tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92018600742187919552024-03-05T16:33:58.974-08:00Lung Books*all posts have been ghostwritten by the bacteria on the walls encountered in dreams.Nicholas Brown-Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684780947990656259noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9201860074218791955.post-19977640248986370682011-02-09T20:33:00.000-08:002011-02-09T20:33:19.092-08:00Evolution of the Hipster<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3u7K5S0a-YYXc8gIBlLMiHsX_p6FUXuXsHZViV1c1CedkZbEgHswJUgmXPAKud-_7zfpCJFF9WAumGklqAqqstT98k63_lRVxtyd-9JQRwokkOqEhx_JStVeXTYArQjgzxIPfloZeJTk/s1600/evolution+of+hipster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3u7K5S0a-YYXc8gIBlLMiHsX_p6FUXuXsHZViV1c1CedkZbEgHswJUgmXPAKud-_7zfpCJFF9WAumGklqAqqstT98k63_lRVxtyd-9JQRwokkOqEhx_JStVeXTYArQjgzxIPfloZeJTk/s400/evolution+of+hipster.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Nicholas Brown-Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684780947990656259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9201860074218791955.post-75070316446934556472011-02-09T10:14:00.000-08:002011-02-09T10:14:08.231-08:00Bright Eyes: First Words of Oberst's New Album "The People's Key"<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">The first track of the album starts with this ridiculous recording. Oberst, in a Huffington Post interview, has this to say about the contextual force of this monologue....</span><br />
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Oberst: "The recording is a friend of mine, this guy named Denny Brewer, who I met down in El Paso, Texas. The (Mystic) Valley Band made a record down there at a place called Sonic Ranch, a great studio. Through the owners and friends down there, we met this fellow, Denny. You should actually check him out--him and his son have a great band called Refried Ice Cream. They're kind of like a garage-psych-West Texas strange incredible music. He's just a really fascinating guy, he's in his mid-'60s, and has lived this pretty crazy off-the-grid kind of life. I realized as I was writing the songs that some of these ideas that he had or what was coming through the songs, some of these things I had heard him talk about or things I had heard him discuss while I was down there. We kind of have a tradition with starting each record with an awkward intro, so it's like good luck. I decided to give him a call and see if he would consider recording some dialogue, and he was gracious enough to oblige us. He sent about an hour or so of conversation he had with him and his son and another friend of ours, Tony. Then that gave us free reign to edit it and added the musical accompaniment. It seemed like a nice way to set the tone for the album." <br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Here is a transcription of the monologue:</span>CRAZY!<br />
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If there is no such thing as time, you're already there, and you're controlling this cycle. You say, "Man, look what we found here, Einstein," or whoever you're talking to, Tesla - whoever you're talking to. Problems of the future can be solved by mankind because you create them. And you have to believe in the future, it's what we have to do. We progress, we always progress - we try to. So the Sumerian tablets, they say the same thing like Genesis said: that there were chariots of fire that came into the sky. And these beings got out of them, and they walked like a man but they had reptilian features. They had snake-like eyes, a tail, and, uh, scales, right? And they were - they were here, and they made slaves out of the people. And where they landed in is what the Bible calls the Garden of Eden. They were trying to inbreed with the people here. The women would die, the babies were deadborn. But after two thousand years they started taking, the babies started being born and living. And they had tails, they had a few reptilian features. They could phase shift from one dimension to another dimension, and the people who know say it's from the fourth dimension - the next dimension. Space is expanding; there are spirits coming from the center, right? We're going counterclockwise. There's supposed to be eight other universes going counterclockwise, and that's called Superuniverse, you know? And love's always been the message. It's just - circumstances happen, right? People freak out, just flat flip out, you know? Well, that's where Hitler came from, Hitler came from that way. He was an outspoken, charismatic yeller. And, and all these people said, "Hey, we'll use this guy, hey, look at all these people listening to this guy." You know what I mean? And so that's just what the trip's like, that. You know? It still exists, and their bloodline goes back - back into Sumerian times. You know, they didn't call it reptilian, they didn't call it that. But they did, because they called him Satan, they called him the Devil, and it's the same damn trip. It's a negative force, coming in on a positive force, because it's a third dimension, right? And for it to solidify or to crystallize, it has to have both elements, right? And you have to keep it in balance, or it will, it will, one of them will destroy the other ....Nicholas Brown-Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684780947990656259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9201860074218791955.post-25691003427659998362011-02-08T21:41:00.000-08:002011-02-08T21:41:16.982-08:00CREEPY GUY IN MIYAZAKI'S 'PONYO'Studio Ghibli's reiteration of the classic fable, "Brunehilde", includes this terrifying glam rock creature (voiced by Liam Neeson) that rules the sea??<br />
