On “jobs” in an Eigner poem

Headlights
                      in the  sky

                tail spot
                         on a cloud

                   there are
                           invisible beams

     somebodies'  jobs

                steady   wherever

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Al Filreis shared this with his ModPo students. The caption read “Larry Eigner wrote this poem in late April 1972 in Swampscott, Mass.”

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No need of the sources to partake of the wonder. As in the myth of Lamed Wufniks, maybe apprehension of a whole endangers its multiplicity. What if the poem is neither “we only have this much”? Where getting (or even getting to) any more (from “somebodies” “wherever”) dims everything.

Intertexts for Ashbery’s “These Lacustrine Cities”

[ Poetry Foundation ]
[ PennSound ]

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That Escher up (or below or across) there reminds me of Borges's structure in "The Immortal," doors and stairs of timeless design and symmetry but often leading nowhere. Doors and stairs don't have to be practical features if you're building from the point-of-view of immortality. The builders sleep outside* that magnificent useless structure. As "The Immortal" seems to be Homer, this also presents an "idea" of literature as vision and enterprise.

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Thought of pairing Auden's lines with those from Ashbery. An exercise that not everyone might find agreeable:

Lakes × These Lacustrine Cities

Lake-folk require no fiend to keep them on their toes;
They are the product of an idea: that man is horrible, for instance,   

They leave aggression to ill-bred romantics
Who duel with their shadows over blasted heaths:
Into something forgetful, although angry with history.

A month in a lacustrine atmosphere
Would find the fluvial rivals waltzing not exchanging
The rhyming insults of their great-great-uncles.
Much of your time has been occupied by creative games

No wonder Christendom did not get really started
Till, scarred by torture, white from caves and jails,
Her pensive chiefs converged on the Ascanian Lake
We had thought, for instance, of sending you to the middle of the desert,
To a violent sea, or of having the closeness of the others be air   

And by that stork-infested shore invented
To you, pressing you back into a startled dream

The life of Godhead, making catholic the figure
Of three small fishes in a triangle.
You have built a mountain of something,Thoughtfully pouring all your energy into this single monument,   

Sounded out each of Auden's lines and looked for the closest resonance from those of Ashbery. I think Auden is more given to narrative, to a clear exposition of cause and effect. 

This is a unique topic for poetry (though not for anthropology): the features and beliefs of people as they develop communities alongside (or atop, astride) lakes. I think "Lacustrine" is a formal response to Auden's "Lakes". Auden looks at lake-folk with their chiefs and rhyming great-great-uncles. He won't rhyme as they used to, he's leaving that, he'll sing in another way though of course cognizant of the source, inseparable from it. Ashbery's uncle is Auden, and he's responding with "cities," with the sound of cities, with pieces of effects and causes that might seem to stray, even fight, wondering how they could be sitting side-by-side, this apartment and that studio, but still somehow cohere in one pulsing view.

If in Auden's view God is "invented," in Ashbery what we have is a "startled dream" and you'd have to get pressed back into it if you're going to make your own mountain of something.

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These two together reminds me of "Ozymandias":

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

Dali then, and his wonderful sand. No hope, maybe, but some regeneration is achieved in the constructs of the poet. The idea is derived from shambles. But I've yet to know of a civilization that was one idea. I imagine a main idea, a mythology, and then digressions and transgressions come from and go against and (sometimes) come back into it, reshaping it and the society it's supposed to have brought into being.

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Recalling Hobbes's Leviathan, the idea we need a state because we'd be at each other's throats without something like a government to keep us in line.

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Or, if a city, then a mountain of garbage? The poet is figured to be attuned to his culture and history, to chunks of it anyway (perhaps synced differently from others because of intense attention). And I'm thinking that yes, the last stanza in particular points in the direction of that poet building from the rubble. And of course, this solitary one:

But the past is already here, and you are nursing some private project.

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I'm taking Guest's lines for myself, putting them right beside "Lacustrine":

The siege made cloth a transfer

learned from invaders who craved it;

spindle thieves. 

She sang high notes and pebbles went into her 

work where it changed into marks; in that room

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Burning, until all that hate was transformed into useless love.

I'm grateful to have been returned to this poem, to find that I read some of it very differently. The "useless love" here, for example, seems to me something of high value. It's a way of re-figuring "unconditional love," where even one of the most basic conditions—usefulness of the love, of lover and beloved—has been discarded.

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Yes to your implication. Hate your friends, said Nietzsche. Healthy stuff. But here's another angle: love that doesn't bear children. I've been trying to play this reading out with the rest of the poem, but it unlocks something and turns the whole thing into a series of sexual positions. It's like there's a hidden slideshow, and it ends in tears.

If I'm to be a responsible academic and connect it with the rest of the readings, I'd say that habitations could be "forced" toward the path of citihood, the teepees crushed underhoof. Loathing, pillage, rape.

Celibacy's another angle. I think it was Leonard Shlain who said the middle ages was something of a eugenics disaster for Europe, attracting the best and the brightest to don habits and cassocks, most of these thinkers institutionally kept from the possibility of progeny.

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Then you are left with an idea of yourself
And the feeling of ascending emptiness of the afternoon
Which must be charged to the embarrassment of others
Who fly by you like beacons.

And "charged" makes another appearance, in something of a similar airy movement, but "charged" with (perhaps) a different sense. Sounds monetary, "charge this call to." The "I" here seems to be at rest, or in some state of stillness, while it's others that do movement, that transmit "like beacons". Others, and that distinct feeling in the second line, which perhaps would eventually lead to transcendence... but transcending toward... what? Something other than civilization?

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That's worth re-posting and seconding. Indeed a gift, and I'm glad the rules say she must keep on giving! Paraphrasing her remark, these lacustrine observations elevate my own. For instance, she turned us to the plurality in the title and how the poem somehow specifies, zeroing in on a certain You. I don't have anything to add to that, except that yes, it's really got me to thinking more about the scope of this poem, something I hadn't thought of even thinking about before. Here's a thought regarding that from Calvino's Invisible Cities, published some six years after Rivers:

And Polo answers, "Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents. Your atlas preserves the differences intact: that assortment of qualities which are like the letters in a name."

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It's this precisely. And my experience with Ashbery is that no matter how many times I read a poem of his (and what eloquent, keen, sometimes playful notions we bring from/to it), the poem remains an unpossessed place. And... odd, but I find this so reassuring.

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My mother used to starch handkerchiefs and shirt collars for my father. It makes for crisp fabric. It marks formality, serious business. There's something even more serious, it's from the urban dictionary, really makes that connection with desire, but it might not have been applicable back in 1963 or 66. There are others that relate to being intoxicated, knocked out, or drugged. I'm not sure about these though.

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Stepping back (but I think I'd still be along these trajectories) to test a couple of things:

Whose wind is desire starching a petal,
Whose disappointment broke into a rainbow of tears.

There's something oddly familiar about how this line was done, and if you saw the airport control tower in the second stanza, maybe you'll consider "starching a petal" as something akin to gilding the lily. In fact, if we go full Shakespeare (a nod to you), Salisbury will also reward us with the "rainbow":

Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

So John's dipping back into King John, those last three lines getting us "tapering, branches / Burning," and... let's just do the whole thing:

Controlled the sky, and with artifice dipped back
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,

Into the past for swans and tapering branches, / Burning
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

until all that hate was transformed into useless love.
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

The cities are "doubling" the "pomp" of the lake, adding beauty to beauty only wastes it ("embalm" and "entomb" was, I think, inspired). This is the classic problem of art, of literature. Perhaps Ashbery is touching upon the limits of mimesis as the measure of the poem. Don't go sending it to the middle of the desert to record things for you. The poem now its own "private project" which is something "no climate can outsmart" because, maybe, it is its own climate, its own body of water.

Starch is the byproduct of plants. Pure starch is a product of people refining what they found in nature. "Gilding the lily" is extended by "starching a petal" because you return to the plant something that's been extracted from it, now in tampered (or refined) form, perhaps enhancing the plant, maybe clogging up its pores and stiffening it.

If desire starching a petal is in any way like gilding the lily, then maybe this is a development "useless love". Love's not only useless, it's become a method of negating use, of killing (by giving back more of the same in adulterated form), and thus could be judged "horrible" if not loathsome or hateful.

Itself, the city is a crime of passion.

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Two thoughts about this. First is Wilde's, 

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Which will end in—

Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

Perhaps you kill to preserve (the love, the beloved)... but is there any other way? If your answer is poetry, then maybe that poetry isn't potent enough.

The second comes from Noah. Those are tears of disappointment, the melancholy wrath of the Godhead (these lakes but remnants of that magnificent flood). It's an eternal agreement signed with rainbow flourish. This stops now, dear, I won't drown you again.

Notes on John Ashbery’s “The Chateau Hardware”

It was always November there. The farms
Were a kind of precinct; a certain control
Had been exercised. The little birds
Used to collect along the fence.
It was the great “as though,” the how the day went,
The excursions of the police
As I pursued my bodily functions, wanting
Neither fire nor water,
Vibrating to the distant pinch
And turning out the way I am, turning out to greet you.

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[ The Paris Review ]
[ Pennsound 1 ]
[ Pennsound 2 ]

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If line by line, can we do the title too? Lovely and surprising, "as though" glass was all around us and it's just a matter of time (or vibration!) before something breaks

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I learned that chateau's also a word for estates devoted to the production of wine. Hardware might be the usual tools or it might refer to arms. There's "precinct" and "police" which tends that way.

