4/5/96

In the secret room of secret
writing there are no secrets. You
do it for another reason. Absolutely
what is eliminated. This was first.
Avoid the bombs with an s-weave.
Something gets stuck on the edges.

Even with the slightest little bit of that
you'd know what you tasted. If this
isn't one long English lesson, what
is it? You can hear the echoes.
You can hear the lessons. Starting right
back there at the beginning with an
ideologue. As long as you can watch.
It is spinning. As long as you can
breathe.

This is a test. This is a test of
what you can make of it. What you can
make of remembering, what you
can make of listening, what you can make
of living. If it isn't philosophy, what is
it? What it is, is hard to be serious
about. No time to be serious.

It is more like wrestling than dancing.
To enter into a whirlpool of helplessness
for no other reason than to get some
words on a page. For no other reason than to
read. Words on a page.

A displacement of cravings. Is it
you or is it me? A fearsome symmetry.
As dew dries on a flower, the
ink dries upon the page, the words
dry upon the mind. It's just that
if it's in your/my/our vicinity
we will want to control it.

Can I close the book? To
play the priest you must hide.
The inverse of reasoning is not
going crazy, no sleep, not an
avoidance. Be willing to end, to stay,
to go back. It's quiet on the
sidelines. A gardener would not
perfume her own flowers, nor a
poet her poems. This was heard on
Cocteau's radio.

A circle is drawn in. Are the
books reading me?

*

Toni's been laughing out loud all morning reading Gary Sullivan's blog parodies (see Sept 11 and Sept 10)