Fiddle

I don’t entirely understand Kierkegaard on despair, but I understand despair. I know how it operates, how it breeds and propagates, how it unbolts the door of monsters and lets chaos loose. But let’s not dwell on that.

I solder the elements of a strange equation. The universe always seeks balance. I’m working on it. I’m building a chassis. I’m dwelling in a realm of dyspeptic substitution.

Whatever gets you through the night, right?

There’s a bend in the river and as we come around we see a volcano in eruption. Flames and billowing black smoke vomiting into heaven.

What can I say? Even candy has details.

Psilocybin is in a misty state. Two hundred teeth chase me down the street. The Blue Angels roar over Seattle. They fly crazily low. You can feel the thrust of their engines shriek and vibrate in your bones.

The spirit of contradiction is difficult to transmit. But it can be done. The branch declares its connection to the trunk, the trunk to the roots, the roots to leaves, the leaves to the sky.

Music gives us hope. But I don’t know if hope is a good thing these days. I don’t always like reality, it can be pretty disturbing, but I need to know its features, I need to define its condition and shape in order to craft a response. The right response. The response most apt to sustain a modicum of comfort.

Is Iggy Pop our man? Is he the guy that’s going to keep us going, give us traction? It won’t be Mick Jagger, as freakishly athletic as he remains in his 70s. He’s just too happy. Grinning all the time. How can you trust anyone that grins all the time? Or tries to sell you a Cadillac Escalade during the Superbowl, à la Bob Dylan?

I’m biology, the same as a tidepool. The same as a seriously overweight philosopher from West Texas defending Derrida with a western drawl.

Some people, myself included, gravitate toward friction. It calls for a diagnosis.

What becomes of a sense of distance under the influence of psilocybin?

Oil knocks on the door. I open the door and Mr. Oil hands me a wad of blood-stained money. That’s no way to go. Let’s back up. Let’s return to the cave. Hand prints on a wall of rock. Phantoms in a shell of wick and animal fat.

We’re drawn to the unknown but afraid to enter its domain. Let’s dive into our store of secrets and share those. Some songs sound the geology of anguish. Metallica on Mars. A representation of warmth strolls through a metaphor and comes out the other side making a convocation of fire. I want to meditate a while on heat. I find it difficult to let go of things. I need someone or something to teach me how to let go of things. For example, that lampshade in the closet for which we do not own a lamp. The sky is gray and the hills are derelict. Sooner or later one must accept death. Even when breakfast begins to taste like a glockenspiel. It’s so difficult to avoid eating meat. But think of the dragonfly. They ability to see instantly through a thicket and formulate a path that will bring it in a flash to its prey.

Me, I try to find old friends on the Internet. I come up empty. What happened to them? Are they still living?

Consider the aerodynamic qualities of the wasp. How does that not dazzle you with its genius?

Each atom of my body owes its existence to earth. Acetylene anticipates the properties of a wanton realism.

Using only a palette of English grammar, can you explain why the violin is sometimes called a fiddle?

Adjectives produced by fever are black and bald. Why would anyone dream of living on Mars? Who or what created the universe?

The faucet is a fugue of chrome.

I stare at the dog-tie embedded in a concrete column at Safeway while R goes inside to buy a bag of peanuts we can feed to the crows. It’s a simple shape, a courtesy to customers, an anchor for dogs.

I think of dwarfs in a goldmine. Working the earth in the dark. Outside, sunlight hugs the earth. I can endure almost anything but a utopia.

The worst thing you can invent in a dystopia is a utopia. It just makes things worse. But if it’s already worst can it become worse? Can worse be worst?

Seasoning can be tricky. Watch that you don’t use too much basil. It can make your food bitter and unpalatable.

It’s cruel to awaken the dead. Don’t do that.

A blue whale can dive to a depth of 2,500 feet in two minutes. Try doing that.

These are the words that milk the moon and puzzle the sense.

A certain number of women have found me insupportable over the years. This may be one reason why. Words parade on a sheet of paper and I clap my hands and urge them on. Each time I open a book I feel the vibrations of the void stream through my nerves. The long heat of life, the brief heat of gratification.

Trying gratifying the world with words instead of money.

Do you see what I mean? Is this why my shampoo hasn’t been foaming up on my head as usual?

A chromatic frog hops across my mind and reminds me that my bureau drawer is full of socks and underwear. Thank you, frog. Thank you, world. Thank you, universe.

Writing poetry is weird.