As if the multiplicity of the title wasn't enough, the place (places?) morphs anew: into a farm that is a precinct (a police precinct maybe). As a result, the other terms receive different iterations: "birds" are birds but also jailbirds. Could they also be girls? Could they be other things like informers (a bird told me...)? "Fence" could be the usual picket, or the enclosure around the precinct, or inside, where they keep recently caught offenders. It could be the rhetorical fence of fence-sitters, particularly when it comes to controversial issues.

"Collect" could mean gather or assemble, but perhaps it's transitive (the way it's cut) and there's something unsaid exchanging hands: food, money, drugs, bribes, meanings.

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Hi. Happy maybe, but why stop there when we could go full naughty? I say someone is drunk, pissing on a fence, unable (perhaps like other "birds") to exercise certain "control". When caught red-handed, he turns "the way" he is, his nakedness itself the greeting.

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Joy, also.

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Liking the fourth on your list. As well as the sixth.

Should think "hardware" along with all the farm implements? Or could there be another sense to these "farms" that I'm missing? Drugs, maybe, or slaves? Farms seem to me very open as landscapes go, but then it's all cut up and subdivided, very neatly too, else you'd risk disputes (remembering Frost's wall, and perhaps there's meta here too). Putting it as a precinct pushes the view a certain way, the borders making a stronger impression than whatever space or expanse you find (or imagine) here.

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Oh, Alan Turing.

It was the great “as though,” the how the day went, 
The excursions of the police 

Sounds like an interrogation's happening here. "As though" is intriguing, was for me the greatest surprise in a poem full of twists and turns. It's a meta point, I think, "as though" might cut off the reader who's trying to make meanings from the poem because somehow the poem echoes the process, perhaps mocking (as though they were birds? as though they were police?) as it echoes.

More literally, "as though" could be a suspect making excuses. Or a suspect telling the truth, this truth rejected in favor of a more plausible or convenient scenario in the interrogator's mind (police? reader? or, gasp: police = reader?).

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It's a point of stasis. Or if it's movement, it's eternal recurrence. If November means the place in the calendar, then maybe something's always on the verge of ending.

Then, just when it's about to, it doesn't.

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I'm not familiar with this. Say more?

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Oh wow. That makes "turning out to greet you" as sinister as a kiss from Judas. This chateau-hardware store-farm-precinct might just turn out to be Gethsemane.

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I'm used to "as though" as an entry point to doubling. You state something then restate it "as though" something else. The great "as though" here ends in a comma, more of a general case than a specific one. The "how the day went" could be what that "as though" refers to, either the initial case (ex: love) or the metaphorical one (ex: rose), or because of the comma, we could be moving along the list, leaving the great "as though" as a thing in itself, something big enough to sustain itself and all the fragments and clauses to follow.

Poetry itself could be this great "as though," the place where (as in Borges's aleph) all places become each other: farm, precinct, chateau, hardware depot.

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My vote is the reader-writer relationship is that third thing, but I'm not closing doors to other possibilities (that would be very un-JA, I think)

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Very happy to see you up and about.

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Panganay

Ginising niya ako para tabihan siya ("kami ni Chim") sa pagtulog. Kinse minutos ito bago ang nakatakda sa aking alarm. Wala na pala silang katabi dahil inihatid na ng kanyang ninang at lola ang lolo sa trabaho nito sa Rizal. Sabi ko, teka lang ha, at ginising ko ang kanyang ina para tabihan siya. Tinapos ko ang ilang ehersisyong sasagutan ng mga estudyante mamaya tungkol sa mga kuwento nina Borges at Bautista. Malikhain ang ikalawang bahagi ng sesyon, bagay na hindi maiiwasan sapagkat iyon mismo ang kurso. "Patience is a virtue." "Bakit naglalaro na naman kayo ng laway? Gusto nyo paglaki nyo magi kayong kamel?" Kalahati siyang tulog, kalahating gising, at katabi na niya ang kanyang ina. Malamig ang dampi sa kanyang pisngi ng madaling araw. "Happy birthday, Elishamelt."

Alamat

ni Jorge Luis Borges
aking salin

Nagkatagpo sina Kain at Abel makalipas ang kamatayan ni Abel. Naglalakad sila sa disyerto, at nakilala nila ang isa't isa sa malayo pa lamang dahil kapwa silang matatangkad na lalaki. Umupo sa lupa ang magkapatid, nagpaningas ng apoy, at kumain. Tahimik sila sa kanilang pagkakaupo, gaya ng pag-upo ng mga taong hapo habang nagtatakip-silim. Sa alapaap ay kumikislap ang isang bituin, kahit hindi pa ito napapangalanan. Sa liwanag ng apoy, nakita ni Kain ang pagkakakintal sa noo ni Abel ng tanda ng bato, at kanyang nahulog ang tinapay na muntik nang isubo at humingi ng tawad sa kanyang kapatid.

"Ikaw ba ang pumatay sa akin, o ako ba ang pumatay sa iyo?" Tugon ni Abel. "Hindi ko na maalala; narito naman tayo at magkasama, gaya ng dati."

"Ngayon, alam kong napatawad mo na akong talaga," sabi ni Kain, "dahil ang paglimot ay pagpapatawad. Ako rin, susubukan ko ring makalimot."

"Oo," mabagal na wika ni Abel. "Hangga't nananatili ang pagsisisi, nananatili ang pagkakasala."

Usapang Haiku

Bago magtapos ang Pebrero, heto ang talakayan namin nina Hani at Tilde tungkol sa tulang "Haiku" ni Nicholas Christopher. Sakaling mapatunayang walang halaga ang anumang sasabihin namin tungkol sa bagay na ito, oks, walang problema. Huwag na lang itapon ang haiku mismo at grabe, sayang:

Etched on the moth's wings
the story of a man's life
powder to the touch

H— The thing about haiku, malakas yung hatak nya na magmeta agad-agad kasi somehow may compartments na kine-create yung 5 7 5—isang fleeting na imahe/idea (5), isang parang pantukoy na phrase (7), isa ulet fleeting na imahe/idea(5). Ang effect nya yung parang dun sa toy na ginagamit to view microfilm cards. (Nakalimutan ko tawag.) Pag click/flash mo minsan nung maganit na button, makikita mo yung border sa transition to the next slide/card. Same effect pag old film tas may scratch yung reel. Ganun ang dating ng haiku sa akin. Kadalasan ay yung relations ng mga imahe o ideya ang focus pero pag sa haiku, interesting tingnan yung transitions from one image to another na sa kabuuan parang isang moving image lang: "moth's wings" to *insert a fraction of a nanosecond thought* to "powder".

D— view-master? gusto ko yung implied 3-way movement ng pag-iisip. o kahit ng mata lang, dahil minimal ang processing ng isip. pero dito sa haiku ni NC, mukhang bumutog nang husto sa gitna. biglang story-of-a-man's-life wow. meta-haiku talaga, na hinahanapan (o iniimprentahan) ng buhay ang isang napakaigsi at panandaliang imahe

T— kung image at image din lang, yung obyus meta, hugis pakpak pa yung kinginang haiku na siyang nagcocontain ng kwento ng buhay ng tao. tas magandang panapos, i think, yung "powder to the touch" kasi kung hindi man yari sa maliliit na particles or dots yung mismong text kung asa paper, yari naman sa bytes, o anumang "powder-y" substance kung digital.

D— ngayong pinadapo mo yung mata ko sa 'powder' parang mas nagiging outcome/byproduct ito nung 'etched', na parang detritus ng paglikha (o paulit-ulit na muling paglikha) ng isang buhay. hindi ko tuloy matanggal sa isip na hindi lamang buhay kundi pagsusulat ng buhay ang tinutumbok dito. pero ano ang detritus? yung buhay o yung account? tas hindi ko rin malimutan yung sabi-sabi (na mukhang hindi totoo) na nakabubulag ang powder/scales sa pakpak ng moth/butterfly. ang angas/simetrikal lang masyado na yung kinagigiliwan mong tignan ang babawi ng kakayahang tumitig

H— Interesting yung paulit-ulit na muling paglikha at pagiging panandalian ng changes na nangyayari. Kung iso-slow mo, nagiging byproduct nga ang man's life o story of a man's life pero it appears na hindi siya isang katapusan in terms of plot man o tangka. Hindi ko maiwasang tingnan na bukod sa simetrikal, in motion ang story habang ito ay nililikha. Tuloy, hindi nga lang paglikha kundi patuloy na paglikha. At kung iisipin, tulad ng iba pang particles and waves sa kalawakan (at maging sa digital na kalawakan), wala talagang nawawasak o nalilikha, kundi, ang lahat ay patuloy na nagpapanibagong hubog lang. Ang "powder" ay kasing-buo lamang ng "wing" imbis na dinikdik na version nito. Such is a man's life.

D—  ang "powder" ay kasing-buo lamang ng "wing" imbis na yung dinikdik na version nito. Maaari din kayang ang "byte-sized" life ay sing-buo ng buhay na pinaghugutan nito?

