On the assumption that these words have in some way weathered the
ravages of time do give them your hearing wending your way over the heap of
their inscription by your careful step what here appears haphazard collage has
in fact been designed according to an inevitability as great as any other in
this world for here before you are many bricks in a ziggurat piled bricks not
made by these hands no but piled here in ziggurat alphabetical this
anabecedarian ziggurat from alpha to nowhere near omega as you'll see my beth
as in aleph beth I was that day outside the Chih-Shan metro station where I was
trying to have a quiet smoke before heading up to the office while next to me
three slackbrained idiots in house slippers were yelling on their cellphones in
Taiwanese three different conversations all three yelling the same way the
racket of it nearly bust my skull got me to thinking about what Frederick said
of the German language what exactly did Frederick say and was the name
Frederick if only he could have heard this heard either this or that in the
beginning the all was in one place 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 and 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 which 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 this memory cast its shadow over all the things and things did begin to
gather in their shadow and their movement became a play of shadow and light and
we are this play say some heretics while others chant
Every day just one potato
That's the diet for a Plato
Every night I drink my bottle
Soon you'll call me Aristotle
and
so with these others do I heave up this ziggurat alphabetical this testament in
clay or Clay Testament Envoi Poetics 1.2 Original sin, the fruit of the
fall, Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx
Yy Zz . , : ; ? ! " ' ( ) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Genesis
Adam was a short beast, with a thin line
of hair down his back, like a mane.
Eve had a thin line of hair down her back; it was like a mane.
In those days, when you came into
town, a stranger, you could always recognize Adam and Eve, because they were
the only ones without navels.
The first writing was by Cain, who started by drawing pictures on
his parents' bellies. Their
bellies were smooth, and had no navels.
Cain would ask them to lie back by the fire, and close their eyes, and
he would draw. When he was done,
they would open their eyes and look at what he had drawn.
Once Cain drew an unheard of thing. It was such a thing, that when God saw it, he let it stay on
Eve's belly as punishment. God
punished Eve for the evil sport she had fallen into. It could not be washed away, but stayed on Eve's belly. For they had fallen into an evil sport.
Exodus
It was during
the years in the wilderness. Moses
came down from Sinai and saw what Aaron had done in his absence.
And Moses said:
"What is this you have done!"
Aaron said: "You
know yourself what this people is like.
They said to me: 'Make us something to glitter in our heads. This God who led us up from Egypt--we
don't know what's become of him.'
So I said to them: 'Who of you is still shapely and comely?' And they came to me and showed me, and
I filmed them all. Then I gathered
the film and threw it into the fire.
And after awhile out came this calf."
Judges
Yahweh did not plant a garden in the plot behind DV-8, for nothing
was planted there. And the land of
that plot stretched forth in mud and occasional sprouting weeds, and cigarette
butts did scatter over the land.
And one could see the plot from the window by the urinal, and the plot
did stretch forth under the dull glow of the streetlight. And Yahweh saw that it was barren, and
good for nothing.
In DV-8 did the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites,
Arkites, Sinites, and Arvadites come to drink their beer. There did they gather to drink.
And Cathy and Niall did serve the Jebusites, the Amorites, the
Girgashites, the Hivites, Arkites, Sinites and Arvadites. Them did they serve the beer that they
drank. And the Arkites, Amorites,
Jebusites and Sinites did tip the bar.
But the Girgashites, Hivites and Arvadites did not tip her.
And Cathy did complain to Yahweh of the Girgashites, Hivites and Arvadites.
And Cathy said:
"Whence do they all come to me, to buy my drink and slobber on the wood,
but never do they put a dollar in the glass? How long shall I suffer the Girgashites, Hivites and
Arvadites to buy my drink? And
when will they return to their lands?"
And she said: "The Arkites, Amorites, Jebusites, and Sinites do
show right proportion. For they
spend freely on drink, and occasionally do they tip us who serve them the
drink."
And Yahweh heard Cathy's complaint. And Yahweh did bless the Arkites, Amorites, Jebusites, and
Sinites. But the others he did not
bless. And they did suffer
grievous hangovers.
And John the Hittite did play the best music in DV-8. And Wednesday night would he bring
forth from his own collection, and he would play. And the heavy notes of blues and deep solid guitar licks did
fill the place. And nowhere was to
be heard the light dribbling piss of pop.
