"All the Hues
That Fit, We Tint"

Siberia, USA: Today, global warming. Tonight, dark, unless you count the stars. Tomorrow can be reached via time machine. Yesterday, who can remember that far back?

Websafe Studio, blogging since 2003, featuring art, comics, digital whiteboards, virtual characters, Web design, writing

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

 

The Mirror: You Confuse the Poet with Yourself

Websafe: Hello?
The Mirror: Do I?
W: Do you say hello?
M: There's a window in the next room.
W: What can you see through the window?
M: I just say and know, it helps.
W: But you didn't tell me what you saw.
M: You're not watching a Shakespeare movie, are you?
W: I am watching the tragedy called Life.
M: (Blindfolded)
W: You would rather not see anything tragic, I suppose.
M: Not even Google can tell us how to be unequivocal.
W: Have you ever heard of La Smorfia, the Neapolitan lottery dream book?
M: Ah, you like hearing things that are no particular challenge.
W: Now, wait a minute ...
M: An Evelyn Wood speed-remembering course?
W: That would be much too challenging.
M: If that's your desire, I don't understand why you speak.
W: Even speaking can be challenging.
M: Is that what this stuff is?
W: Sometimes it's all too challenging.
M: Look at what?
W: Look at an antique Lotto book.
M: I would like to think of cool things.
W: Loteria cards are cool too.
M: Do you say hello?
W: I said hello at the beginning.
M: I don't know what you mean.
W: Didn't you notice me come in?
M: Now, wait a minute ...
W: Yes, I came in, and I said hello, too.
M: My thinking.
W: You were too busy thinking to hear me say hello?
M: I can tell you that, it's a maze.
W: Social niceties form an impenetrable maze.
M: How did you know?
W: I think about that kind of thing a lot.
M: You are perfection itself as you are.
W: So you're into a "come as you are" kind of dynamic.
M: What is this stuff?
W: Oh, just a little pop psychology.
M: Sticking to the subject, losing my balance.
W: The subject is like melted chewing gum on the pavement.
M: These books are no longer relevant.
W: What books are you talking about?
M: Until that point tinies itself into non-existence.
W: You're reading a book which makes a non-existent point?
M: Does watching TV benefit us at all?
W: The old question, books or TV.
M: Because I want to talk about something more interesting.
W: Let's talk about poor old John Berryman.
M: Do the trees worship you?
W: Logic trees might admire my way of putting things together.
M: Insults can be spread, it's true.
W: Have you ever read Gargantua and Pantagruel?
M: That's the ticket, keep the flattery coming!
W: I flatter you by attributing to you the reading of Rabelais.
M: I had some trouble establishing the connection.
W: These days, only scholars read Rabelais.
M: Let's talk about poor old John Berryman.
W: John Berryman (1914-1972) was quite a poet.
M: Tastes of light.
W: Now I suppose he is transmogrified.
M: You're reading a book which makes a non-existent point?
W: Maybe the point is not the point.
M: Yet under that very pressure, it proliferates.
W: Under the pressure to be "avant-garde," the points multiply?
M: Have you ever eaten eels?
W: Eels are slippery characters.
M: Now, whose memory is whose?
W: Your memory is mine.
M: Having nothing to say could be brief.
W: Do you want me to leave so soon?
M: "The Idiot Savant."
W: The non-knower who knows everything.
M: It sounds like you are discommunicado.
W: That could be a person who walks around with earphones all the time.
M: I think a while ago, you said, "Whatever happens."
W: I never use that expression.
M: This is an accomplishment.
W: I know, because I am resisting tiresome slang.
M: You mean if they're closed?
W: Slang dictionaries remain open for all and sundry to partake.
M: The water was splashed by her hands into her face.
W: She was refreshed by un-slang.
M: I didn't say we were going to discuss "Skunk Hour."
W: We could discuss a bit of Robert Lowell.
M: A lot more than frustration, a lot more serious.
W: Robert Lowell is more consonant a read than Berryman.
M: The Idiot Savant was left writing his own obituary.
W: Neither Lowell nor Berryman were idiots, but they were both bipolar.
M: Oh, you can respond with major emotion to major trauma.
W: And Berryman had a major trauma at age 12.
M: Robert Lowell is more consonant a read than Berryman.
W: Lowell is somehow more and less demanding.
M: These four walls are a totality in and of themselves.
W: So you must do a lot of reading.
M: That could be a person who walks around with earphones all the time.
W: I can't read with earphones on.
M: The entire world of suffering, perhaps?
W: I suffer when there is too much competing stimulation around me.
M: Neither Lowell nor Berryman were idiots, but they were both bipolar.
W: They were both very sensitive instruments.
M: What does it do?
W: It registers light.
M: I don't see Wallace Stevens as a boxer, though he did punch Hemingway.
W: Wallace Stevens was another very sensitive instrument.
M: Will that make it difficult to know whether or not it's me doing the talking?
W: Yes, because you confuse the poet with yourself, if he is great.
M: Life.
W: That's life all over, isn't it?
M: Sometimes glad's next door to nervous.
W: Berryman was a highly strung individual.
M: Come back!
W: You want John Berryman to reincarnate?
M: Well, partially I'm talking about words I've spoken.
W: Oh, I see, you want to recall your words.
M: The purpose is to change the situation inside which orientation goes on.
W: You want to start all over again?
M: I think I mean "presentimento."
W: Italian prediction of disaster?
M: Oh boy, this is starting to sound like the movie I saw last night.
W: Was it an art film?
M: You don't know where to put the name so that it adheres, even momentarily, to this thing I'm pursuing.
W: What are you pursuing, reality or dream?
M: Suppose I have no available subject matter?
W: Then you must go outdoors and find some.
M: Yes, because you confuse the poet with yourself, if he is great.
W: And that's just when it's good to go downtown.
M: Why not?
W: Yes, let's go.
M: Oh, I see, you want to recall your words.
W: I want to remember everything, in shining detail.
M: The beloved is hidden behind seven doors.
W: Is that a seven-deity pantheon?
M: I can see that kind of agitation inside yours.
W: My pantheon is agitated?
M: Words no longer seem to me designed to effectively cut into the world as it is.
W: So that's why we write poetry, to shake things up a little.
M: I don't have any trade secrets that you could steal.
W: I know there is no formula.
M: Well, if you were an ATM, maybe I could get some money out of you.
W: And if pigs could fly, there'd be a lot less hamming it up around here!
M: Is it honeycake?
W: No, pork chops.
M: Do you have a magic act?
W: I saw a magic act.
M: Good.
W: The magician bent spoons.
M: Just as I feared.
W: You don't like the Uri Geller trick?
M: You can't see me, you'll just have to take my word for it.
W: I guess you're making a moue of distaste.
M: (In window) Smell the flowers, Maestro.
W: To replace the sensation of the trick you don't like.
M: Well, as usual, I have to get to work, and am stalling by talking to you.
W: Goodbye!
M: Closing in 5 seconds ... Goodbye!

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posted at 6:15 PM
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