he describes himself as making friends with his demons and the bitter angels of his nurture: it's taken years with many sing a longs, pool parties, outings, workshops - but all worth it in the end as well as the front
he describes himself with panache and elan, subtlety subtitles and sub rosa - which he's never understood and needs reminding, as a fluffy cat settles in his lap for an extended nap, the pledge drive enters its Nth day - like the Bach cantata, the pledge drive, which he heard performed in college - such a terrible bout of allergies that day - reveal to me lord your will - and sure enough Will did just fine - he, on the other hand, chased away rattlesnakes most of the night
he describes himself as an observation of time and the passing of space, caught up, rended, winded, cooked up, concocted, spun dry, folded, pressed and delivered with a slight bell tone vibrato beyond ear-range reverberating across the skin, settling into wrinkles and creases like a gypsy band
he describes himself as a ten-way intersection of three-way streets with a super-highway parkway overlook vista of the industrial park near the post-colonial village where children race their soapbox super tankers down the steepest hill for incredible prizes: matching socks, prescription lenses, and clip-on bow ties
he describes himself as a Finnegan's Wake style flow chart, not just Yes or No options but Why Not, What Difference, 20 Sided Die, Might, Both/And, Either/Nor, Ether/Noir, Yet, Noh, ... , Then, There, That, That'n, That'n'll - as I remember my grandfather saying, "that there'n'll there'll that'd then ull make a right smart'n'll there'n all" And we all knew implicitly his directions, even as drawn out on the back of receipts, over roads and down back ways, highways and dirt tracks - there there in a clearing was a stump near a mule grazing under the small clouds of summer with flies buzzing languidly among the bee addled pea vines. Here is where it happened as sure as I'm standing here talking to you as sure as you're standing talking to me.
he describes himself as a natural process: cell division, neural connections, consciousness shooting along pathways mostly embodied, filled with the legacy coding that informed life in semi-arid plains, glacial alpine valleys, and temperate zone estuaries
he describes himself as an orphan of orphans, an exile of exiles, a wandering one-off of wanderers, orienting himself with scraps, texts, images, snatches of tunes - birdsong and worm song - the feast of famine, the sage brush, the dogies punching back, the cattle rustling in the leaves, the deer baby sweeps
he describes himself as part of nature: not a force of nature, perhaps an off shoot, a tendril curving in a space-shaped human, like a mainspring in a watch, composed of odd tics
he describes himself as a constructivist composition, all diagonals and blocks of color with graphic elements, repetitions and active negative space
he describes himself as not knowing what to do - as doing things that don't work out; but still, witty, insightful, imaginative. Once there were millions of mules in the South - durable beasts, smarter than horses. I never see them now as I did in my very youth. In their place are orange pylons and high voltage wires. The river is a culvert now, the spring under a parking lot; the meadow where stills once glistened in moonlight is now a 24 hr pharmacy.
he describes himself as blue green, violet, pea green, pea red, sea foam black, burnt white, sky yellow, sparkling gray, flake red, tartan pink
he describes himself as caught between the opposed facts of "no one can tell me what to do" and "no one can tell me what to do"
he describes himself as stumbling, darting, crawling, striding, clambering, drifting, hastening: in a loop, a series of repetitions, like a satellite orbiting an invisible yet dense point of reluctance
he describes himself as a wanderer on the surface of the planet, through subtle terrarium vaults, along mountainous escargotments
No comments:
Post a Comment