And none dared rebuke John the Hittite for the music he did play. For if one should rebuke him, John the
Hittite would smite him. For John
the Hittite smote many a whiner in his youth. And thus it is said: Many a whiner was smote by John, but
rarely a man was smitten by the women in DV-8.
And the Hivites and Arvadites did play billiards in the basement of
DV-8. And the urinal did have a
screen that pulled shut for the modesty of the Amorites. But the Jebusites, Girgashites,
Hivites, Arkites, Sinites and Arvadites did have no modesty; and they did show
forth their members freely to all who would look.
And one day it happened that Daniel the Arkite was found in the plot of
barren land. And he was upside
down and sorely drunk. And he did
say: "Who hath put me thus in the plot of land, to be thus upside down and
sorely drunk? And to have thus mud
and a cigarette butt on the side of my face. Who hath done this deed to me?" And no man did admit it, but all said
that he had put himself in the plot of land, and was himself upside down there,
having been put there by no man.
And Daniel the Arkite did curse the men of DV-8, saying: "The
Arkites and Amorites and Sinites and Arvadites are gobshites. How long shall I listen to their
slobber over the wood, before I piss off from this place?"
And the men of DV-8 did openly mock at Daniel the Arkite. For he did curse the Arkites among the
others; but he himself was of the Arkites.
And one day did Niall the Sinite stride across the plot of barren
land. And under his foot did he
tread the cigarette butts and the mud.
And the sprouting tufts did not set his heart mourning; but he did
stride forth.
And Niall the Sinite did set forth from his homeland in DV-8. And Yahweh considered it righteousness
in him. And Niall the Sinite with
his brother Jason the Sinite did establish their seed in a new land, and the
seed did flourish, and Yahweh considered it righteousness in them.
And the Flood did come. And
few were the heads of those that did peep above the water; but many were the
heads of those that sank. And mud
was all over the place, and the Girgashites, Hivites, Gobshites and Arvadites
did wail grievously unto Yahweh, but He paid them no heed. As to the Arkites, Amorites, Jebusites,
and Sinites, when the Flood did come they found themselves living in fifth
floor apartments or higher, for Yahweh had seen to it that they should stay
dry.
And Cathy did venture forth on the waters of the Flood. And she did find herself adrift over
the place of six ploughshares. And
lo, when the waters did recede, a pub was brought forth. And Cathy did name that pub Bob Wun
Daye, which being interpreted means No problem. And the walls of that place were not
hung with tattered banners, and the air there did not smell of locker rooms;
neither did the Arkites, Amorites, Jebusites and Sinites slobber on the wood;
but Yahweh did bless that place.
The Gospel of Thom
Smit
I.
Once upon a
time was the Word. And the Word was without form, and void.
In short, the Word was many words, and
sometimes even things.
One could not tell the difference in any
place, for all words and things were different; they were all different from
each other, and they were even more different from the Word. And the Word, in its turn, was
different according to whom you asked, and in what words you asked.
What's more, all was such that one could
not fix one's eyes on any thing, or fix one's ears on any word, and expect it
even to stay the same as itself.
In short, all words were different from
themselves, and all things were different from any words, and also from each
other, and also from themselves.
Even one's eyes were different, the left
one from the right, and either eye was certainly different, very different,
from either ear; and the ears protruded from each side of the head: in short,
they were very different.
Then Thom Smit was born.
II.
And Thom Smit did grow to be a youth of fourteen years, and his
virtue did show forth in many ways.
And the people were astonished by his words, for he spoke as one with
wisdom, and not as one who watched TV.
Said he: "Just as our elders, weakened by years of
compromise, submit to the presence of those they loathe, so do our melons soak
the fouled waters of the plain, till they poison both themselves and those that
partake of them."
And: "Submit not to both these poisons. Though you eat the melons to the skin, yet leave the elders
to chew their own bitter rinds."
And Thom Smit did take ceramics class at the Pottery Barn of the strip
mall as you drive into town from Monona.
And he did throw him many a mean pot. And he did paint upon his pots designs and symbols, and the
people did look at what he painted, and did say, "What hath this
youth?"
For they said: "This youth is not like others, but hath him a
perversion of the head."
And the owner of the Pottery Barn in those days was named Chuck, and
Chuck did keep the pots of Thom Smit in the back, lest other youths should see
them, and lest they should speak of them unto their parents. For on the pots were many things that
youths should not see.
