Days, 2002
--.
In the beginning the All was in one place, and not a thing
of the All did move, nor was there any time across which any thing could trace
its line, for the All was in one place, immobile, with neither time nor space.
A desire was conceived in the All for movement, and
the desire was already movement, two things commingling and conceiving three,
four things colliding and making seven, all things tracing their lines under
the force of desire.
The desire was left with the things themselves, and
the All retained but memory of itself, seeing all things fly off to the rhythm
of desire, knowing and waiting for the things to begin to gather; and the
memory cast its shadow over all the things.
The things did begin to gather in their shadow, and
their movement became a play of shadow and light.
--.
Every day just one potato
That's the diet for a Plato
Every night I drink my bottle
Soon you'll call me Aristotle
--.
Boca del cano. Two eight-year-old girls talking before class time
outside my office door. I can
clearly hear every word they say.
"Is there anyone in this room?"
the one girl asks her friend.
Their idea is to find a place away from
the teachers and the other students in the school lobby.
"Yes. There's an American in there," the friend says.
"You're fooling me," the first girl
says. "Really?"
"Really. There's a big American in there! He's inside there alone."
"I don't believe you! It's a classroom." (My office sometimes doubles as a small
classroom for four or five students.)
"No one's here yet."
"Don't open it!" the friend
says, referring to the door.
"I'm telling you, there's a really big American inside. Really."
I step up next to the door and watch it
open slowly, at first just a crack.
I'm behind the door, out of sight and just above the tuft of black hair
and the smooth bit of tanned yellow forehead that begins to protrude into the
room.
"There's no one in here," the
intruder finally says to her friend.
"C'mon."
"What do you want?" I ask,
suddenly opening the door all the way.
The girl leaps back. "How kong bu! " she shouts to her
friend. (It means something like:
"The horror! The
horror!")
"I told you so," the
friend says, laughing. "I
told you there was an American in there."
--.
Babel Ting Xie2
--.
What
having been
is never
and never was
will be the
history of our race
history itself effaced
No matter the marks we now make
the Erasure which leaves no trace
will leave no trace
Smoothly
we glide down this glass
till the glass itself
has no name
And our slide no longer sensed
not even as a drifting into past
is no longer slide
nor sensed
A "once was"
emended to "never"
won't be emended
never having been
And what has been
will never be
nor was
the names of our days
effaced
So the history of our race
--.
Hans and Gunther's Party
by Duncan Class S151
Hans and Gunther Broch were born on the same day. They're twins. They're also vampires. The
two grew up together in Europe, but they moved to Taiwan a few years ago. Now the two brothers live together in a
castle in the mountains not far from Taipei.
Hans and Gunther invited
all their vampire friends to a party last weekend. They also invited some foolish Taipei students and one
American fool. The foolish students
were named Nick, Darren, and Tina.
The American fool was a teacher, and his name was Eric. Hans and Gunther wanted to drink these
people's blood and share it with their vampire friends. They told everyone to arrive at the
castle around 2:00 Sunday morning.
Hans and Gunther stayed
home all night and prepared for the party. Their preparations began after the sun set Saturday night.
First the two
vampires worked outside the castle.
Hans swept the graves and cleaned up the wolf poop. Gunther cleaned the blood pool and
fixed the drawbridge.
At 10:00 p.m. the
vampires started to work inside the castle. Hans barbecued some people for the meal and made a spider
and cockroach salad. Gunther
dusted the skeletons in the living room and woke up the zombie. "Soon you need to serve the
guests," he said.
Hans and Gunther
finished all their work at 1:30 a.m.
Their castle looked scary inside and out.
The guests arrived on
time, about 2:00 a.m. The vampires
came first. Then the foolish
students and the American came.
They all ate mosquito cake and drank Bloody Mary's in the living room. Then they ate breat with ant
butter. Some people talked about
their pet wolves. Other people
talked about English class. Everybody talked about how bloody and scary the castle looked
inside and out.
The zombie served dinner
in the dining room around 3:00.
Everybody enjoyed the meal very much. They liked the barbecued people and they "loved" the
spider and cockroach salad. In
fact, everybody asked for seconds.
After dinner everybody
sat in the living room again.
First, Hans played music on the foolish American's ribs. Then, Gunther bit the student Nick and
drank his blood. Nick said,
"Huhhh?" Finally, two
other vampire guests bit Tina and Darren.
Now they are all vampires.
As you can see, Hans and
Gunther's guests enjoyed the party very much. In fact, nobody wanted to go home! Some of the guests slept over in the guest coffins until
Sunday night.