T— hm... parang napaka-oroborus na naman nito, ano? ang instant reference ko na naman ay Tool: life feeds on life feeds on life... "ang angas/simetrikal lang masyado na yung kinagigiliwan mong tignan ang babawi ng kakayahang tumitig" > > > parang apoy sa gamugamo? inaakit sila nang apoy pero pag nagkaron ng kontak, abo. abo, powder, kapwa bakas na may prosesong naganap. pero sa kabila ng bakas o bantang ito, mauulit at mauulit pa rin ang proseso ng pagbuo at pagwasak. thus, transpormasyon lang ang lahat? quits quits lang, at the end op da day?

D— alternatively, Taittreya Upanishad: "I am this world and I consume this world." ayun, baka nga quits, law of conservation of matter and energy or, in this case: of life and inscription. na siguro hindi naman pilit sa kaso ng tulang ito lalo kung iisa (o kunektado) ang tao sa "story of a man's life" at ang may-kamay na implied sa "powder to the touch"

T— also, baka isa ring discussion point ay paggamit ng articles. bakit "the" sa moth at story, pero "a" lang sa man. napansin ko ito nang problemahin kung in flight ba ang moth, nakatengga, patay, o buhay. pero, dahil "powder to touch," i assume na nakatengga lang, pero mukang walang clue kung buhay ito o patay ang THE moth. kung anu't anuman, mas mahalaga at mas natatangi ang moth at story kaysa sa man, na pwedeng kung sino na lang.

D— mas tukoy ang moth, totoo. but the last stanza seems to me attributable to either or to both. malamang, sa pareho. pabor din sa moth kung pagbabatayan natin ang tradisyunal na jacob's ladder, tao ay mas mataas sa insekto, mas mahalaga, mas natatangi. kaya hindi lang lumiliit kundi 'minamaliit' ang kwento buhay ng tao (na hindi man lang ikinuwento, naging katangian lang halos ng moth! symbol or symbolized, but that seems to be it) sa paglapat nito sa pakpak ng moth. ngunit may tradisyon sa panitikan kung saan hinahanapan ng estruktura ng kosmos ang mga padron sa balat ng hayop (hal: ang mga tigre ni borges). as above, so below. at kung ito ang lenteng gagamitin, hindi sa minamaliit ang tao, nagkataong sadyang kay liit lamang ng lahat, moth, tao, mga sibilisasyon, kung ikukumpara sa bigat/buhay ng sandaigdigan. pulbos lang talaga e

H— Sa paggamit ng article—nagiging stronger yung imahe pag particular tulad nga kumbakit mas madali kong nasabi na fleeting na imahe yung una at huling linya, at yung "man's life" ay lumabas na parang thought/idea lang na dumaan o ginamit na tulay o panabla. Pero kung babasahin independently hindi dahil insignificant ang statement na ito kundi dahil pa nga epic ito at sa haiku, tila may turning tables na nagaganap. "The story" of any man is epic pero kahit may ganung pagpapahalaga sa isang mabigat na pahayag, tila minamaliit ito sa haiku at tinutulak tayong mas pag-usapan yung mga panandalian at insignificant pero mas real to the flesh (the touch) na imahe. Ang silbi tuloy nung "story of a man's life" ay contrast na nagpapatibay lalo sa imahe ng moth's wing sa pamamagitan ng pag-aanimate dito, kumbaga, "etched on the moth's wing" ay tangible pero nang dugsungan ng "story", nagkaroon ng karakter. At ginabayan din towards the next line na, "powder to the touch," kung saan na-prompt tayo na makitang may buhay na transformation o proseso na nagaganap sa tula imbis na magkahiwalay na fleeting na imahe lamang. Lalo kung fragmented, kay liit nga lamang ng lahat at expected yon na pananaw ng tao sa mga bagay sa paligid niya. Maliban sa sarili nya. At parang yun ang sampal ng haiku sa atin. Kahit pa gaano ka-epic ang story o search for meaning ng tao, insignificant ka pa rin. Hehe

D— mas abstrakto nga yung gitna (story) kesa sa una (etched) at huling linya (touch). tindi ng epekto. parang pinalipad ka nang onti tas, ops, baba uli. grounded talaga. may isa pang legend-legend na kapag nahawakan mo na ang mariposa (i suppose, moths will do as well) hindi na ito makalilipad. na hindi naman totoo kung hindi mo naman pipisilin nang todo. pero nais kong isiping may pinag-uugatan ito (at simetrikal din tulad ng tanong kung mabubulag ba sa tayo sa pulbos sa pakpak), na pakiramdam nati'y bigla at ganap ang paglipat ng "bigat" ng tao sa gaang ng paru-paro, at kung gayo'y matindi ang singil ng kahit panandaliang kontak sa isang masyadong maganda at manipis na nilalang

On Dante's Inferno and Bergvall's "VIA"

Read or listen to Caroline Bergvall's "VIA (48 Dante Variations)"


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DE— But to be now the pop culture cultist (remember SpongeBob!), Bergvall reminds me of a scene in Nightmare on Elm St where the kids in the car wish to escape but find out through landmarks (statues, so forth, but in Bergvall, the words, the woods) that they're going on and on in circles. What's a lovely part of this scene is when a kid suggests that they refer to a road map. Clever kid, so one pulls out a road map and he/she unfolds it and it unfolds some more and there's no end to unfolding it, soon it swamps the passenger seat, threatening the driver's view. It's another Sisyphus thing, like Bergvall condemned the Dante persona to Hell even before he enters Limbo.

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DE— It could be cyclical too, perhaps? Like we find/create a groove (settling in with a person or an ideology or an aesthetic, finding yourself in religion, or in the faithful exercise of civic or filial duties) only to find yourself on the road again, the splinter of the brain tearing past the old comfort zone only to create new ones later.  In a larger view though, that's where you might find your "self" in VIA, in endless transition, staying and going, going to stay, staying to go, one liminal encounter after another, but always bound within the pages of your book. The more things change . . .

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DE— I remember your work on the timing thread, and I think this fits! Dante also tried to figure himself here as in the midpoint of his life-span and at the mid-point of the cosmic life-span (if I remember correctly, which I doubt, his journey was taken halfway between creation and apocalypse or something).

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AN— also: humans are always by definition works in progress. always crossing bridges, climbing up ladders, all fields attest to the human drive to escape its own bounds. whose grasp exceeds whose reach

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DE— I love this delicate fan notion of yours. What a lovely way of putting it but, yes, that's how it seems to me now, after you've said it this way. I thought at first that this image clashes with my own reading, one that hinges (perhaps loosely) around the idea of counsel in Dante. In this opening to the cantos, Dante had yet to find Virgil, his guide, and so it seems to me through Bergvall now how multiple and wasteful his steps are, how shadowy and treacherous (as translations so famously are) indeed these woods. Translations betray, we've so been often told, and translators make poor advisers, and it is of great significance to me that the main sin in Dante's Inferno is False Witness, the crime that makes a Satan of Lucifer, that feeds Brutus and Cassius and Judas (the most vile of counselors in his book) eternally into and out of the three mouths of this Satan

AN— this "fan" of translations could be damning us, if we read it now, again, through (whatever we believe of) dante

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AN— i believe so too. but i've been toying around with the idea that VIA could likewise be a display of the super-adequacy of language, how something so remote and distant can be brought at the threshold of our thoughts in so many ways, perhaps always missing dante's idea, but also never losing sight of its shadowy shape, across the seven centuries

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DE— I'm looking forward to the time comes when I can jog again, because I will seriously put Bergvall's audio on loop.

AN— bergvall's also among my great finds. i know most people want to see old favorites, but me, if they've got more armantrouts and perelmans, baums and bergvalls up their sleeves, I'd really really love to read them!

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AN— thank you for this thread, and for the many worthy, engaging readings already found here.

DE— My own pet intertext would be Borges's "Pierre Menard, Author of Quixote," a fiction written in a shape of a review where the reviewer lists the accomplishments of this man of letters, Menard, up until he writes his opus, Don Quixote, which he doesn't translate but rewrites line per line by thoroughly immersing himself in the novel and in the life of Cervantes. There's an idea here which I will represent without the power of a Bergvall or Calvino or Borges: that sometimes, when we read, what we're doing is writing the novel or epic again in our mind. So that even something we're reading in the language of our birth is actually being translated by us right into our own psychologies, over our own situations, dreads and desires, which are almost never akin to the stirrings of the "originary" writer.

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AN— in this school of poemfish, about to disperse

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AN— gosh, indeed! these are the kinds of threads I wish to read. bergvall's sense of being in the same place and being all over the place is brilliant. borges, who was mentioned above, would have enjoyed VIA immensely, and I would not be surprised if he'd go so far as to envy it

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AN— another thing i've thought to bring to this thread was something from kung fu tze: "“It's better to read one book a hundred times, than a hundred books one time." deftly rewritten by bruce lee: "I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks once. but I fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times." fear bergvall, indeed!

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AN— haunting. yes, that fits. that's the word i'm looking for. that's how it has been for me listening to this, reading it, then reciting it myself

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DE— This pilgrim of a poem leads me back to Dante Alighieri's Comedy, to his desire there for guidance, not only from Virgil, but also from Marsyas and Apollo, from Beatrice herself. He was himself acting as a guide, showing his poetry as a reliable compass of the cosmos. Almost every other critter and demon and character likewise try to instruct Dante (often within the limitations of their damnation), for example his old mentor attends him, as does Ulysses. As it happens, some of these guides are proven false. Here comes Bergvall. She cuts Dante off at the first stanza. He can't get to any of the guides, his first step shown to be multiple, endless, like the line in Eleatic paradoxes where any given point cannot be defined and therefore cannot be traversed (and thus the idea that we are moving at all is an illusion, and in this first step, Dante has taken 700 years and still his foot has yet to fall). Maybe Bergvall undermines Dante by short-circuiting him, reciting him back to himself (an Echo upon a Narcissus), sealing him within his first stanza before he could summon any guide, before he could himself "counsel" any reader. In this sense perhaps, VIA is a critique of Dante and other poets or philosophers (or poetic systems) with such clear and solid ideas of how life must be led, how thought ought be formed and expressed.