And some of Thom Smit's pots did the owner break outright, pretending
they had cracked in the kiln.
"For this one," sayeth Chuck unto his assistant, "this
one is surely too much; I will not even fire this one."
And Thom Smit did suspect Chuck of thus breaking his pots, and spoke
sorely unto him.
And Thom Smit did take him a can of maroon glaze, and did pour it into
the drawer of Chuck's desk.
And the can was a large can, and did foul the books and papers in that
desk, dripping even unto the floor.
And Thom Smit did break seventeen ceramic owls made by the ladies of St.
James Lutheran. And Chuck did see
him do it, and did hear him speak bitter words as he did it.
And Thom Smit was no longer welcome at the Pottery Barn, but did take up
tennis.
Said he: "Our world is all preprocessed, and full of fakes; fakes
upon fakes. The boredom of Formica
covers all things here, even unto death."
And all of these things were when Thom Smit was still but a youth of
fourteen years.
III.
And it came to pass as Thom Smit was a young man that he went
forth like many of his generation to work as a barista.
And
this work was as he was a student at the university in the town of Madison; and
the cafˇ in the which he did work was near upon the university, and was often
filled with people.
And the people of the cafˇ were of many sorts.
And Thom Smit did work next to the scribe of that place, and he did
serve forth the drinks unto the people.
And the prophet of that place in those days was named Cosmo di
Madison. And Cosmo di Madison did
preach the word of the Lord unto the people there. But the people heeded him not.
And Cosmo di Madison did resent the presence of Thom Smit at the
espresso machine, and did make him out to be a servant of Belial.
And Cosmo di Madison complained sorely to the scribe of that place, and
spoke many bitter words.
And the scribe of that place recorded the words of Cosmo di Madison, for
in those days did he note down all his words.
And it came to pass when Thom Smit heard the words against him, that he
did say unto Comso di Madison, and he said it unto his face: "A prophet
art thou not, but art rather a paranoid schizophrenic."
And: "The symptoms are obvious upon you, O Cosmo di Madison, and
all do know it. Thou art one who
barkest at the moon. Woof
woof!"
And Cosmo di Madison did not suffer the words of Thom Smit in silence,
but did rail against him to all that would hear.
And Cosmo di Madison would drink no drink made by his hands, but did
speak of such drinks as having a poison in them.
And one day Thom Smit did say unto Cosmo di Madison: "Today it
seemeth you have not taken your medicine, O great prophet, and so it is that
you speak forth loudly your prophecies, and the people heed you not."
And: "Today I have a hangover, O prophet, and care not to
hear you. So get you hence through
the door, or pay for your coffee like the others. If you cannot pay, so must you go hence to the street. For today I have a hangover, O prophet,
and care not to hear your prophecies."
And upon hearing these words a rage did come upon Cosmo di Madison, and
he did complain ever more sorely of Thom Smit, and did attribute to him many
conspiracies and sundry larcenies.
And the scribe did write down all his words, for in those days did he
write down all the words that the prophet did say.
IV.
From the Scribe's Journals:
Thom Smit--to think he is a student of engineering! He's blonde and small, of muscular
build. He's a great reader of
Gilles Deleuze, and considers himself a Nietzschean. It's lucky for me he's at the cafˇ. He's proving an excellent foil for Cosmo
di Madison. I've recently got him
reading Rabelais. --May, 1992
Cosmo di Madison now recognizes in Thom Smit a nemesis worthy of
the swiftest action. That I'm responsible for his being hired at the cafˇ is
generally known, and I confess it openly.
I should have seen the man's character for what it was. Needless to say, Cosmo di Madison has
forgiven this lapse on my part, pointing out that Pseudo-Sergeant Major Smit is
obviously a professional and had been trained by Kissinger's people
specifically to pull the wool over my eyes. Cosmo di Madison himself was almost taken in. "At first I thought he was just a
loser like all the other losers.
But it's worse than that. He's a fucking imposter--ya hear me?"
--July, 1992
Remarks of Cosmo di Madison on Thom Smit:
1. "That useless fucking bastard calls himself a fucking
lieutenant major, but he's just a fucking high school dropout drug addict who
couldn't tell his ass from a hole in the ground if his life depended on it."
2. "How many customers do you think that fucking punk is
gonna short change before Mark [the owner] wises up and fires him?"