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Mathematical explanation for this dream haunting pedophilic beast:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoZG-dKnBt9-yOll5SCTTjPOX7cu3nsefqFAFurvuu0ZG5lgpf0PyrLrGlF7hIsbpNbEK2R1xVjVm20oTi3pXwdz8U-splerMEfq7CZtbTmvK_4F_KZWSwk0TKtZYKJDUsS6al-dEusqU/s1600/Ponyo_on_the_Cliff_by_the_Sea_by_nasou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoZG-dKnBt9-yOll5SCTTjPOX7cu3nsefqFAFurvuu0ZG5lgpf0PyrLrGlF7hIsbpNbEK2R1xVjVm20oTi3pXwdz8U-splerMEfq7CZtbTmvK_4F_KZWSwk0TKtZYKJDUsS6al-dEusqU/s320/Ponyo_on_the_Cliff_by_the_Sea_by_nasou.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">=</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTj08kylbJ11sIHxNj8jnf3hGfy_F0CIlJUx4MdclIXCoN_qN3XAsPCjgMFvvD3w4Y8JdF0eqCS5_Pr06GwyuMzCbvCMKU7PlYCFTkCAWd0FKi77WKoV0GwBXO6iK9tcGTbkAvDsf5mEo/s1600/jinn4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTj08kylbJ11sIHxNj8jnf3hGfy_F0CIlJUx4MdclIXCoN_qN3XAsPCjgMFvvD3w4Y8JdF0eqCS5_Pr06GwyuMzCbvCMKU7PlYCFTkCAWd0FKi77WKoV0GwBXO6iK9tcGTbkAvDsf5mEo/s320/jinn4.jpg" width="230" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxH_Tpy3XLbsqriNPY6gR69BO3jn08yNfvZLNDu_ZgFoYCditS9p4Ge6aAGqWLxXwfZlEBHK-SXlxRCUwE2tLHGAhYTcgqbyr9PSYuKr7CRj8pZCdG4FxaPIVZONHOfd6KzUWgPLCtdXE/s1600/bowie-labyrinth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxH_Tpy3XLbsqriNPY6gR69BO3jn08yNfvZLNDu_ZgFoYCditS9p4Ge6aAGqWLxXwfZlEBHK-SXlxRCUwE2tLHGAhYTcgqbyr9PSYuKr7CRj8pZCdG4FxaPIVZONHOfd6KzUWgPLCtdXE/s320/bowie-labyrinth.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">+</span></b></span>Nicholas Brown-Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684780947990656259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9201860074218791955.post-50145882276596835602011-02-03T14:42:00.002-08:002011-02-04T12:10:20.748-08:00Response to Christian BoK's Xenotext Project<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZzDGjFCQTlXXQUI_u3sDa0TgiJXx6L7AaEOcKuzKmsnSeDLkLRBNd2K6JCJxlgIxKQS9fZfR-71PaoMGayOlDdQ3xsZzxs6NOfYcg_Vz2zJE6N4G2LRjryNEuwJmvkKT7FXgsjq6UxVw/s1600/wholeprotein.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZzDGjFCQTlXXQUI_u3sDa0TgiJXx6L7AaEOcKuzKmsnSeDLkLRBNd2K6JCJxlgIxKQS9fZfR-71PaoMGayOlDdQ3xsZzxs6NOfYcg_Vz2zJE6N4G2LRjryNEuwJmvkKT7FXgsjq6UxVw/s320/wholeprotein.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Original Poetry Structure</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJHDVncGFHN9pF1JQe1BKs7Gpp_sB8UpFvOKD8LuJoSzqzkgG7SSvns6Pkno4j5bq3m91jImEVDZt0q-WSgvNYP09X-Ocx0fmLbTKJP6Uq9LoR3LtPF4ZMjPQ3yiUoenkelcRKdBj1Q9E/s1600/bok_170x150.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJHDVncGFHN9pF1JQe1BKs7Gpp_sB8UpFvOKD8LuJoSzqzkgG7SSvns6Pkno4j5bq3m91jImEVDZt0q-WSgvNYP09X-Ocx0fmLbTKJP6Uq9LoR3LtPF4ZMjPQ3yiUoenkelcRKdBj1Q9E/s200/bok_170x150.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Straight Fucking Genius!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>This piece is a response to conceptual poet Christian BoK's "Xenotext" project, <a href="http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed/vol5-2/editorial.asp">for more information, and particulars, click here</a>. <br />
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Essentially what this guy did was create a cipher that operated between roman letters, a,b,c,d,e,etc. and amino acids, systeine, argeneine, etc, you know those little molecular building blocks that protein strands are made out of! Using a computer algorithm, BoK was able to bounce all possible ciphers off of a catalog of all known, viable, protein formations. Once BoK had the computer analysis that offered him a coding system that maximized his "vocabulary" (I'll get back to this) he composed a poem using only the limited amount of words that his code system allowed. What I mean is this: BoK wanted to be able to transcribe a piece of poetry with the amino-acid structuring of a viable protein. Very Cool! <br />
So...using only words that could feasibly be biologically rewritten with A.A's BoK writes this thing. The first cool thing that happens comes from collaboration, BoK has lab minions synthesize a protein strand that when sequenced into its A.A. parts and fed through BoK's cipher will "recite" the written piece. Keep following cuz it gets three times more crazy!...So once this protein/poem exists it is introduced to the cell walls of <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Deinococcus Radiodurans, a little bacteria that dies hard. The little bastard will be the last living organism on the planet its so resilient! anyways, once this bacteria is introduced to BoK's poem/protein its evil bacteria nucleus receives and transcribed and jumbles and "rewrites" the amino acid chain. To gloss over the fact that its been a few years since biology: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Deinococcus Radiodurans, in its transcription of thepoem/protein writes a poem back!!! Holy Shit! You never thought of biological processes like that right?! What's amazing is that when this new protein in read in light of Christian BoK's code system the bacterial poem actually is super beautiful and makes sense. Bok doesn't go as far as to argue that the bacteria is cognizant of the any creative process, but! I think that it is easy to argue that the sensibility of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Deinococcus Radiodurans' "poetry writing" can be explained by the very logical, easily mapped and scientifically understood processes of biology that made this over-arching metaphor for creation possible. The creative process is JUST as sensible and scientifically quantifiable as the biologic....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Anyways check out my own poem written in response and give the hyperlink above a click for BoK's official project overview. Thanks!</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilo5B5wmtr0K2woXhbS_IXJs76Ha0xhBkhquWB_A_6ifBciy12n2MCVEmLdo-5b5fAJQgHnoWVu5wVKTcVsMt8a1gnF8F-k8uORVbyzs9R8ptQSKyBxPhkgaouRPE92qpmHJUt6SbRalI/s1600/d_radiodurans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilo5B5wmtr0K2woXhbS_IXJs76Ha0xhBkhquWB_A_6ifBciy12n2MCVEmLdo-5b5fAJQgHnoWVu5wVKTcVsMt8a1gnF8F-k8uORVbyzs9R8ptQSKyBxPhkgaouRPE92qpmHJUt6SbRalI/s400/d_radiodurans.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Deinococcus Radiodurans. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">****You should also check out Christian Bok's serial lippograme collection/experiment: "Eunoia" <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eunoia-Christian-B%C3%B6k/dp/1552450929">find it here!</a> <br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Bo[o]K</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Nick Aster</span><br />
