Let's Talk About Language

Let's talk about language. I hear a crow in the distance. And a dancer in a shimmer of black sequined silk shaking a tambourine. It reminds me of the day I first proposed marriage to nature. It was consummated with a wide-eyed enthusiasm. Believe me when I say that what I’m feeling inside doesn’t always correspond to what is outside. Thus, the birth of words. Which are endless. Infinity reflecting infinity in infinitely recurring images. If a description doesn’t fit its own description, try using a different set of words. Sometimes all it takes is a lotus, a bone, and a good hand lotion. Language is neither an instrument of precision or prediction. It’s a construct, like a small village. Today is a special day and everyone is running to the park. I marvel at the diversity of eyes. What detours, what misunderstandings, what convoluted trajectories, all to end up saying what one says. Existence is multifarious. This can be a problem if you’re brilliant. Mallarmé by a window, having breakfast, spoon in a grapefruit, contemplating Rimbaud.

Naiveté can be dangerous. Everyone remarked at how sexy the assassin was. That should tell you something. It’s an important clue. If it isn’t clear to you yet it soon will be, in the future, where the past goes on vacation and the present is unopened privately in a hotel room, button by button, Pacific breezes blowing in on a fairy tale, a knife on the floor and a multicolored moth on the ceiling. Meanwhile, certain expenses are carried over to another financial year. It’s how we get by. We live in a fiction. Which seems to be changing. Quite drastically, in fact. Language can’t help itself. It keeps trying to explain the universe. Listen. Listen up close. The first place you come to at the edge of the universe is Cheyenne, Wyoming. Maybe this isn’t what you were expecting. But hey. Sometimes what is most needed is a U-turn and a good woman at your side.

If language were perfect, people would cease to think. But now that I’ve brought it up, let’s get down to some milking. Gently grasp the teat between your thumb and forefinger near the top, squeezing downward to express the milk. That tingling you feel is just the night air. Microbes. Organelles. Mitochondria, powerhouse of the cell, converting juniper berries to thought, dynamite and communion. They call it thinking when it raises welts. These welts can appear anywhere on the body and may vary in size and shape. Don’t let it get in the way of your fun. Do what you want, go where you want to go. I would consider it imprudent to use a penis as a hammer. Don’t do that. There are other forms of entertainment far less taxing. Those tiny veins indicate something big is coming. Raise your arms to heaven and repeat after me: the birth of light takes place in darkness. Words are defined by other words. Click. Clack. Just like pool.

People have concerns. Shark attacks have been on the rise. There are drones over New Jersey. Chaos reigns on a Caribbean cruise ship. The wild west is still quite wild. You can smell it.  Desolation and sage. Creosote and oil. James Dean in Giant. Now come the elements. Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen. The slap of the sea. The slap of indifference, which hurts the worst. Beauty persists, but it appears in strange, unexpected ways. That’s always been its modus operandi. A little threatening, a little edgy. Beauty is never innocent. Music often makes me feel like I'm busting out of my inhibitions. And I often do. The consequences can be a real problem. I find it increasingly difficult to describe things. The sunflower makes a splendid tattoo. But it’s hard to describe. It’s irrational. An irrational flower. And when the winter air is so cold it crackles in your voice I stop talking and listen. I hear the plumage of infinity rustling in the basement.