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DE— Maybe among those cute guys is a Dante in search of Beatrice? Haha, and scholars, indeed should be able to laugh together. Dante generates lots of differences, heated arguments, scholastic cold shoulders, and it's amazing how Bergvall could put a word in without putting any of her own words in! Shared laughter, of the non-ridicule, non-sarcastic variety, should be very welcome.

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DE— I think VIA could handle both and many other readings, could be a critique when viewed from one aspect, homage in another, and definitely as metapoetry. The woods, yes, (like the story-trees of Armantrout's own VIA) a horrible or delightful place to get lost in, or find the self. Bergvall was remarkably silent here, and I think this silence enables us to look at VIA every which way. Even her arrangement was a surrender of her poetic ego: she alphabetized! Maybe she's counterpoising her circularity to Dante's quest, her surrender of ego to his embrace of ego. Maybe it's like Dickinson's Sicily poem. You may proceed up that mountain Dante, the first (half-)step is enough of a cosmos, "infinity in a grain of sand," says Blake, "eternity in an hour." VIA could be seen as condemning us readers and translators to hell (or "saying" it was Dante who condemned us there) of reading and re-reading without coming any closer to seeing the Beatific Face. Perhaps VIA also condemns poets (Dante and others like him) who dwell in their configurations exactly because these would not exist apart from their craft, or belief. Or maybe it's a tribute to Dante's 700 years, and at heart, VIA celebrates the inherent capacity of poets/ poetry to survive, to reproduce and remain.

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DE— Thank you. Despite the "darkling woods," and the "damning" repetition, I still would like to believe the celebratory aspect of this Bergvall piece. As has been mentioned before, the poet also "finds himself" in the process.

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AN— i did not know eliot had those lines, but yes they are very fitting for VIA. i like how this poem brings us to the multiple, protean quality of language

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DE— Yes. I believe that losing your bearings, while almost never a pleasant experience, can be counted on to expand our horizons—though your third sentence here is more eloquent on this point. I love this lesson on "re-viewing," revisiting, on dwelling again and again (via VIA). If this has taught me anything, it's how to enjoy getting lost in poetry, losing yourself in multiple possibilities, in a renewed sense of vastness.

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DE— Thank you. It was a perfect convergence of material and technique, in my view. That's possibly why this "darkling wood" has become so fertile for questions and ideas.

An "Incident" Thread

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AN— how nicely you put it. baraka's poem reminds me of a borges capsule story: "the witness". the killer and victim (and the witness) collapse into each other, their verbs and pronouns and viewpoints intermingling. they are all of one face. the killer is lost too, somehow dead too, or dead to language (we have no word) and not merely missing but made (by the poem) into a void

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AN— and the poem is peppered with all these empty spaces, gaps in our knowledge, gaps maybe also in our desire to know? our capacity to know? and our willingness to respond?

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DE— It's truly like those two characters of the earlier "Incident" (with a tongue and a word between them) have grown into these adults (with no word and just the bullet between them)

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DE— I'm playing with the idea that the murderer and the murdered are so intertwined that they are almost two halves of a suicide, stewed in a common anonymity. The incident as a scandal is intriguing. Especially with all that (yes scandalous) repetition redundantly referring to elusive facts, blurred silhouettes. They appear too insignificant to be named, and that's a scandal in itself. It's also about being so much scandal out there that it might all amount to no scandal. Maybe the poem is also about how we are exposed to these newspaper(ed) deaths but can't absorb them all, can't feel for much of them, yet we retain traces that nibble at our nerves, replace these frayed ends with blind spots, numbnesses. That is, unless we try Baraka's path, which is to put our finger over these "slain universes" write over it the line "We have no word". Which are still words, and is much better (as hope and thought and affirmation goes) than truly having nothing to say about a man found killed, the killer lost to the wind.

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AN— that's just too depressing. but it's true. poetry and art must be in the forefront of various efforts to "re-sensitize" us. but who wants vulnerability to all that hurt?! vicarious or not!

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AN— will it change us? yes, i believe. and i am reminded of sylvia plath (and her son) by "vulnerability to all that hurt"

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DE— This must be what was referred to, earlier: "El Testigo" by Jorge Luis Borges. Maybe not in this story, but in others, Borges plays with the theme that the killer and the killed share destiny so intensely that they are like brothers or lovers or shadows of each other. So also in this poem of Baraka where the killed man is also dark of soul.

THE WITNESS

In a stable lying almost in the shadow of the new stone church, a man with gray eyes and a gray beard, stretched on the ground amidst the animal odors, meekly seeks death like someone seeking sleep. The day, faithful to vast secret laws, continuously displaces and confounds the shadows in the wretched stable. Outside stretch the tilled fields, a deep ditch filled up with dead leaves, and the tracks of a wolf in the black mud where the woods begin. The man sleeps and dreams, forgotten. The bells calling to prayer awake him. In the kingdoms of England, the sound of the bells is already one of the customs of the afternoon, but the man, while still a boy, had seen the face of Woden, had seen holy dread and exultation, had seen the rude wooden idol weighed down with Roman coins and heavy vestments, seen the sacrifice of horses, dogs, and prisoners. Before dawn he would be dead and with him would die, never to return, the last firsthand images of the pagan rites. The world would be poorer when this Saxon was no more.

We may well be astonished by space-filling acts which come to an end when someone dies, and yet something, or an infinite number of things, die in each death—unless there is a universal memory, as the theosophists have conjectured. There was a day in time when the last eyes to see Christ were closed forever. The battle of Junín and the love of Helen died with the death of some one man. What will die with me when I die? What pathetic or frail form will the world lose? Perhaps the voice of Macedonio Fernandez, the image of a horse in the vacant space at Serrano and Charcas, a bar of sulfur in the drawer of a mahogany desk?

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AN— you beat me to it. all the same, i'm glad that "the witness" is here alongside "incident" to testify, show us how much pain we've consigned to oblivion, challenge the limits of our consciousness and compassion and how this can be proven by our language and our use of language

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AN— baraka's first curtailed "shot" is interesting. we're used to it as a transitive verb, but here it becomes intransitive, and whoever follows "shot at" erased even before the bullet gets there. by the time we get to this "shot" you mention, we have no idea who's who, who's behind the gun, who fell before it

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DE— Thank you for noticing!

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AN— the confusion overwhelms, but it is sharpened somehow, by baraka, like a knife's edge

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AN— never ends. perhaps we put up with it because we can't keep on feeling it

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Whitman Thread

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—Encompassing, I agree!  Not just the whole poem, but I think also its atoms. For example, that word "assume." It's positively electric for me when he says "What I assume, you shall assume," how it activates all the meanings of that word, the mental process of pure persuasion, the physical cycles of death and rebirth, how he enters through your nose, how we are Whitman now, whether we like it or not, and just because he says so! And while it comes from a grand and overwhelming pride—that forceful Self of his!—it also seems like a matter-of-fact partaking, how we are companions because we both eat earth and shall be eaten by earth.

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—Neruda's poetry (as with much of Latin Am poetry and prose) was excited by Whitman. His Canto General and Ode to Common Things seem to me impossible without a Whitmanian sense of scope, a love for particulars. Two other favorites share in his poetic lineage: Borges and Pessoa.

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—Pessoa was a Portuguese poet who took Whitman's lines ("I contain multitudes") to a whole new level by splitting himself into many poets, each with a different biography and writing style (eg: Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, Alvaro de Campos, etc). These poets of Pessoa are called his heteronyms. A good place to start for me would be "I've never kept sheep..." by Caeiro. But his Alvaro de Campos is the one who's truly Whitmanian. He is an engineer by profession, has seen much of the world, and writes in sprawling free verse. From this one, I recommend "Time's Passage," a great Whitmanian denouement. Oh and I'm glad you've also read Borges. He mentions Whitman in his poetry, fiction, and essays.

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Thank you for mentioning Muriel Rukeyser. I will try to read more of her. As for Borges, I would venture that his strange catalogues, his romance with the infinite, and—maybe most significantly—his invention of "Borges" the character was directly inspired by Walter Whitman's "Walt Whitman" who claims with such power that he is us and we are him. Perhaps it best to let Borges explain for himself? Here is an excerpt from the prologue that Borges wrote for his Spanish translation of Leaves of Grass: "Whitman was already plural; the author resolved that he would be infinite. He made the hero of Leaves of Grass a trinity; he added to him a third personage, the reader, the changing and successive reader. The reader has always tended to identify with the protagonist of the work; to read Macbeth is in some way to be Macbeth; a book by Hugo is entitled Victor Hugo Narrated by a Witness to His Life; Walt Whitman, as far as we know, was the first to exploit to its interminable and complex extreme, this momentary identification."