3. "You know he's got his finger in the till and he's
supplying all the barbiturates to Craig and Monkey Butt. Kissinger's got him working the joint
to make sure they do their job and try to drug me every fucking chance they
get. I wasn't born yesterday what
do you think! Pssh! That fucking Craig has been selling the
barbiturates on the side too.... Oh, don't act so surprised! You know it goes on."
4. "Mark needs to spend more time in his shop. I got enough stuff to do keeping the
customers clean. If Kissinger buys
out your staff, this place is finished, ya hear me? I won't come back.
Ya hear me? You just see
what'll go down then. Mark will
wish he never even heard of this town.
Ya hear me?"
V.
And soon after these things had come to pass, behold it did happen
that the spirit of the Lord came upon Thom Smit, and he began to speak in
parables.
And all at the cafˇ did wonder upon it, and did say, "What hath
Thom Smit, that he speakest thusly?"
And he did leave his work at the cafˇ, and ceased from his study at the
university.
And Thom Smit went forth to preach unto the people like Cosmo di
Madison, for the spirit of the Lord had moved him.
And Thom Smit did
wander the streets on the west side of Madison, whereas Cosmo di Madison did
preach in the downtown.
And Thom Smit preached the word unto the people of the west side, as you
head out of town toward Monona.
And the people heeded him not.
And thus it was that the people said amongst themselves: "Is Thom
Smit also one of the prophets?"
And these words are as a proverb even unto this day.
VI.
And Thom Smit built his house on sandy ground, and sowed his seed
upon the rocky wayside, and combed his hair with a goblet.
And he took a fox for a mango, and made of it a hairy puree.
And many did laugh at him, and said: "Thom Smit does not know his
ass from a hole in the ground."
And they said: "Thom Smit could not find his ass with both
hands."
But verily it was said unto them, and it was said by Thom Smit: "A
day shall come to pass when none shall be able to tell their ass from a hole in
the ground. And then shall a great
wailing be heard."
And he said: "Only those who from the very beginning could not tell
their asses from holes in the ground--only such as these shall enter the
Kingdom of Heaven. All others
shall be cast out, and their asses shall be grass, and they will know not if
they have been turned into a golf course, or what. Boy, will there be wailing then."
And he said:
"Those who mistake their asses for a wheelbarrow shall inherit the
earth."
And he said: "Blessed are they who try to catch flies in their
mouth. Blessed are they who would rather hang out in a juice bar than flay the
fox with the big boys."
And he said: "My father is a colonel and I am a sergeant
major. My father could thrash all
your male relatives with his left hand if he wanted. My father has forty-seven Cadillacs."
But the people heard him not, and they sent him packing from their patio
parties; and their daughters did tend to throw garbage at the back of his head.
But verily, reader, can you tell your ass from a hole in the ground even
now?
Acts
I. The eggs are white and have a yellow center.
I
am white and have a black center.
My
wife is ivory with an unknown center, perhaps red.
Our
guest is light yellow, or olive, with a center of pure white.
Christ said: "My yolk is light."
Yes, but light what?
Valentinus: "Of a very light color indeed! Like a shimmering peach."
II. The first egg I crack has two yolks connected by a bloody
umbilical to the clear mucous membrane surrounding them. The crystal sphere.
Epistles
I.
Original sin, the fruit of the Fall, is not
passed on through blood or the soul, but through language.
The fallen world is the object of
language.
It follows that our being in language is
our being in sin. This does not
mean that we can live other than in language, but rather means that we must
live in language so as least to miss the mark.
The poet comes before the scribe. The poet's work is revelation of the
divine. The poet allows us to live
in language so that we may least miss the mark. The poet forms language so that it is the closest to nonlanguage.
The poet makes use of, and perfects, those elements in language that are
not of language.
There is a possible accumulation in
language, a materiality, a hard rhythm at the heart of language heard best by
the poet. The poet follows this
rhythm until language breaks and cracks, having reached the top or bottom, the
left or right, the backwards or forwards, the inside or outside, the temple or
frontier of its range.
II.
The scribe loves
all that is getting out of hand.
He loves such because he knows, given the tininess of his own hands,
that everything has already gotten out of hand.
"Everything has
gotten out of hand!" says the scribe with pleasure.
