One, to,Three

I will not say there is a discernible point; I believe in graph paper, Where each line is a point you are always just left or right of; you cannot get close enough. Which isn't to say it cannot be reached or passed. There is movement toward; there is shifting, roughing, rolling, a sliding motion as one slips f--


One is three in paper clothes; three is one in gripped-up flesh. Three is a monster; one is monstrous, or can be, though it is often not perceived as such. But authors know authors know Odradek has teeth at his back knives and curled up toes claws out ungrateful or too grateful paper teeth are worse than any other authors know authors know readers cannot know.



My head is running backwards; inverse. It is looking at the pavement; it is licking its lips and baring its teeth because if it cannot bite with them, it is determined to smash them into wetsharpwets.

The city grew insatiably--two veins to the left, four arteries to the right. By nightfall, there were three pulsing highways.

Lacquered Brain

"What lies within the darkness one cannot distinguish, but the palm senses the gentle movements of the liquid, vapor rises from within forming droplets on the rim, and the fragrance carried upon the vapor brings a delicious anticipation." Tanizaki 15.

This quote is in reference to a dark, lacquered bowl of miso soup eaten in an old room with old lights. And other things, probably; everything, by virtue of existing in this world, is touched and tampered with by everything else--even in the smallest of ways, this quote is connected to many things besides soup and shadows. Some more than others. Some less than others. But everything's got a claw in it somewhere.
But those last four sentences were throwaway; I am trying to obscure and making a mess of it. I am trying to keep from saying that I am holding on to this quote like my last coin, my last weapon against (for?) syntheticism, against an unresolvable story. But my brain has found the weak point in the armor, and I can't forget it's there. And if you have to forget something to make it work...then it doesn't work, does it? I wish it did. I'm working on it; I'm working on it. I just need the right numbers.

decanters look cool.

antonym

1870, created to serve as opposite of synonym, from Gk. anti- "equal to, instead of, opposite" (see anti-) + -onym "name" (see name).

anastrophe

"inversion of usual word order," 1570s, from Gk. anastrophe "a turning back, a turning upside down," from anastrephein "to turn up or back," from ana "back" + strephein "to turn" (see strophe).

strophe

c.1600, from Gk. strophe "stanza," originally "a turning," in reference to the section of an ode sung by the chorus while turning in one direction, from strephein "to turn," from PIE *strebh-strophaligs "whirl, whirlwind," streblos "twisted"). "to wind, turn" (cf. Gk.

A turning of a turning of a turning of a turning--spinning spindled wait, look, listen, catch up your legs, you're dragging threads and I know this song I know this face I bit its eye I twisted its lips I tied the thread so many colors so many frays and ways around this weird house my house? no not my house just my points and my eye and my string and my running and--is this-is this what--?

I am so tired. I do not have nearly enough of a reason to be tired--just a history of animals and loud noises, mostly. I can sleep with the TV on, with my laptop fan on, with the dreadful light in my room on. I have I do I probably will. But when you get one good night of warm, dark, quiet sleep...sand is forgotten much more quickly than it is recalled. Sand is heavy. Collecting takes time.

If I could just--If I had-I don't care ab-I don't want t-I-I just--

"I run the numbers through the floor."

An Animal That is Not a Cat

What a strange circle. Circle? I am calling three points a circle, but I shouldn't. I don't know how many points it takes to make a circle. I only think I have made a circle because I think I have reached that first point again--but this is unlikely.

You are like that riddle from the Sphinx--four legs, two legs, three legs.
In the morning you were an animal. Four legs four paws four claws. Older than I'd known. Ran in dog years, maybe.
In the afternoon you were one of us. Human, that is. And that's something I can admire.
In the evening you were a mess. One leg shy of one of them, on leg over one of us. It is another sort of thrill to remember footpads and faux pas. But only dogs that forget they are dogs try to be dogs again.

And I only describe you as a dog because it is the first animal I can think of that is not a cat. It may perhaps be better to call you a bird, but that animal has already been taken in my mind, several times, and I do not have room for an aviary in there, you know. Better to say dog and mean an animal that is not a cat.
Though to be clear, dogs can be quite catish as well. And that is why I mean only an animal that is not a cat, and not a dog.

~

I'm glad to see your eyes around, even if I don't know what to do with them.

~
A thing, some things, many things. But never all. There is this strange clutter that follows you, this collecting. As if you must prove that everything else in the world exists. But everything else in the world already knows it--you needn't say it as if you're breathing them, ex nihilo, into existence. You needn't collect; you needn't trouble yourself with the lives of these things at all--they will outlive you. Odradek will keep winding itself past the halls of your house.

~

Have you ever been killed by the guards to the doors of your Law? That shit's fucked up. But it happens. It is a smothering. It is a drowning--perhaps by one's own collections. One's own hysteria. I don't know. But it happens. And it's dreadful. And dreadfully beautiful. And don't you say that shit can't happen because it ain't real--it's real enough. It's head real--that's real enough. And don't you say that shit's all fun and games, because it's not. They may be your guards, but they've been ordered to fuck you up. They'll beat you into a world of bent limbs and the backs of eyelids--as close as you can get to the Law. To nothing.

When the collection, collecting, borrowing, extracting, takes every last ounce from you, it leaves you in debt.

~