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Emo Orthodox: ang konyong kalahati ng isang usapang Karamazov

I was then a very unhappy young man. I suppose young men are fond of unhappiness. They do their best to be unhappy, and they generally achieve it. And then I was shamed because I discovered an author who was doubtless a very happy man. It must have been 1916 when I came to Walt Whitman, and then I felt ashamed of my unhappiness. I felt ashamed that I tried to be still more unhappy by the reading of Dostoyevski.
—Jorge Luis Borges


—it will help. kesa naman sa students lumabas yang sama ng loob mo

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—or ... worse, maging self-loathing

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—good to hear. mabuti ganyan ka sa kanila. in my book, kahit saang eskuwela ka basta ganyan ka sa estudyante maganda iyan. kesa naman manatili ka diyan tapos maging katulad ka ng mga tanders na masama ang ugali

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—nasa baligtad akong proseso ngayon, binabawasan ko ang convict face. i'm mellowin' down, hahaha

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—weird lang. alam mo sa hum1, large class, pinagsusulat ko sila. yung isang lalaki, absorbed na absorbed, kinakamot yung gilid ng ilong niya ng eraser ng lapis. muntikan ko nang sawayin na para bang sinasaway ko si neneng! haha as in muntikan na talaga

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—sana lang. but the changes inside the classroom, only the students could be the judge of that. i still think may ibang (at baka mas mabuting) natutunan yung mga iba na katulad nyo who had to go through a more punishing routine.

—halimbawa yung hum1 ko, ang igsi ng mga pinapabasa ko. e si mam dadu hinagisan kami ng karamazov

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—at nagpapasalamat pa rin ako sa kanya. sa kanya pala ako unang nakabasa ng virginia woolf . . . miss ormerod ang kuwento

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—hahagisan mo sila ng war and peace?

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—haha ansaya! teach hundred years in episodes siguro. sa panpil, tinalakay namin yan. hal: anong masasabi nila sa sequence nung mahabang ulan, o yung mga bakang nilalalagyan ng label

—o yung masaker na nakalimutan ng lahat. parang as a collection of short stories muna bago iintegrate bilang novel, at least that's how i would do it

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—crime and punishment, isang bagsakan yan ano? hindi kayang tilad-tilarin. miss ko na tuloy mag-dostoyevski

—miss ko na ang canon siguro, kaso super ang takot ko sa downloadable reviews

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—kunsabagay

—how would you teach crime and punishment?

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—ang downer ng denouement na yun. bakit kahit nasa 'rehab' siya parang nakakalungkot pa rin?

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—tama ba? or am i mixing this with ivan k?

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—sino ba yung parang pinadala sa wasteland tapos parang nagbabalik-loob sa diyos?

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—rasko then. of the same cloth kasi. but it's an impressive cloth so okey lang kahit makailang beses ginamit ni dosto

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—ah i see. kadiri talaga si smerdyakov (smerdyankov?) pero stroke of genius ang paggawa ng character na yun

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—gambler kasi siya, hahaha

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—una, for some reason, kahit tinapos mo na ilang beses ang bros.k, sobrang shadowed ni smerds na parang never siyang kabilang sa "bros" ng bros k.

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—yes! ngunit nagkaroon ng culpability yung utak ni ivan k.

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—in a way merging si smerds ng utak ni ivan at (resentment sa) lakas/natural force/beauty ni kuya (dmitri ba?) . . . and he was made possible by the absence of alyosha. kahit pa gaano kaspiritwal ang reasons ni alyosha

—grabe lang yung pasok ng ano nga bang tawag sa chapter na yun? yung inquisitor ba and jesus?

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—YUN!

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—anuano? abt grand inq, i mean, bakit ka napapamura nun!

—dosto orthodox!

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—tapos halik lang, semplang na

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—pero antindi ng kiss na yun! saktong-sakto. feeling ko kahit si dosto haunted ng image na yun

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—at ang matindi pa, yung deep-seated rejection ng halik. in a way yung absence ng halik ang nagmotivate sa paring yun na maging grand inq. tapos nung dumating na, hindi nya kinaya.

Confetti

Nanaginip ako ng sanlaksang bata. Takbo sila nang takbo kahit matindi ang buhos ng confetti(2). Delikado ang hangin at natakot ako na mapigtas at manghagupit ang mga banderitas(3). Tawa lang nang tawa ang mga bata. Sa ikalawang panaginip(5), may isang magulang na baboy(7) sa kural at may halong confetti(8) ang putik. Nasa loob ng kural ang ilang bata. Sinuotan nila ng sinturon(10) ang baboy. May isang batang babaeng nakaunipormeng St. Joseph’s(12). Dumapa siya sa lupa na madamo na at isa nang football field. Marumi ang field, maraming kalat na plastik na baso at paper plate (15).

Mga sipi:
2—Maaaring piyesta dahil sabay-sabay ang mga school fair pati ang alaala ng mga fair.
3—Wala akong maalala ni isang kulay ng banderitas.
5—O sumunod na eksena nitong tinatalakay na panaginip. Depende sa dami ng REM stage, maaaring may apat hanggang limang panaginip ang tao sa isang regular na tulog. May mga taong tumututok sa kanilang panaginip na kayang paghiwahiwalayin ang mga ito. Ang iba, napagsusunod-sunod pa.
7—Higit sa interpretasyon, mas mahalaga para sa akin ang mga pinagkuhanang eksena o teksto ng panaginip. Maraming maaaring pagkuhanan ng baboy. Maaaring ang matagal ko nang namalas na paggilit at pagkatay ng baboy. O ang trak ng mga baboy sa SLEX. O ang Valentine sisig. Puwedeng ang lektyur ko hinggil sa “Babycakes” ni Gaiman ang nakaimpluwensya. O ang tulang “El otro tigre” ni Borges. Puwede rin na noong pinaglaruan ni Nicolas Cage ang kanyang ilong sa pelikulang “Ghost Rider,” ang pumasok talaga sa isip ko ay ‘baboy’ sa halip na ‘bungo’. Pero ang una kong naisip pagkagising ay baka dahil Year of the Fire Pig ngayon. Ikalawa, baka dahil sa muling pagtalakay ng pork barrel. Maaaring wala ni isa sa mga ito. O lahat, pinagsama-sama. (Habang nagtitipa, tumugtog ang Radioactive Sago Project sa isip ko. Ngunit malamang naisip ko lamang iyon dahil sa ginagawa kong pagsasaayos ng tema. Malayo man, baka may naimpluwensya rin.)
8—Hindi ko matanggal sa isip ko ang bird flu habang kinokonsidera ang imahe ng confetti. Hindi ko naman naisip o naramdaman ang anumang pahiwatig ng sakit o ibon habang nananaginip.
10—Itim ang sinturon. Tiyak ako pagkagising ko. Nang isipin ko kung tiyak ako habang nananaginip, hindi ko maalala. Kaya ngayong nagtitipa na, hindi na ako sigurado. (Sa katunayan, nang maisip ko ang pork barrel, dumami ang bilang ng sinturon, naging tatlo. Hindi na rin ako sigurado kung ilang sinturon ang isinuot sa baboy. Ang alam ko lang, suot ito ng bata na hinila mula sa shorts bago isinuot sa baboy.)
12—Hindi ko maintindihan ang imaheng ito. Bagamat nakita ko noong elementarya ang unipormeng St. Joseph’s, hindi ko na maalala ang eksaktong hitsura.
15— Walang katiyakan kung may confetti pa sa hinihigaan ng bata. Wala akong maalala kahit isang kulay ng confetti. Hindi ko maalala ang hitsura ng isang partikular na confetti. Papel ba iyon o plastik o yero?

This Godfriday

No es un viernes,el dia regido por la divinidad que en las selvasentreteje los cuerpos de los amantes.

—from “Cambridge”, Jorge Luis Borges

This invulnerable day with the knowledge that I will not die. Although somebody lies dead and somewhere certainly somebody is dying as much as I am, I decide to draw none from my last breath. Today my word feels binding. Therefore, it is. Having chosen life, I decide further: I shall become a something. Something, while the druidic school feasts and plays; while my students and friends tease out a spiny vine of drama from rock ruins; while she mourns. I shall become this something which is all I could become to be of some use: a worker. Not a craftsman, no. Let the others climb such an illusory hierarchy of skills. Not an artist, definitely. Let others feed on the concrete self-importance that they can never imagine as dream. Surely not – today – a godcreator. I shall not presume to toil under so a grand an assumption. A laborer is all I am, all I shall be in this indestructible moment. I am this employee of the universe. I am the drafting of the lesson plan, checking of the tests, breathing and all its corrections. I am the tossing of the square-holed coins. I am the work, the sheer telling of a story. Somewhere under this sun, within my pages, and among the wilting carnations, I will write: “Allow her rest. Allpeace upon her.”

Ligaw

Sa iyong palagay, hindi ko alam na binabasa mo ako. Ngunit mali ang iyong pagkakaunawa. Sa iyong buong akala, walang balat ang talata, walang antena ang pangungusap, at walang puso ang kataga. Basahin mo ako, aking lihim na mambabasa. Basahin mo habang ako mismo ay nagbabasa. Heto, halimbawa ang tula ni Lamberto E. Antonio, isang piyesang pwedeng-pwedeng pagsaluhan. Pinamagatang "Sa Kaarawan Ng Makata" itong handog ko sa iyo. Tanggapin mo sana, huwag mahiya. Hindi monopolyo ng makata ang kalinangan at kagandahan.