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</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">the day previous and on that night following, I was set upon, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">whilst wandering wondering along the mortared paths </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">which run their course through my mind</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">especially through mine own dreams</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I read that a poet encoded his poem onto a strand of folded </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">(like dream-linen, folds that clutch within all the</span> awe of shadows) </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">protein. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Using this cipher</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">the poet’s words</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">like small viruses of human yearning</span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">are provided a house of genetic factotums. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Amino acids standing in for flighty letters. Truant in their purposes. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This poem,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">a cruel host infecting the denotation of its </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> singularly acid-minded hosts. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">this poem, this protein, this code of life</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">was introduced</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">like on a blind date</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">to Deinococcus Radiodurans. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Deinococcus R. is notoriously stubborn.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Resistant to inhospitable environments. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">(i.e. those awkward first impressions of future lovers) </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">(i.e. a poem, written in biologic estimate/ approximations)</span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Deinococcus R. will never die its expected </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">v a c u o u s</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">microbial death. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">No deprivation of oxygen </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">over-saturation of salines</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">aeonic chasm of time </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">or any amount of nuclear </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">(fusion like Hiroshima not fission like our Sun)</span></span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> aggressions </span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">will alter D.R.’s dispositions; his coy and haughty knowledges of eternity. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">D.R. is destined</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">has been destined </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">since the conception of his fastidious phospholipid bi-layered membrane</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">to forever provide fatty envelope for his lover </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">a poem</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">acidic </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">and perfectly</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">quarternarally </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">folded. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">(such things are the toil of Sisyphus </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> “How, Thanatos? Do I work these chains?”)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">One day soon coming </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">all the poets on this earth will be the very dusty stuff of this world </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">with which they are so direly concerned.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">(the scrim of floaty-in-the-air grime </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> that the passage of time</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> and the mitigation of big things into small </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> paints on windows when your back is turned)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">One day the sun will retreat back into its miraculous center of all-and-all nowhere and now and the earth will chill and catch up to the wind</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">abandoned and free.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Deinococcus Radiodurans will grip his infinitely suggesting Xenotext. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">(the last ghastly memory of poetics</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> humanectics)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And together they will f l</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> o</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> a</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> t. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">our world’s enduring pair of lovers </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">wandering wondering</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">into the wander of in---held space-breath. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This sort of beauty:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">bacterium and genetic poem</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">outliving the architects of such constructs of pataphysical nonsense</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">operates upon the mind much like a serial lipogramme. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">( lpgrm [frm </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Grk</span></a><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <i>lpgrmmts</i>, "mssng lttr"] s knd f </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constrained_writing" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">cnstrnd wrtng</span></a><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> r wrd gm cnsstng f wrtng prgrphs r lngr wrks n whch prtclr lttr or grp f lttrs s vdd — slly cmmn vwl, nd frequently "</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">E</span></a><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">", </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> th mst cmmn n th nglsh Lngg. Wrtng lpgrm s trvl tsk fr ncmmn lttrs lk "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Z</span></a>", "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">J</span></a>", r "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">X</span></a>", bt t s mch mr dffclt fr cmmn lttrs lk "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">E</span></a>", "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">T</span></a>" r "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">A</span></a>". Wrtng ths wy, th thr mst mt mny rdnry wrds. Grammatically meaningful and smooth-flowing lipograms can be difficult to compose.