--.
City of God
Aristotle would have it thus:
The seed of each end sprouts anew
in each husk;
Each word comes unplagiarized from
no City beyond,
This poem drawing fibs from its
very own ground.
But where were you, Dear,
When that ancient Rule spanned
This fallen sphere, our universe,
From which philosophers damned
Lost the cause, our first mover--
Where were you, Dear, then?
--.
Autobiography in Three Sentences
I grew up in fits and starts in the American
Midwest. Sixteen years old I fell
in love with books, and then with the idea of the Book. Now I'm in possession of a wisdom that
tells me the words I hear and the words I write are words I hardly know.
--.
Deathday.
March 7th, 2050, 10:10 a.m. Age 84.
--.
September.
Phone discussion with Cosmo di Madison. Everything is pretty much as usual. He tells me he's having trouble getting
money because his accounts are being siphoned off by his corrupt relatives and
the woman impersonating his mother.
He's also having trouble with the young George Bush. "We give him the speech to
memorize, and when he goes out and gives the speech he changes everything and
fucks it all up." I was happy
to learn he was back in the cafŽ and that the staff treats him well. There were at least a few years when
they made themselves part of the conspiracy against him.
--.
Side by Side IV, p. 61
Two Taiwanese women speaking English:
A: Do you think I should marry Norman?
B: No, I don't.
If you marry Norman, you might regret it for the rest of your life.
A: Why do you say that?
B: Norman is very flower-hearted. And he's a wine ghost.
A: Really?
B: Yes.
And he's got a Mediterranean too.
A: I know.
I think it's kind of cute.
B: He's a color old head! You shouldn't marry him.
A: Hm.
Maybe you're right. But how
do you know he's so bad?
B: He works in my office. He's always eating people's tofu.
A: Really?
Maybe I shouldn't marry him then.
B: You definitely shouldn't.
--.
Boca del cano:
Reasons Why Dogs are Better than Women
1. Dogs like it if you leave a lot of things on the
floor.
2. A dog's parents never visit.
3. Dogs seldom outlive you.
4. Dogs can't talk.
5. Dogs find you amusing when you're drunk.
6. If you bring another dog home, your dog will
happily play with both of you.
7. A dog will not wake you up at night to ask,
"If I died would you get another dog?"
8. If you pretend to be blind, your dog can stay in
your hotel room for free.
9. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the
paper and give them away.
10. Dogs don't let magazine articles guide their
lives.
11. Dogs are not allowed in Bloomingdale's or
Neiman-Marcus.
12. If a dog smells another dog on you, they don't get
mad, just think it's interesting.
13. Dogs are ready and eager to leave the house at
any time, they don't make you sit around waiting for them, and they never make
you comment on how they look before going out the door.
14. Since a dog doesn't know its own birthday, it
can't blame you for forgetting it.
15. Dogs
growl and bark at people they don't know, not at you.
16. If you need a vacation, you don't have to take
your dog with you; instead you can find someone to look after it while you're
gone.
17. Dogs don't want cats in the house.
--.
The conundrum of language is that it has no
history. There's nothing available
in the way of a partially formed language or half-formed language. We don't know how language arose, or
if.
It is misleading to think that some time in the distant past we invented language. It's better to say that some time in the distant past language invented us, or rather started inventing us: clearly language hasn't finished yet.
--.
Four Defensible Theses on
Scripture
1. There are many false
"holy" scriptures, but only one true Holy Scripture.
2. There is only one true Holy
Scripture, but there are many false interpretations of it.
3. There is only one true Holy
Scripture, and all interpretations of it contain falsehood.
4. Any given scripture is a
makeshift hodgepodge of more or less deluded illuminations.
--.
12 body parts and their use. 12 maps. 12 histories of origin in the form of drawings. 12 poems. 12 drafts or scraps.
12 adjectives and their opposites.
12 fruits and their colors.
12 tales.
--.
Another example in a well-known genre. . .
Our play of shadow and light is the fruit of nascent
gathering.
All things have begun their gathering under the
shadow of a memory that reached them even as they flew apart to the rhythm of
desire. This memory was left to
the All when desire sent the things into movement.
Their movement was various: seven had arisen from
four things colliding, three were conceived from the commingling of two. The movement had come from the All: a
desire conceived in the All for movement, which desire was already movement.
For in the beginning the All had been in one place,
immobile, with neither time nor space. Not a thing of the All did move, nor was
there any time across which any thing could trace its line.
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