splatter

 realized thatyet it is people channel


foresee, after the Pollack ,
                 The limits it, but       Pollack form ofwithout the reach and  paint 
                                                                     nothing can
                                                of There is flesh and       paste a corpus       buy the
     limitsThe Reds,Anybody        could havehis cut-ups & donedid it first


         of   give    up      stickiness of        bluessaid, be 


           I              new underthe    collector's  item
                               Thoughthrough which
                                               I amclinician are  of a living
                    thrownBurroughs loved  
                                                              The message The scissorswill never be 


     There is no   throw          it could be sent
Did he  wanted to                        recognizable breakthrough              , the shardsIconnections

                                                                         ScrambledTyped words are signals, allpaintreceived
                                                                        nothing the their disconnected sunnothing like the spew

Nothing Something Everything: Words

Note: The following tripartite prose poem takes place on three parallel tracks (Nothing, Something and Everything) which one may read in several sequences:

A. From start to finish, including each track (as in a traditional poem)

B. One track at a time (i.e. only italics, standard or bold)

C. Two tracks at a time (e.g. standard and bold but not italics)

D. Repeating some lines, skipping others, reading backwards, etc. (for complete reader control)

Words

Words are false. Words will always leave something out &

We have too little breath to speak every word at once

No one word can encompass all words

Even if we could say all the words we would exclude all the nonwords

Words leave something out & we see the shape of the something

Words create the negative space

Where is meaning? In or out of words? Inside or outside of experience?

Words create both the meaning and its opposite

There is no final word

Words were not enough to make them understand

I’m looking forwards, for words

This is the chorus

Words say nothing

Words say something

Words say everything

These pages produce nothing. They are inefficient.

Words on a page are surrounded by silence

A page is an invitation

These pages don’t work

My voice, my silence, words on a page

Given the words, you invent their message

These pages do not exist without you

If I could write these words in clay—in plastic—in wind—

Words are static on the page but shift & change shape in your mind

Why do I write about you & not talk to you?

I’m still searching for the words

Speaking in the silence

Private conversations inscribed in town squares

I arrange the page into armaments, architecture

Translate the page into being, feeling

Strokes, dots, arranged & interpreted

Words create meaning & we have to keep talking

Language, alive, an eating creature, fed by our words, & us, in self-sacrifice

How can the words so many others used before me somehow describe me?

Each word only lingers so long—the empty space must be filled again

Yet life is not filled to the brim with words. Observe the silences.

We are forced to filter ourselves into existence through a finitude of words

Written words are preserved. Spoken words expire but leave a smell.

Words leave a residue. Written words, though unspoken, echo.

I place words on a page to erase them from my brain

Words on a page make me think I have no body

We give words form to take our impression

I write to disappear, I give birth to them to die

Writing words makes me think I’ll never die

But humans & languages change & die

Words are worms in the brain

Ideas burrow further inside

& the words need us

Primed for a feast, I am host & main course

Yet you are the one who gives life to the words

Our expression survives, rising from dead tongues

Mind, nutritious mush, I am stuffed & wriggling with words

Our hands grip the tools, together, we plant the meaning of us

Others will scratch at the ground of our unintelligible legacy

& so I return to the dirt of the page to be meat for the creatures I made

& loving our sustenance we return to the dirt of the page

& mine new words from the dirt of the page

Nothing Something Everything: The self

Note: The following tripartite prose poem takes place on three parallel tracks (Nothing, Something and Everything) which one may read in several sequences:

A. From start to finish, including each track (as in a traditional poem)

B. One track at a time (i.e. only italics, standard or bold)

C. Two tracks at a time (e.g. standard and bold but not italics)

D. Repeating some lines, skipping others, reading backwards, etc. (for complete reader control)

The self

The self is unstable, as eternally changing an entity as the ocean

The self is an ocean of waves, existing within certain bounds

Within the space of the sea-self, there is movement

We are empty vessels, separated by our sides

Identity, the liquid that fills us, the substance that is us

Our liquid a pittance compared to the collective ocean we could become

My self became a strainer & I couldn’t hold on to anything

Some people, thimbles, need only a drop, & yet

Doubling fluid, exchanging essence

I fell through the gaps in my self

How stable is a vessel on a raging sea?

The fantasy of stability maintains our sanity

We are houses of cards, shaken by whispers

A building collapsing on amorphous foundation

Our limited framework is expandable, replaceable

& still we create because the barrenness scares us

& still we construct on the scaffolding of self

& still we conspire of our constancy

Nothing Something Everything: Overture

Note: The following tripartite prose poem takes place on three parallel tracks (Nothing, Something and Everything) which one may read in several sequences:

A. From start to finish, including each track (as in a traditional poem)

B. One track at a time (i.e. only italics, standard or bold)

C. Two tracks at a time (e.g. standard and bold but not italics)

D. Repeating some lines, skipping others, reading backwards, etc. (for complete reader control)

Overture

This is about one thing, one thing that we don’t have a word for

You need three angles to describe this one thing

The answer is somewhere in between

Nothing & something & everything

Something & nothing & everything

Everything & nothing & something

Separate & at once

Each existing at once

Everywhere & at once

Pressing against each other

Codependent, defined in opposition

If not for the others, all would fall

Three tangled strands in one ball of yarn

Three streams in one river, not together and not apart

There are two sides to the same coin & also a bit in the middle

We move circularly, simultaneously, paradoxically

Three. The balancing act. The most stable of structures.

Nothing Something Everything. The history of the universe.

Everything Something Nothing. The history of me. Why go on?

Something is in here, after everything & nothing

Read between the lines

It’s hard on the eyes and the mind

Just bear with me

Pause to mull

It’s unreadable. It’s unlivable. And yet I lived it.

You’ll just have to trust me

Go digging

Don’t start here because it looks like the beginning

Glance anywhere & get something

Anyplace is as good as any

When you meet someone, you can’t go back to when they were born

Like you could pick out any memory & learn who I am

So dance to the beat of your own conundrum

You move sideways & backwards in history though forced forward temporally

Feeling around in the past for clues to the present

The mind fills in the gaps

We don’t know what we’re doing

A jigsaw has no objective beginning

We are a process, a never-ending middle

A person is a jigsaw never finished

& one day we’ll realize we’re all part of the same puzzle

We replace pieces & scribble over pieces & lose the pieces we’re looking for

Walking the length of the razor-sharp edge between perfection and oblivion

Playing with pieces selected by life and finished by death

& we dance on the blade of a jigsaw