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Language operating without an author.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Microcosmal states of unquantifiable unclassifiable unqualified anomaly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">can beauty be </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">without an aesthetician? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">(remember</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> all the poets are now </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> dusty stuff)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">what then are we now</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">nervously awaiting the quietus of the Sun</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">without God </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">left with only the spectral remains of his intention</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">poetry and virus</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">fucking each other endlessly until </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif";">DO NOT HOLD ONTO DOOR</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span>Nicholas Brown-Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684780947990656259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9201860074218791955.post-49662631744102806142011-02-02T11:39:00.000-08:002011-02-02T11:39:26.625-08:00Response to Simon Morris and Mr. Kerouac.* Simon Morris, the contemporary conceptual writer was told by one of his students that she had recently been asked by another professor to write a short creative piece in which she was to imitate the prose-style of her favorite author. Mr. Morris found this assignment to be ridiculous and not at all conducive to any sort of creative development. But! It got him thinking! What does a writer have to do to get inside of an author's head? Get inside another artist's style? Thus Morris crafted for himself the project "Getting inside of Jack Kerouac's Head" in which he would manually retype a single page of Kerouac's <i>On the Road</i> every single day until he had typed, and subsequently blogged, the entirety of Kerouac's iconic novel. Students of the visual arts study the brushstrokes of master artists, why can't authors directly recreate and appropriate the cannonical texts? When publishing "G.I.O.J.K.H", Morris arranged his work backwards: pg 300, pg 299, 298, 297, etc. This work works to the conception of Kerouac's voyage, knowledge to ignorance, sundown to sunup. <br />
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In response to both Morris' project and his conceptual arrangement of the classic narrative I wrote the two pieces below:<br />
*NOTE on the second response...( the backwards page presentation of Morris' <i>On the Road </i>offers up some pretty interesting line-breaks between pages. Using moments where these page-transitions seemingly provide full ideas I first cataloged then formatted the liminal, transitional "sentences"into a piece of coherent verse! Check it out!)<br />
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<div class="Section1"> <div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 16pt; font-variant: small-caps;">Head Morris’ Simon of Inside Getting</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;"><b> nick aster</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;"><b><span> </span></b></span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;"><b>I first met Dean</b></span><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;"> not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead. With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Before that I’d often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off. Dean is the perfect guy for the road because he actually was born on the road,<span> </span>when his parent s were passing through Salt<span> </span>Lake City in 1926, in a jalopy, on their way to Los Angeles. First reports of him came to me through Chad King, who’d shown me a few letters from him written in a New Mexico reform school. I was tremendously inter-ested in the letters because they so naively and sweetly asked Chad to teach him all about Nietzsche and all the wonderful intellectual things that Chad knew. At one point Carlo and I talked about the letters and wondered if we ever would meet the strange Dean Moriarty. This is all far back, when Dean was not the way he is today, when he was a young jailkid shrouded in mystery. Then news came that Dean was out of reform school and was coming to New York for the first time; also there was talk that he had just married a girl called Marylou. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">One day I was hanging around the campus and Chad and Tim Gray told me Dean was staying in a cold-water pad in East<span> </span>Harlem, the Spanish Harlem. Dean had arrived the night before, //</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">,erofeb thgin eht devirra dah naeD .melraH hsinapS eht ,melraH tsaE in dap retaw-dloc a gniyats saw naeD em dlot yarG miT dna dahC dna supmac eht dnuora gnignah saw I yad enO</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">.uolyraM dellac lrig a deirram tsuj dah eh klat saw ereht osla ;emit tsrif eht rof kroY we Not gnimoc saw dna loohcs mrofer fo tuo saw naeD that emac swen neht .yretsym ni deduorhs dikliaj gnuoy a saw eh nehw , yadot si eh yaw eht ton saw naeD nehw ,kcab raf lla si sihT .ytrairoM naeD egnarts eht teem dluow reve ew fi derednow dna srettel eht tuoba deklat I dna olraC tniop eno tA .wenk dahC that sgniht lautcelletni lufrednow eht lla dna ehcszteiN tuoba lla mih hcaet ot dahC deksed ylteews dna ylevian os yeht esuaceb srettel eht ni detse-retni ylsuodnemert saw I .loohcs mrofer ocixeM weN a ni nettirw mih morf srettel wef a em nwohs d’ohw ,gniK dahC hguorht e mot emac mih fo stroper tsriF .selegnA so Lot yaw rieht no ,ypolaj a ,daor eht no nrob saw yllautca eh esuaceb daor eht rof yug tcefrep eht si naeD .ffo gnikat reven dna gninnalp yleugav syawla ,yrtnuoc eh tees ot tseW gniog fo demaerd netfo d’I that erofeB .daor eht no efil ym llac dluoc uoy efil ym fo trap eht nageb ytrairoM naeD fo gnimoceht htiW .daed saw gnihtyreve that gnileef ym dna pu-tilps yraew ylbaresim eht htiw o dot gnihtemos dah ti that tpecxe ,tuoba klat ot rehtob t’now I that ssenlli suoires a revo nettog tsuj dah I .pu tlips I dna efiw ym retfa gnol ton <b>naeD tem tsrif I<br />
