Friday, July 3, 2020

Theraphosidae


Language is a living organism. It’s a siphonophore, a colony of organisms called phonemes or morphemes, merged together in a tentacled mass called a sentence. The sentence is a process by which a cell divides its cytoplasm to produce two daughter cells, & these daughters evolve very differently from one another, & this becomes a novel. Sometimes writing can look like a mood - translucent enactments of intellective inquiry & exploration - & sometimes it just hangs in the air until someone responds to it, adding meaning, & further complexity. And this is called confabulation. Here we enter the province of prophets & poets. Hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the mind, protected from the abrasions of everyday life, sustaining the molecules needed.
Insert these words one by one until the sentence comes to the end, which is approaching, I can feel it, I can almost see it, the master sergeant is saluting his men goodnight, paramedics are resuscitating a Polynesian astronaut, the oven is ovulating an omelet, English royalty are social distancing themselves as ever, I think that observation is unfair and a little stupid, but it’s already there, let it stand, at least until the end of the sentence, which is there ahead, I can see it, the protagonist is waiting for us patiently at the dock, evergreens adorn the surrounding hills, but there are none here, not in this sentence, just a hand reaching down to help us up, out of this sentence, just bobbing in the water.
What I’m thinking is a play pen for lumps of lathery music. The river is so quiet. Nevertheless, the nibbles are significant. Small mechanisms make the words intensify. They become what they represent. Which is to say, void. Nothingness. Introspection will get you nowhere. But it will get you everywhere. Everywhere there is everywhere there is also nowhere. Nowhere is everywhere. It’s the oink in ointment & the end at the beginning of the word anger. Anger is mere monotony. I mean, after a while. It’s wearying. And redundant. So it surrenders. And becomes a tarantula. 

2 comments:

Out of Orbit said...

Hi John. It has been a while (easily years) since I last stopped by here. Great pleasure to read you again. So happy you are still producing crisp, delectable literature. Always an inspiration. Take care.

Pablo.

John Olson said...

Thank you, Pablo! Glad you stopped by for a visit.