Between thorns and pasta, it seems to me that one of them lies beyond life itself, so quantum is the consummation that visits the soul in the dead of night. Pasta is the buzz we get when the tomato sauce flashes its lights during dinner. This temporary visual blurring is a known side effect of translucence. Furthermore, the surgical procedure itself requires stirrups and poise, as lifting a body of noodles from their entanglement on the plate involves skills whose arithmetic balances presumption with bewilderment. Keep the mouth open and the mind on horseback. A story with a fork in the text caresses the membrane of the brain. This is what poetry is all about: reservoirs of irrepressible basil. Nothing great was ever achieved without basil. Turmeric is more about mental endurance and reaching for things in the back of the cupboard, those moments when a small ladder might come in handy, and step by step phrases designed to elevate our spirit bring us into contact with vegetable broth and cumin, epiphanies canned in tin. We’ve all had those moments when the universe is trying to tell us something, give us a little sage advice. Take time to visit a roadside philosophy. Dare to love God without a lawyer present.
You see, I’m afraid I
think this is something that’s happened, something atypical of the way things
struggle, when it’s really just denim and exclamation points, invectives hurled
at oligarchs, penguins diving into the ocean, the dexterity of peeling an orange.
It’s not like I’m trying to underestimate things. I find everything
overwhelming. Particularly orchids. Orchids and monkeys. Swinging from vine to
vine while filling the air with a bloodcurdling primordial yell. People
sometimes ask if I would rather make a horseshoe ring sparks in a frontier
stable, or weld the letters of the English alphabet together in configurations
capable of speech. You know, like a gate creeping open as a pink elephant exits
the lawn of a stately mansion, which is, in actuality, a long pink tongue,
flapping up and down in a mouth hectic with verbal expression. I don't know why
they ask me these things. I think maybe because they’re drunk. Or I’m drunk. Or
that the whole scenario is an invention I've created to fill the time with wine
and recitations.
I’m tired of these
sophistries, these stabs in the darkness. We’re right there now, right at the
commencement of Armageddon. So everyone wanders aimlessly or performs functions
robotically, trying to create some motivating sense of purpose out of nothing,
gobbling up the monologues of YouTube podcasters, sitting in their cars,
weeping, or cursing, because even the myths are gone, there are just questions
now, for what, for who, for whatever reason, for no reason, out of sheer
momentum, just the blunt reactionary routines of applied physics. The people at
the top, at the tippety-tippety top of the multibillionaire stratosphere, are
prepared to go underground, and bowl, or sit on patio chairs waving their arms
around as they exclaim what geniuses they are, while all the animals and Homo
sapiens of earth lie dead and buried in radioactive dirt.
Existence offers us the chance to sew our muslin with
the thread of sequence and patch our misfortunes with the breath of euphemism.
Make ice cubes in the freezer, macaroons in our dreams. Decisions about what to
do how to act what to say where to go when to get ready to be alive shoot
bottles on fenceposts wear mohair feed the cat make the bed watch Hard Day’s
Night for the umpteenth time hoping to recreate that period of time between
1964 and 1966 when the catastrophes of the future were still manageable but no
one paid any attention. Making a lore of one’s existence is a mania. This
condition, indeed, demonstrates what a crock any similarity might serve to
wheel the cartilage of thought around in a makeshift comparison based on a
fantasy of dimes and draft animals. I would urge, instead, the cultivation of
thimbles. As if, quite obviously, one’s morning coffee held our conduct at bay,
giving us time to collect ourselves, and spend our promptness on balance,
rather than contact, until our skin felt the brush of fairies, and the
household of language opened its doors to the fourth dimension, and the
thrashing of postulation.