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nick aster</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I//Alfred.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I//arranged to meet me </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and Neal </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">for an afternoon talk.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I told Neal </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and he instantly recognized it as the mere simple longing</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;"><span> </span>//</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">a great silence like the inherent silence of the Apocalypse.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">He was always talking about </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Frederick Maryland and Fred-//dry stretches </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">leading to Mexican mountains in the south.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">He was working in May’s department store nights; </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">crazy Bob Burford called him up from a bar//</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">[ ( ]on the Kansas plains in the eighties[,] </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">when for diversion he rode ponies bareback </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and chased after coyotes with a club </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and later became a country schoolteacher in West Kansas</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and finally a businessman of many devices[ ) ] </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">in Denver.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I opened my eyes//fell asleep and we talked and talked all night.</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">“One night my old man left the day’s receipts sittin’ on top of//Sunday.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">What was he//at the starter.</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">One night we were alone on duty//</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">it was my duty to put up the American flag on a sixty foot pole, </span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">and this morning I put it upside down and went home </span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">to bed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I left//hasn’t stopped since.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I was willing//no direction.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I’ve been working as a brakeman//of my life.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I//tired of this.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">(Meanwhile, remember, I was lolling//suddenly </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Neal’s eyes grew tearful and he got up and left his food </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">steaming there </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and walked out of the restaurant. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I wondered if he was just wandering off forever.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Meanwhile Neal took a carton of cigarettes from the gas station and we were stocked for the voyage---gas, oil, cigarettes and//a moving boxcar:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Meanwhile//won’t change for a long time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">In the Fall I myself started back from Mexico City </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and one night just over//An ambulance came balling through.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">“Whoo!” said Neal, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and he turned on his headlights and they weren’t working.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">// </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Neal saw that, and began frowning and thinking </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and trying to straighten himself out, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and finally I broached the idea of leaving once and for all. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">“So much ahead of us man it won’t make any difference.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Here of course we got snarled in traffic and had to go slow </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and I got back in the front//to a fanning dawn; </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">we were hurling up to it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Well I got out and had to walk across the woods </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">with the fear if they caught me//dead and gone.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">They were headed//about life, and life on the road.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Reopen no old wounds, be as if you had//no money.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Some-//waves.[!]</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">The light of our tent burned on//work.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">“Real beat huts, man, the kind you only find in Death Valley and much//mysterious Spanish streets.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Great crowds of businessmen, fat businessmen in boots and tengallon hats, with their hefty wives in cowgirl attire bustled and whoopeed on the//stars </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">anywhere.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">The bus leaving at ten </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I had four hours to dig//a witch.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">She </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">was//his </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">pocket.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">She let me take a shower and shave and then I said goodbye </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and took the bags downstairs and hailed a Frisco taxi-bus, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">which is an ordinary taxi that runs//in the tenements </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">in the back of Howard.