Gugutumin lang daw ako sa pagsulat;
Ngunit ang panulat itong aking buhay.
(Sa palad ay lubhang mailap ang pilak
Sapagkat sa dustang uri nabibilang).
Nabubuhay rin ako sa akala. Ang sabi nila: principio, conviction, o raison d'etre. Wika ko naman bilang salin o tugon: 'akala'. Ang akala ko, maililihim kita habambuhay, hanggang nakatago ako sa punyetang pungay ng mata ng mundo, nakalibing sa talukap ng daigdig. Patay na sana ako kung hindi lang kita kailangang itaboy. Ngunit buhay ka, nararamdaman ko ang iyong paglapit, nababasa ko mula sa iyong titig at ngiti. Aatras ako ha? Hindi ito basta hiya pero kailangan kong payukod na tumalikod upang iwasan ang lalim ng mga mata mo.

Mahigit dalawang dekada sa mundo:
Mga taong saklot ako ng pighati,
Pangarap, pag-asa, lugod at silakbo
Na naitutulang nagdurugong ngiti.
Hihilingin ko sanang iwasan mo naman ang talim ng aking mata. Kaya kong patagusin ito, maniwala ka. Hihiling sana ako, paluhod kung kailangan! Ngunit hindi ako tungkol sa mga hiling; hinggil ako sa mga akala. Maligayang bati ng isang malayong makata, halimbawa, ang binabasa habang ako mismo ay narito, nalulunod sa mapanganib na tunog ng 'ano kaya?' at lagi kang pinapangarap. Ikaw naman, hinihiling mong buuin ko ang iyong ngalan. Kulang pa bang isukat kita sa isang palayaw? Hindi mo ba mahinuha sa isang pantig ang pintig ng salita, wasiwas ng pangungusap, at pawis ng talata? Gusto mo sigurong malaman kung ano ka sa akin. Alamin mo! Gusto mo sigurong marinig ang tamis ng iyong pangalan mula sa aking bibig. Pakinggan mo! Hindi mo ba kayang tikman mula sa piging ng aking katahimikan ang walang hanggang lasa ng iyong pangalan?

Nagdaan sa aking buhay ang umasa
Laban sa pag-asa, pagkat ang damdamin
At diwa'y may sapot ng pangungulila
Na hindi maugat ang huklubang dahil;

Limit kong ituring na isang tadhana
Ang karalitaa't panagimpang bigo:
Ang buhay ko't lahat ng buhay sa lupa,
Itinakdang maging hungkang at baligho;

Ngunit nakita kong may libong kawangis
Ang danas kong hindi sinlubha't sintindi
Ng danas ng ibang kahit tumatangis,
May pag-asang muli't muling nagsisindi.
Kung hindi mo lang ikahihiya, ipagsisigawan ko ang iyong pangalan. At bakit hindi? Sinabi ko sa iyo, nuong naramdaman kong ika'y nakikinig, na may dalawang paraan naipapahiwatig ang pag-ibig: pasigaw o pabulong. Sa iyo ko rin sinabi na may dalawang uri ang kawalang hanggang isinasaprosa nina Borges at Calvino: ang disyerto na di masusukat ng tuwid na linya ni Euclid at ang labirintong kumikiwal-kiwal ayon sa kurbadong komputasyon ni Riemann. Paano ko pipigilang ibunton sa kubling hinga ang iyong pangalan gayong duon ko lamang naintindihan sa iyong presensya na hindi ako ang sentro ng aking labirinto? Ayon sa sipi ni Pascal, walang sirkumperensya at lahat ay sentro. Alam mo bang ikaw itong tinatawag na 'lahat'? Ngunit mas mahalaga ang iyong kahihiyan kaysa anumang pipitsuging pag-ibig.

Paano pa nga ba maisisiwalat
Ng isang makata ang katotohanan
Sa gutom ng laksang kauring mahirap
Kung ang panulat ko'y aking bibitiwan?
Akala mo hindi kita kilala. Sa iyong buo at mahusay na pagpapalagay, walang kinalaman ang aking tibok sa iyong titig. Marahil tama ka at dapat kitang batiin. Pwedeng mali ka, kilala pala kita at magkaniig ang iyong mata at aking tinig. Kung gayon, kailangan kitang batiin sa tagumpay ng iyong di sadyang pananalakay. Ngunit, aking lihim na mambabasa, lumayo ka sapagkat hindi kita nais makitang nalulunod. Isusumpa kita kung may kapangyarihan ang aking pantig; babasbasan kita kung sagrado ang aking laway. Pero, sapat na sanang usalin ko ang iyong palayaw bilang panuldok sa aking payo. Pakiusap! Sapagkat sa totoo lang, wala akong sapat na alam o akala sa lalim ng aking nararamdaman.

I have discovered that I cannot burn the candle at one end and write a book with the other.

Katherine Mansfield
Diary entry
June 10, 1919


DRAINPIPE DREAMS
Or, How PoMoPrometheus Rodinthinks on Coming Classes While Waiting for Bigbreakfast


1 Convoluted Can-openers

Ma shook me from the formulation of next semester's writing class to open a couple of cornedbeefcans for the bigbreakfast. While I sped through them with the opener, I remember the more complex can-opener that I broke to pieces last month. I didn't do that on purpose, mind you. I might as well have though; it bugged the hell out of me. Nice, sharp discs and some well-placed spokes and gears. And the damned thing breaks down at the instant of my grip. Pinions loosed. Down discs, down gears! Something so sophisticated yet inutile!

It reminds me of me, a goodfornothing, intricately convoluted head. I can't say there's supposed to be pride in all this muddle. 'Intricate' and 'convoluted' just fancyterms confusion, addleheadedness, scatterbrainedeadness. It sounds more sophisticated, that's true. Pretty at times, well, pretty if you can consider the network of Les Miserables sewers lovely.

Useless, really. Oh, and I can't even open a can with a knife. Actually, I can, but not in the usual, smooth way most other people do it. I pound the forsaken knife in, round every inch of the way. Thank goodness for this simple blade and lever construction Ma handed me. I consider it somewhat like a kiddie bike with those two wheels on the side so you can get from pt.A to pt.B without falling over.

It got those cans open, didn't it? Why mull over the more complicated construction or the simpler one, neither of which helped the cause of bigbreakfast at the moment? One way's as good as the other, you might dismiss. That's true too, with them clearriverrunsthroughit minds. I admire them minds too, happyhappyjoyjoy binaryoppositionary AisnotBneitherisC systems. Still, I don't have the luxury of fantasizing; I must work with what I have. All I've got are these ratfecesinfestedpipeshit for brains. And I have another semester to teach! Oh boy.

Let me spill what I'm going through right now.


2 On Contradiction

I'm not your usual progressive thinker.

Hell, most other progressives will disown me if I were an ounce worth disowning! I don't have that ounce so I'll drop 'progressive'. Out with 'thinker' too, just in case it's in the way. I'm not 'your' anything unless you want me to (and I can't go around assuming you want me to be anything, can I?), so I'll trim that off as well. How do we begin then?

I'm not usual.

For me, later does not mean better. Everyday in every way, it's getting better and better, they croon to the next generation of beautifulbeautifulbeautifulbeautiful boys. These things have to be said, I know, expressions of faith in hope. However, when I'm downdirty trying to begin something, such tidbits of autosuggestivedeceit won't cut it.

Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger, hesaid, and I profess belief. Although stronger doesn't always mean better, I respond, trying my best to unlearn him. The next semester will not necessarily be a better sem. At least, it won't be, just because it's the 'next'. And I can't make it any good with merely the plain belief that it will be.

I won't necessarily be a better teacher. They're a differentriver, and I'm a differentriver. And you can't predict the sameriver on the basis of two differentrivers converging. Still I must take stock and make measures. Movement is the only way to articulate hope.

Hope belongs to the realm of the future, and a friend of Lu Hsun told him that one cannot ever contradict hope. It is impossible to refute something that hasn't happened yet. It makes sense too, I figure. In my narrowview, if you can still contradict anything at the moment, then there are still remaining possibilities. In those spaces, one can find hope. Or generate it.


3 Desktop Deserts

I smell the mightymeaty bigbreakfast coming; I wonder how this outpouring will churn out with such wonderful morning odors and themusicwhodied's Imagine demanding my senses. To focus, I must digress from the sensual to the sensible (for now). The desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world, another hesaid. Was that 'a dangerous' or 'the most dangerous'?

Well, from this desk in Makati, I view their Los Banos desks as these would appear on Monday and hence. What do I see? Danger, naturally. One cannot expect much from desks rooted to the establishment, eh? Someone with desktop visions out front, now there oughtta be some friction, right? Not when the desktop visionary will keep everything on the surface of immobile desks. Then, there'd only be entertainment.

This is a case among my cases. I desire for the first module of my writing class a discourse on space (time would come second, and I might share this later). I went wild first, letting ideas and selections swim their way into a tumormass that's been clogging my system since Monday.

I dream of teaching stories of Borgesian infinite and Calvinoesque infinitesimal space. The guiding principle would be a space as labyrinth and combinatoria as language. Something like this would pique hmmminteresting curiosities at the least and explode vavavoomGarciaMarqueztornado wonder at the most.

Of course, in such a space, here is there and everywhere is nowhere all at once. That's dangerous stuff right there. Such visions can induce sweet paralysis, and without movement, there won't be hope where I desire hope. Immobility is the curse of dealing with the language of God, the combinatoria where, in the alphaomega, everything and nothing are synonyms.

