Skiing The Enigmas

There are no examples, no rules, no precedents, no staplers, no staples, no standards, no civics, no emulsions, no bullets, no bombs, no knots to undo. No secrets to uncover, no horses to saddle. Just you. And a blank screen. This is what it looks like:

So you see. The enigma is entirely in your mind.

They mystery that is you. The mystery that is me. The mystery that is everywhere. The mystery that is for old men a deeply occupying conundrum. And is like a winter in Alaska.

I move swiftly in a city. I walk with determination. To linger in a city is to invite obtrusion, suspicion, ridicule, and mayhem. The country is different. You can walk a long way on a dirt road on the plains and think the world is a place of tranquil interactions, occasional violence, and moments of overpowering stimulation.

You can look out, across the plains, at the mountains.

The mountains are poems. Written by volcanos.

Shooting flames into the sky. Vomiting lava. And the intestinal tribulations of the underworld.

When a container takes the shape of the contained, the contained is deliberate as a passport. The intent of the contained is to become uncontained. Now then. What the fuck is up with contentment? Where did contentment go? The dictator has sent his armies out among the people, and the people have become uncontained.

Contentment has gone the way of the dodo. And clubfoot Lord Byron slashing his way through life.

But hey: you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Tommy the Turtle.

Tommy the Turtle is the world's largest snowmobile-riding turtle. Sitting on his snowmobile in Bottineau, North Dakota, at the base of the Turtle Mountains, he is over 26 feet tall, and radiates the joys of winter.

Life, I think, is a gaudy chemistry of lipids, proteins, compatibility, oxymorons, and stubborn resilience. Existence is resistance. This is true. But without resilience, phenomenon dies.

It’s the sound of a word around a thing that gives it a shell and a shine, a cognitive arthropod at the bottom of a deep blue significance. The imaginary. The real. And the glitter of absurdity.

All things being equal, it’s strategically advantageous to make a few digressions, make room for the unexpected, loosen up the sound and method, take a chance on the abyss, and let things happen the way they do at a gas station. Dropped wrenches. Interruptions. Streams of invective. The smell of combustion. The hum of a pump. A man in a black leather jacket looking for a map to existence.

Tell me how these things sound to you: capillary oratorio hammerhead hamburger. If they sound hollow, nonsensical, piquant, and a bit gamy, it's clear that to anticipate action within is birds in a Wyoming morning. When words are clustered so firmly together that they seem to deepen into eerie shades of aberration, piston-popping hippo conduits of henna chiffon, they solicit one’s attention in a sly and sparkling hypothesis of conks and exonerations, aluminum coughs, Parisian parasols, an entire universe sloshing around in a wide black tray of imaginary solutions.

Ok. What’s next?