and body guards,
In your trick ass ride,
to me, to me.
Io Pan!
THE HEART OF THE MUSIC BOX
Mechanical darling, my love, sleeping beauty.
The heart pumps away, each spasm a tick tock closer to expiration. Yes, the dead can be
made to dance. Look at their gyrating bodies whirling through time. Through time, in time,
as time. A measurement of emptiness. A motion with beginning and end, suspended in emotion
everlasting.