This is where dialogue comes in, and I hope to seduce them back to the world where languages (if not literature) could be of some use. Dialogue should be fair, so I'm not allowed to use silvertongue. I must speak the words of the earth and spew ragsratsandfeces saliva about balloondrowned seals and hungerconsumed men. If this has ceased to appeal to them, then I'll be damned. I'll give them the writing skills they need for the callcenters, multinationals, massmediamoguls and othercountries that they expected in the first place. Then I end with the gladiatorquestion, are ye not entertainedtainedtained? If they weren't, then I failed, handsdown; if they were, then at least there's room reserved for wonder. That room is more conducive than any cubicleearphonescreendesk to hope.

However, if the undergroundvoice still appeals to them, then we meet halfway; the elitetranscendentseraphs come down, and I give them the badnews. Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains, another hesaid. I continue the discussion.

"You have one semester with me, and I'm inching toward a discourse that is more involved and open than what I can now offer. To get there, I need your help. The postulate of the coursediscourse is that we aren't free. If you agree, then welcome to the classdesert of the real. If you think you are free and thatsthat, then go back to the heavenorjungle you came from because dialogue won't be possible. Try getting out of the university first, let's see that freedom, shall we? If you think you are free but believe my maybeyouarenot is worth looking into, let's communicate.

"And I mean speakwith not talkto."


4 Find Fire with Fire

Preach, preacher! I rapped to myself to keep my gut in place, and ignore the calls and the setting of the bigbreakfast.

The study of space begins with light. Let there be light another he said, or rather the first. And whether that was the first thing he invented or the seas and the earth and the firmaments (or even humans), it wouldn't matter. To us, it will always be the light first. That's how we came about seeing it, an eyelightmindcoordination. Therefore, a study of space is necessarily a study of optics and senses, how the inner space approaches and apprehends the outer. We need light. Fire.

If they think I'm going to give them fire, they're in for a surprise! I'm giving nothing. Fire freely given will be effectively extinguished. I'm not even giving the conditions for fire, no, no driedleavestwigscoalsliquefiedpetrogas, no nada. I'll ask them for fire. If they say they have it, we go and examine each other's combustion in each other's light. If they say they don't have it, I'll ask what they know of it (because they might have it after all, without realizing it). I'll lend mine in the meanwhile, while they look for it. When they do, see if it's any better. If it's not, we'll work on it. When it's much better than mine, they'll extinguish me. Obsolescence is the purest dream of the teacher, if you ask me.

Let's illuminate our spaces then, our writing desks, our living areas, railways, our private musicalballerinaboxes, our classrooms, our cafes, carinderias, shops, sukingtindahans, dojos, chapels, where we defecate, where we throw our trash away.

This is my problem. I can risk myself all I want. I've been taughttaut enough for such adventures. Let me take one concrete plan among my manifold objectives to discuss this problem. In my heart, I want to throw them into the greatshittingbowl itself, the great Payatas. I'll allow distance. The smell of it first, the feel of the feet on heat-infested ground next. I won't allow them on top of it, don't worry. Not close to the people working there, not yet. Don't worry.

It is I who worry, Mrbigtalknospine. What if something happens? I learned the field. I know the issues and the mishaps even with a mere sanitized fieldtrip. One mentor once failed to control a disastrous trip of amateurs. The best way, I fathom, is to bring them there in small groups in plainclothes, in nocellphones and nohandsanitizers mode.

Still there are too many risks, too much to list here in detail. Therefore I immerse myself in the process of examining my own space.

Where I am, I believe in expanding the hermeneutic horizon (the interpretative background, a perspectiveworldviewstandpoint, if you may) by putting it in danger. This involves risks. Without it, there is no further knowledge of the qualitative sort. Without approaching a state of fear, uncertainty, and definite anxiety; we will not write beyond harlequinhorizons and millsandboonsbounds.

I call such a place of risk as an event horizon between illumination and depth. This is such the threshold I'm in, a liminal phase, an upping of the ante. Now though, I will not merely put myself in potential danger, I will involve my charges. And I must strip them of false securities to reap the perceptual benefits of dread. Fear makes the eye keen, see?

I must consider this. More difficult than that, I must consider this with them.

I am afraid.


Pedagogy Peddler

Ma already left for her elementary school tasks. The food is covered. I eliminate the sound. I sing my sales pitch still. Teach, teacher!

I am not free. If you ask me to read the spaces, that would be what I'd yield. I'll see aluminum soda cans, plastic palm trees, frowning passersby, lovers with four arms and four legs, two spines and two heads. One of the hands holds the other's nape. If you ask me, you aren't free either.

Is freedom an ideal? If you ask me, that's not something you ask in front of a desk, the erudite poses on tv, or from the inscrutable English of the American on the other end of the callcenterline complaining, denying he payperviewedporno. Maybe nobody should ask me either because here it's just a fancyterm. Yet I'll prick my ears if I'm promised true dialogue. Because then it'd be a meaning we can decide.

I'm not saying that dialogue is the only venue for emancipation. But it is a venue with its own unique dimensions. This is the only venue that I can introduce to the traditional classroom, and this too, only on the sly. The powersthatbe shouldn't see.

Freedom, from where I stand, from where I see you and the allcluttered space between you and me, draws from dialogue something basic. We've abused this word and many are already allergic to it. Awareness.

The best substitute for freedom is an illusion of it. Only awareness will indicate freedom. Awareness (believe me, I know) is painful. Softened by the illusory in a spectacleworld, our thresholds for pain are nothing to be proud of. So we sit, comfortably in couchpotatocertainties and watch the world go by with the choice between hungrywrithingEthiopian and syphiliticlovemakingKrisAquino a matter of pushbutton numbers. Tv, the first thing to be learned, is the undisputed center of the living room. Is it worthy of this pedestal? There, liberation is merely an image. We've trapped it inside a celluloid dove for further reference.

The last and major point of the class is this, maybe freedom is not discovered. It is achieved. It is generated in the space between you and me (where our arms end, where our noses begin). It is furthered by a redefinition of space, or at least a liberation of the eyes that see the space. The function of freedom is to free others, another poor somebody said. Few listened, everybody else was enslaved by the thought that function and freedom precluded each other. Yet in the class, let's see where such an onerous word as 'freedom' can take us.

The class could start from desks, but the dream is that it doesn't end there. I must have breakfast. The gut says so. At this moment, before I surrender the dream to scrutiny, I must say that the gut itself is a labyrinth, a tortuous smellysewerpath to each other. With active compassion, its coils could extend through all the world, penetrating and encompassing all its peoplepotentialities. Pain and satiation transcend the illusoryindividual.

You will know, this way, that everything (even and especially freedom) must begin with everybody else's breakfast.

This is only 23 on which I write yet I have forgotten any thing that has passd on the 21st worthy of [note]. I wrote a good deal I know and dined at home. The step of time is noiseless as it passes over an old man. The non est tanti [the feeling that all is worthless] mingles itself with every thing.

Sir Walter Scott
May 21, 1829
Diary entry

An Aside

This journal gradually changed its function since last school year. Back when I was in the NGO, this was the end venue of most of my creative energies. I remember telling xkg then how the journal was a 'regimen' of sorts, something to keep the juices flowing, something to remind myself that I can write.

Of course, the blogging community has its seductive aspects. During the first days, I really went around and read much of the other sites. Later, I began to settle down to the spare links on my sidebar. And of course, the communities I come to hold too dear: susmariosep, and tinig, and angas (maybe the only reasons to stay). Even them, I can't follow regularly anymore.

There are people I got acquainted with over the net. Some, I already knew beforehand but still got to know here better. There is a measure of shame, for example, that I only knew of at's involvement with children's lit online. I can't exactly pinpoint where the shame comes from. A question pops up (a spurt of blood from my guts): compared with other modes of communication (print, phone, cellphone, face-to-face, radio greeting, etc.), are the e-venues less valid? Less valuable; ie, worth less? Later, I came to value feedback. Around the same time, I began to imagine the people on the other joints of the net. The reading of entrails began to involve other guts besides my own. Naturally, this scared me. I hope I scared none besides myself.

Now this autopsy of the journal itself, something I have killed many times in mind and practice. Yet the spices are there and here I am, cooking these stuff up again. I post knowing that every entry could very naturally be the last. As naturally as an entry was my first entry. I don't know why I'm thinking these things out loud now. Maybe, I'm about to cross another threshold and as with every liminal experience, everything is put into question. As the alchemists say: Tertium non data, the third is not given. Base metal, gold. That pregnant comma: what science in between, what art? This third happens. It is not given.

Still, the guts on the ritual floor must not be wasted. Let me read what I can. Maybe, I can prove to myself that I can be generous again, for I've grown to hate the abomination of my ill-hid, gangrenous tongue.

Fingers to one side, I move a few loops of the bloody coils. There. A growth. A stunted growth.

Interpretation:

I received my teaching load for next semester, three humanities ones and two English prose styles. The two majors are writing courses. The gut recoiled, see? I didn't know why, it just did. It seems that all this time, I've been spoiling for reading courses. I may've even liked my criticism course better than this new assignment. Why? Fingers to the other side of the entrail-pool, look for soft spots along the shed worm of life.

I'm more confident as a reader than a writer. Yes, I'm not a good reader either but maybe I'm more at home there. Or maybe writing is something I've always kept to myself, or among a circle of friends and silent (therefore invisible) stangers.