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Her great dark eyes surveyed me with emptiness and a kind of chagrin that reached back generations and//unpacked and played till nine o’clock in the morning.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">She got off at Columbus Ohio </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and I slept all the way to//Hollywood alone.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">“I get you gurls, anytime.// girls that cut along with groceries.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">At one point the mother of the little colored girl</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">---not colored but dark---</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">came in to hold a brief and mournful convocation with her</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">||the whorehouse.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">It was as hot as the inside of a baker’s oven//wonderful bath.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">“Neal? I yelled across the party, which included Jose Garcia Villa the poet, Walter Adams, Victor Tejeira [<span> </span>] the//it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">Poor Henri, he had a special necktie made for this evening; </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">on it was painted a replica of the//yes.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that’s why it happened right there and//went all the way down and I was standing in the purple darkness.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">All over the world, in the jungles of Mexico, in backstreets of Shanghai, in New York cocktail bars, husbands are getting drunk while the women stay home with the babies of the everdarkening future. If these men stop the machine and come home</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">---and get on their knees---</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">and ask for forgiveness</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">---and the women bless them---</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;">peace will suddenly descend on the earth with//<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 22pt;">*</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;"><span> </span><span> </span>[<span> </span>//<span> </span>] </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 16pt;">denotes the regions where Morris’ reverse-page presentation of “On the Road” reads backwards, back into itself like a wave on the ocean, looking down and seeing its own genesis, in the moment right before it crashes in on itself, casting shadows<span> </span>like spots on the sun. </span></div><span style="font-family: Baskerville; font-size: 16pt;"></span><br />
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</div>Nicholas Brown-Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684780947990656259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9201860074218791955.post-22151942454029922452011-02-02T11:24:00.000-08:002011-02-02T11:24:04.706-08:00EMET<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">EMET.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">Nick Aster</div><br />
<br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You woke me up. My sleep was nervous anyways.</span></span><br />
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">That morning, I noticed that your eyes looked empty.<br />
Blank, like the eyes of a Golem.<br />
<br />
You took me by my left hand, with both of your hands, through the front door of our house. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">We were out in the yard but it was different; the yard was overtaken this morning by a tree</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">that was so tall<br />
and so wide<br />
that upon seeing it I forgot completely the world.<br />
The banalities of God’s firmament and God’s light.<br />
<br />
This tree had stopped the wind.<br />
All I could here was the secret mumbling of rain on cast-off leaves. Oak Leaves.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Oak Leaves the size of gravestones.<br />
Oak Tree.<br />
You said, <i>“Climb with me.”</i></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">You told me, <i>“Up at the top Nick,<br />
all of the letters in your mouth,<br />
all those sounds crouching behind your teeth, will escape back into this world<br />
tumbling off your tongue.<br />
Your letters will remember their childhood. They will once again be made of camels<br />
eyes<br />
mountain ranges<br />
and the silhouette of man’s first dwellings.<br />
Houses made of stretched hide and branches blocking the sundown.</i></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>This is what letters and sounds looked like when they first crept from God’s thunderous throat,<br />
wiggled free through God’s lips.<br />
Letters that could deafen the ears of the universe with their precision.<br />
Up at the top Colin,<br />
You will know God because You will be God.<br />
You know your Mouth and your Mouth is God<br />
because the world was built on sound.”</i><br />
<i>“Climb!”</i> You told me.<br />
I could almost feel the earth tense under my feet,<br />
tighten under the colossus of the Oak Tree.<br />
<br />
<i>“I’m frightened by its height,”</i> I replied.<i><br />
“You cannot fall when you are with me,” </i>you said.<br />
<br />
So I left the ground I recognized.<br />
I climbed with you.<br />
Soon my palms were thick with sap and blood and I was deep in an air I had never tasted.<br />
I climbed with you for days.<br />
We slept in holes the size of train-tunnels in the trunk of the Oak Tree.<br />
You made rests for our heads out of leaves and the handfuls of cloud that you stole from the sky.<br />
<br />
When we reached the top, my hair had become long and the color of Aspen bark.<br />
I could feel it brush against my cheeks.<br />
Your eyes had become so blue that it looked they weren’t eyes at all;<br />
they were like windows that showed me the deep,<br />
eternal and forever sky<br />
always behind your head.<br />
<br />
At the top of the Oak Tree you said, <i>“look.”</i><br />
You were sitting on the loftiest branch.<br />
<i>“Look,”</i> you said.<br />
And you pointed down towards the earth I had almost forgotten completely,<br />
down towards the air that still carried familiar flavors.<br />
I leaned out over a branch that was as thick as an elephant’s leg and waited for the clouds to part<br />
so that I could see.<br />
See how far we had climbed.<br />