And being that
everything is thus begotten, the scribe knows it to be most recognizable in its
thus-begottenness when it is not merely known to have gotten out of hand, but
is felt to be always and ever becoming out of hand.
"Hell! Best for it to be gloriously becoming
so!"--that is what the scribe says.
In fact the scribe
knows his hands to be so tiny that the only thing they can really grasp is the
stylus. And the scribe grasps this
stylus scriptively, which is to say in a manner that pays homage to the getting
there of all that is way out of hand, but not only in a manner that pays
homage, but in a manner also that is no manner, but is instead way
out of hand.
The scribe, then,
holds the stylus in his tiny hand, but knows that what the stylus leaves, the
marks the stylus leaves, are already out of hand the moment they are left, are
left as it were in homage to the loveliness of their getting out of hand, and
are also in their very leaving left out of hand.
From this you can see
that the scribe is in no man's hand.
He is hardly a hired hand.
That he kept grain accounts--don't believe it. Rather heaped he grain round Pharaohs conscripted. And will!
The scribe loves all
that is getting out of hand.
III.
God formed man of the clay of the ground and then breathed into
him the breath of life. The clay
of the ground as material and the breathing in of the breath of life: these
have been the focus of most concern in our literature and speculation. And the question of what the breath of
life may be has been recurrent.
But the question of the forming, the verb forming, hasn't raised our
attention in the right way. And
yet everyone knows--the Sumerians and Babylonians knew--that the pressing of
marks into the clay was the crucial part of this forming. It was the pressing of marks, the right
marks, that gave the clay the dignity needed for its reception of the breath of
life.
The clay as result of this writing is clay that may receive the breath
of life if only this breath be given it.
> > > A letter from the seventh edition of The Clay
Testament addressed to one Ivan as in Most Dear and Incorrigible. I write
you for one purpose only: to save you, if only a bit, the confusion. The following, then, should suffice. Collection not supposed to be a
book. You shouldn't as such, as it
wasn't written in that. I wouldn't
even call it if I were asked.
Though arranged in a rough, they remain quite separate--letters,
prosetry, brief essays, jokes, many painfully ironic in the manner, say, that
poor, sad Flaubert. You wouldn't
do well, then.
In
finding this, rather think that you have come upon an unlocked desk drawer in
the office of some curious perhaps unstable, that you have looked into desk
drawer found it full of all manner handwritten--cafˇ napkins, envelopes, scrap
paper--understandably overcome by the desire to steal this with the intention
of finding out why further with the suspicion that you would perhaps be able
through scraps to look into what many would doubtless call.
These few hints should set you on the right track concerning the form
and place.
You, Ivan, are surely one of those people
who wouldn't hesitate to read a young girl's journal left accidentally open on
her desk. This much I know about
you. "Life is short,"
you would tell yourself.
"Lets see what she thinks she is up to."
You open the journal somewhere in the
middle, read a bit, read randomly here and there, looking for the nasty things,
and probably after a few minutes putting the journal down with the recognition
that it's much like all such journals: there's nothing particular to be read
there. "The lives of our
young people are so pathetic," you remind yourself.
But if, on the other hand, you were taken
by one passage or another, you would sit down on her bed and read on, reading
feverishly on and on, eventually even taking the risk of being caught. In which case she and her relatives
would think you a scoundrel. But
no matter, right? You know what
life is. I know you, Ivan.
Probably now you're getting at what my
notions of literature are. And
hopefully you've understood that with this collection you're meant to read
around, not searching for an artificial order in the texts, but seeking rather
the jokes, illicit narratives, and perverse epiphanies that make our sort of
reading worthwhile. I hope you
find something worthwhile in this collection, and that some time you will have
reason to write me in a like manner, so that, in the end, there will be some
correspondence between us. For
among the people I've known here in Madison, I've found myself alone in my
painful desire for writing, or at least for a certain kind of writing.
Tenet insanibile quam pauci scribendi
cacoethes. Here and now,
Horace would have had it thus. But
there's something in you, Ivan, something that gives a glimmer of hope.
If, on the other hand, you find yourself unconcerned with my notes, I
won't hold it against you--it won't harm the friendship we have. After all, these are just the barest
notes I give you, the tentative outline of a possible project, the scraps
found--I've said it already--in one mild eccentric's desk drawer. And I'm not the sharpest eccentric
either. I know it's so, Ivan. I'm not so stupid as you think.