Correction:

Not anymore. Not since last year when I perceived that the desire to teach further became dependent on fostering a printlust, ie, the production of stuff that you can load onto your cv to make you formally (which is the professional equivalent of actually) qualified. Thus a couple of workshops, a couple of magazine contributions, a couple of contests. All to what end? Well, an ugly knot in here beneath my thumb says vanity, but maybe too, essentially, as fuel for the pursuit of the class. And I mean that in at least two senses of the word.

So there, this journal became a stopover, a halfway house of thoughts that were not meant to stay in private logs but wasn't exactly the end-product.

And now, after I submitted work for eyes I always thought were to big for any of my alphabets, the knots increase. Then I hear them speak, voices I never thought I'd hear, faces too near to allow me breath, shadows looming to large to permit sight of my blank sheets. Where oh where is my pen? Fingers search. In the large intestines. Ah, at last, the metaphor of productive writing as excrement. This is one shitty pen I have here. I wonder if anyone would still care what I'd write with it?

Yes, I'd rather not teach my students how to write. I'd rather teach them how to read. Borges (a shadow I need to get rid of sometime soon because he keeps popping up wherever I speak criticism like Calvino's Abbe in his Count of Monte Cristo) saves me with a facet of the swallowed gem that I've neglected: the best reader is the writer. We know of the vice-versa of course but this Borgesian formulation (derived from his Pierre Menard) reveals my other reason, another ars up the arse, another justification to help with students' writing: it's a venue for further reading.

Maybe too, I'll continue to take up space here in this web, this site.

I'll bury the guts then. The rest of what remains, we cook. I'll keep the tongue, though it'll be wagged at a distance (it is foetid, being diseased with superfluous health), don't worry. Maybe tomorrow, another entry.

Lecciones

Magsusulat na naman dapat ako ng pretensyosong kaeklatan dito. Natuwa pa nga ako sa pamagat: 'When Its Alteration Finds'. Hello, the bard? Is that you? Natutuwa rin ako sa premise. May mga nabuo na nga akong linya e, halimbawa:

"I've grown anti-social over the past months, and even now, I find, it's not something I can shake off easily. It's deep, I think. I can't even appreciate the company of people I am anti-social. Thus, self-expunged from anti-society, I'm alone. I think I like it here because I'm not lonely. If people can't take me because I'm not as accommodating as before, well I'm sorry but that's fine, thank you. There is no Self outside of the Other and Others. God or beast, I remember Aristotle. However, with everyone else of the class locked in their private cults of the individual moving circularly in frightful solipsisms and onanisms, I have no one else to really be comfortable with but myself, have I?"

Sure manure. Bilangin ang mga "I" at sabihin sa aking may ibang iniisip yan bukod sa sarili nya. Hindi ko na tinuloy dito yun. Ano ba'ng magagawa kung magandang tanghali bayan ako kahapon? Magaling kasi natapos ko yung pinapaasikasong report sa akin sa RGEP. Syempre lista ako ng mga methods, devices, activities, at problems tapos suggested solutions. Reklamo galore, syempre. Sabay name-drop ala Randy David (Now, isn't that so PoMo? To name-drop the name-dropper?) at makikita mo sa isang coupon bond si Gramsci, Althusser, at Gadamer. Punyemas, Humanities 1 yan no! Oh well, Miss Belle, habang bata pa at pwede pang makalusot na over-eager, di ba? Sayang naipasa ko na. Hihirit pa dapat ako duon ng 'Now, if only the R in RGEP stood for respectable'.

"You are you and I am I. So here we see that maybe we were never friends at all. Else, how could we have dismissed each other so lightly? I will not go so far as to say that a marriage is not a marriage if it divides. It always takes you somewhere else. Liminal, indeed, this thing you're going through. I thought I would be sorry to not go through it with you. Or maybe I am. Wasn't it you who told me that 'man has the endless capacity to deceive himself'? And to deceive himself about deceiving himself. I said 'herself' by way of correction. You knew my pronominal system. I knew yours too. Well, 'knew' could be right, I mean, the past tense."

Tapos, naisipan kong magpula. The Flash pa yung nasa dibdib, akala mo baterya me pakidlat-kidlat pa (still going). Suot ko yun para kapag nagkita kami sa Alabang at pag-uwi ko sa bahay, masasabi kong 'nagmadali ako papunta rito'. Wehehehe butete. Pagdating ko sa UPLB, isa sa kada tatlong tao nakapula. Pagdating ko sa department, pagkapasa ng RGEP shit, sabi ko kay Tita Daisy, 'hay naku Tita Daise, dito talaga sa LB, kung kelan mo maisipang magpula dun ka huwag magpula! Yun din ang iniisip nila!' Ganun din sa itim. May dalawang nakapula na tumawa sa likod ko. Dumiretso ako sa auditorium kung saan sila nagmimiting. Pumirma ako tapos umeskapo. Punyetang mga poseur ang mga faculty. Akala ko, mga writer lang. Wehehe. Iba talaga ang epekto ng ecriture sa isang tao. Oh well, Miss Belle. Kaya isang naka-Flash na kamiseta ang dumiretso sa Alabang.

"No, I would not deny your exalted day or status. I would say rather, marriage indeed, for we saw ourselves, as we truly are in the light of your big day. Marriage indeed. Now at least, separately, we are wedded to the truth about us. I would like to think of hope. Yet hope binds me to pain and future. I cannot have that, not right now. There are things I need to do now which I should do. Or die trying to do. I would like to meditate on keeping faith. Yet faith is a burden of revelations that I have never had the luxury of. Why pretend? So I dismiss Fe, as I did Esperanza, to the confines of some open-ended future. Caridad beckons me though, and I am happy. You told me about her though, partially, though not something I don't yet know of. Siren song, really. I would not have you tie me to some mast matey. I abandon ship. Go set your sails for your open sea. You always were and always will be a better man."

Matagal pala magpuno sa FX. Okay lang kasi hindi naman ako nagmamadali talaga. Medyo dalawang oras akong maaga ngayon. Okay lang kahit isang oras na lang. Wala rin naman akong perang mamili ng libro habang naghihintay. Okay rin kasi maganda yung katabi ko. Ang tutoo, hindi naman siya yung tinitingnan ko, pero yung sinusulat nya. Grabe toxic. Kinokopya nya yung mga mensahe sa cellphone sa isang tickler. At mukhang yun lang ang silbi ng tickler na yun ha! Tapos pati yung mga monosyllabic na 'yap!' at 'kay' sinusulat nya kuntodo oras at date. Walang pangalan. Siguro kasi ang buong tickler na yun ay para lang sa isang tao. Nalungkot naman ako kasi monosyllables lang ang kinokopya nya. Kunsabagay, wala naman sa paramihan yun. E baka naman yung Kay at Yap na yun e mga Ninang at Ninong sa kasal nila. Tsaka, quiet lang ha? Naglilista rin ako ng messages. At hindi lang tickler. Alam nyo yung lagbuk? Yung ginagamit ng mga gwardya para maglista ng mga obserbasyon at para sulatan ng mga kumpisal ng mga shoplifter? Nag-Frantz Fanon muna ako para poseur. Kunwari I'm above eklat tayo sa emotive. Cognitive at conative lang. Teka, nasa RGEP report mode pa rin yata ako sa FX!

"If someone can make it work, it's you. If someone could screw it up for you, that would be me. Maybe we'll change. We never knew who was really right, did we? Parmeneides or Heraclitus? So best wishes all round. I'm off to an embrace where I would be of no ruin to anyone. 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds', I tell you. And also, please, kindly, 'Admit impediments'.

Pagkateriyaki ko, habang naghihintay, syempre booksale muna ako. Mantakin mo ba namang nakatsamba ako ng P85 na Labyrinths! Punyeta, P600 yan sa Fully Booked at P700 pa yata sa Aeon. At sa edisyon na yun, buhay pa si Borges. 'Borges and I' pa lang ang drama niya nun. Kung tama ako, hindi pa nalilimbag yung 'August 25, 1983' na literal suicide niya sa koleksyong Shakespeare's Memory. Maya-maya, dumating na ang maganda. Bungad pa lang tawanan. Tama bang nakapula? At bakit ako pa ang kinurot? Kung hindi siya ang nagpalit, ako ang nagpalit kahit pa labada na yung kamiseta sa bag. Buti nakapagdala siya ng extra-extra kundi mapagkakamalan kaming crew o sumayaw kung saan. Walang hustisya ruon kasi isa lang sa amin ang marunong magluto at isa rin lang ang marunong sumayaw. Pinabasa ko sa kanya ang huling linya sa 'Borges and I'. May baon rin akong xerox ng isang astiging children's book. Oral reading kami. Hay. Maganda talaga ang boses kapag ako ang binabasahan. Kahit pa malat. Nagpa-recopy kami ng mga retrato; nagtawanan; nagpakabundat sa fine dining (bakit, meron bang coarse dining?); nag-Zagu pa pagkatapos (yum kaburgisan, hazelnut cappucino yata yun, halo-halo na sa teriyaki, watermelon shake, mango juice, pescadora, cream of mushroom soup, at tinapay); naghuntahan habang nanunuod ng mga matrona at toddlers nagta-Tae Bo; at naghiwalay para matulog sa kanya-kanyang byahe.

Sabi ko na nga ba, 'good night' e