<br />
Underneath the clouds below, I saw nothing. No familiar ground.<br />
Just the blue ramble of sky. Miles of it. Years of it. <br />
Only a gasp of nothingness below our wooden perch.<br />
You saw that I looked frightened and you said, <i>“look!”</i><br />
and you pointed straight above your head.<br />
Hundreds—thousands!- of feet above us, where the sky belonged, I could see the earth.<br />
The ground that I recognized.<br />
Soil and grass and camels and houses arced above us; a dirty firmament.<br />
<i>“Where then, are the roots of this Oak Tree?”</i> I asked you,<br />
<i>“I see no loam or water below us.”</i><br />
You smiled and told me that you were going to jump and that I needed to follow.<br />
<i>“Which direction will we fall? Up to the ground, or down into the sky?”</i> I asked.<br />
<br />
<i>“We will fall so far down into the sky that God will forget the words that made us and the<br />
words that made the world. We will fall until we become clouds. When we are clouds and we are<br />
made up of hundreds—thousands!- of little pieces, the rain and the wind will spread us all over<br />
the sky so that we’ll be able to see everything on earth all at once. All of our tiny little pieces will<br />
be everywhere, all over the earth, all at once.”</i><br />
I told you that I was scared and that I didn’t want to be a cloud.<br />
And you told me that I was a cloud and that I was only dreaming I wasn’t.<br />
<br />
I watched you walk out along the spine of a great leaf<br />
and leap.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
<br />
I<br />
traced<br />
<br />
your s t e p s<br />
<br />
to<br />
<br />
the edge of the leaf<br />
<br />
and it bent down towards the sky under my weight.<br />
<br />
I looked up at the earth above. I could see the stars starting to glimmer-about.<br />
Little scabs of brightness behind the rivers and canyons overhead.<br />
It started to rain.<br />
Each drop was as big as the moon looks reflected on calm water.<br />
I slipped away from the Oak Tree because my hands were wet and I fell down into the sky.<br />
<br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
<br />
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</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">It was still raining when I woke up.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I could see everywhere in the world, all at once:</span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The snow.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The streetlamps.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The perfection of windows during the twilight.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The shadows cast by waves on the ocean in the moments right before they crash in on</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">themselves… shadows, like a spot on the sun.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The fallen tree, swaddled in moss and splintered to ruin.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I could see you guiding me (still laden and waterlogged with dreams and sleep)</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">out the front door and onto the cool mourning grass.</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I could see my newly awakened eyes widening,</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> (down in the world below)</span><br style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">in disbelief at the sheer height of the Oak Tree in our front yard.</span></span>Nicholas Brown-Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684780947990656259noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9201860074218791955.post-42506772924394888882011-02-01T21:59:00.001-08:002011-02-04T12:09:08.175-08:00Silphium<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 14pt;">silphium</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 11pt;">Nick Aster</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">x enophobic black black begat red in that twice heartattach</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">x anthippes spasms and spasms and paroxysm </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">a voice from very far off and half my own voice</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">augur promising blackblackblack begat white</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">my everything stemmed in through newt eyes</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">messed up afterimages of color and brightness red endlessly in black black</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">the indigenous abecedarian spindly fibres that mediate allmans weight and shape</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">these automatons these first discriminators wailing hollow by the thousands </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">in the resonate hollows of nesting hollow understanding this ripture</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">iatrogenic misconceptions of season redness in blackening plunk upon heartsichords </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">unscheduled equinox inverts all oosporingovercodes</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">every moment on top of every water will hide somewhere flighty séance </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">ephemera phloatabobbing in ripple awake</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">after this flood your steps will be crakey</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">as if on bird twigs</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">vaccinium ovatum and lilies</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">vaccinium stameum and lilies and aspirated breath</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">i heard with fish ears from a very far off voice half my own that every eve </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">on sundown city preachers kneel and ask blessing on the towns of the living </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">call curses onto the chockablock cities of the dead they are not wholly bad or good those that live </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">under the wood o please keep thy tired eye on all poor creatures born to die</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">x eric are these first moments of light led by the single cephalopod reach of a sucking</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">x enagogue</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue UltraLight";">*<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">note: title, amount of lines, first-letter couplet pairs, spacing, word choice. Haha I wrote this as a 'dramatic monologue' for class. Try to guess who the speaker is??</span></span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Nicholas Brown-Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684780947990656259noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9201860074218791955.post-8128556442252222432011-02-01T21:40:00.003-08:002011-02-01T23:08:29.331-08:00What To Expect in My Posts<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hey everyone, </div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm Nick Aster, the author of this web-space. Thanks for looking at my stuff! Every week I'm going to try to post at least one poem if not a small fistful of them. I hope that you use the comment space as a way to bounce off my work if bouncing seems appropriate. Comments containing creative responses are completely welcome in order to maintain the collaborative workshop atmosphere for which the Blog format is best suited. Besides poetry posts I should be regularly posting:</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">-Visual art that I'm working through. </div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">-The daily marginalia that sticks to me from my ENG/LIT classes at the University of Utah. </div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">-Archaic-process film photos taken on rusty old cameras, crayons, collages, crayons...</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">OH! and if I start getting some followers then I plan on Blog-publishing the novel that I'm working on for a Graduate Thesis seminar. The book is called "Angeles" and if I can spark some interest in 'LungBook' I'd love to drop a chapter or so a week. Serial reading can be crazy fun! Charles Dickens started the idea, so you know serializing books has to be legit and "the best of times"!</div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQgOVCfnPA4S9VQrLLI9wcj1uiZPRV8HjU_tgsulXS1f7TbpUhvUhjZg6H7DdYiwHHM42RxowaAe-QpBuTOYQpwNCZhyphenhyphenE_AYaemONtOtCG00KKsHXHJn4NuH8Ho6mbUQ_uojSiCsnRPUw/s1600/IMG_1827-2-copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQgOVCfnPA4S9VQrLLI9wcj1uiZPRV8HjU_tgsulXS1f7TbpUhvUhjZg6H7DdYiwHHM42RxowaAe-QpBuTOYQpwNCZhyphenhyphenE_AYaemONtOtCG00KKsHXHJn4NuH8Ho6mbUQ_uojSiCsnRPUw/s400/IMG_1827-2-copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Nicholas Brown-Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684780947990656259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9201860074218791955.post-80090380482735423082011-02-01T21:22:00.000-08:002011-02-01T21:22:59.130-08:00fr1st post! "Portals" <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Portals</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>Nick Aster</i></span><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt;"><i></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The door to our room is the latched top of a vast jar. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Inside these walls, old darkening sugar, apricot halves and everything equinox seeps deep </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">into our skin. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">If this room is a jar, it is tipped on its side and filled with flower petals and whispered sacraments. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Honey, we are fruitage in these perfectly still moments of eventide. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Were this rooms of ours to right itself</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">we would see the door above us as we lay on the floor </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> (now a doublewindow) </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">lamenting the brevities of the night and shadies. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Do you remember when I told you that you were, and still are, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">the daisy that’s unfurled, moonbathing, in the garden across the street?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">When I told you that you were, and may still be, a miracle, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">moment by moment, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">of naked existence?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">You asked me if all daises were miracles? If the flower petals in this room, this jar, were psalms?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“When you are the daisy, it is a miracle. Without you, flowers are just happenstance, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">blooming words that leak to earth from the corners of God’s mouth when he naps.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Do you remember that? I hardly do. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">When you sleep next to me do you stand next to me as I wander through my dreams?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I fear the harvest. The world’s crepuscular season of witheredgrasslips and spirits. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">In just days now, the air will be spiced with haunts and dank aspen skin. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Will you unlatch the doorlid on the ceiling and ramble into the orange above, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">leaving me sleeping against the nightchilled starstained glassbottom?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Will ghouls sneak into our room through the door above, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">left<span> </span>a jar, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">to eat the sugared apricots and whispers?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Will October’s breath blow you and your daisy seeds into strange soil and strange rooms</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">against strange windows slandered with unseasoned light from a strange moon?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Could this dormant, anxious, equinox</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">handle such a miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
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</div>Nicholas Brown-Asterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684780947990656259noreply@blogger.com0