the syllable that opened an eye
micah cavaleri
the syllable that opened an eye
the syllable that opened an eye micah cavaleri
Dollar Bay, Michigan 2010
Published by Dead Man Publishing, LLC Copyright © 2010 by Micah Anthony Cavaleri All Rights Reserved. ISBN 9780982701409 Dead Man Publishing, LLC PO Box 349 Dollar Bay, MI 49922 Printed in the United States of America by United Graphics, Inc. Cover Design by Micah Cavaleri Cover photograph of Sun YatSen circa 1907 Library of Congress Control Number: 2010931760
What Wittgenstein Saw: notes on conceptual analysis
This introduction is, more or less, the outline (or suggestion) of an argument that spells out the limits of conceptual analysis. So my hope is that the following notes will be taken for what they are: mere notes on the practice of conceptual analysis. In a nutshell, the limits of conceptual analysis reduce philosophy to empirical science, leaving no room for philosophy as it has been practiced to date in academia. The reduction is not surprising given the historical move from fields such as metaphysics, epistemology and politics to biology, physics, psychology, economics and sociology. However, the reason for the turn to science has not yet been fully digested, and so we have had a long delay in the abandonment of old philosophical practices for more fruitful
scientific studies. The intention of these notes is to help to make clear the full implications for philosophy of the discovery of empirical science. 1 Consider the philosophical distinction between propositional knowledge (pk) and nonpropositional knowledge (npk). Traditionally, pk, say pk of the color of the cream cheese in Herb’s refrigerator, is said to take a form something like this: “I know that green is the color of the cream cheese in Herb’s refrigerator.” Pk is a claim that something is the case. Npk is not a claim that something is the case. A common example of npk is knowing how to do something, e.g. how to play the piano. Herb can point to a bit of sheet music and tell you that if Gene plays the notes on the sheet music with a piano Gene will play Ahmad Jamal’s “Awakening.” In a sense then, Herb has pk concerning pianoplaying, since he can tell you THAT this is what you do to play Ahmad Jamal. Obviously, Herb does not necessarily know HOW to I hesitate to use the label “discovery” since it is quite obvious that historically the traditional hallmarks of empirical science (repeatability, testability, observability) were appreciated to some degree, though not as fully as in our own day. 1
play piano simply because he has pk concerning pianoplaying. Something is missing. It may be that in reality Herb does not know how to play piano, i.e. what keys to strike when looking at a particular note on a sheet of music, or at least not well enough to play anything by Ahmad Jamal, although he can point to a bit of Ahmad Jamal’s music. One piece that is missing is Herb’s ability to translate pk into action. The inability to act, to perform the music before him is what also prevents him from claiming npk concerning pianoplaying. Because Herb cannot play piano, we say that he does not know how to do so. But to gain the ability to play piano Herb can gain more pk, he can learn to read music. In learning to read music, Herb can also learn to associate what he reads with keys on the keyboard, Herb can learn the timing of each note, etc. And with practice Herb’s pk can become npk, an ability to play piano. So now the knowing how, npk, can be transmitted through pk, knowing that. Herb’s pianoplaying
(npk) is just a more complete pk of the subject. Is there a difference here? Maybe the case is flawed. If the difference is in the ability level, then the case is flawed...if there is a distinction between pk and npk. Or, really, the distinction between pk and npk itself is flawed. There is a confusion of two concepts, knowing and ability2 ̶ concepts for which we already have (fairly) clear conditions of application ̶ by gathering them under a single term, knowledge, and then wondering how to distinguish them. 3 But then maybe there is something we ought to investigate in the notions of pk and npk. So let's say for the moment that we see that there is a flaw in the case as it has been treated. Though these terms are often used interchangeably, it should not matter. If we are investigating the use of these terms, we must accept overlap if the uses overlap. To do otherwise is simply not to investigate the uses of the terms. We must, to be clear, accept the usages as we find them or fall into the trap of producing fictions rather than conceptual analyses. Where usages are not well-defined, there is no definition, or at least there is no clear definition. No philosophical analysis will clarify the situation. Furthermore, we must accept even contradictory applications. To rule out such logical aberrations is a preference of philosophers rather than an incontrovertible rule of language. If there is such a rule, it must somehow be established empirically. 3 The way to distinguish between the two kinds of knowledge here would be, quite obviously, to revert to the old terminology of “knowing” and “ability.” Thus the warnings of philosophers such as Austin and Wittgenstein against tweaking our language to make philosophical points and allowing ourselves to ignore whole portions of our language as a groundwork for some philosophical investigation. 2
The case as described does not pick up on the interesting epistemological distinction to be made. Perhaps what we want when we look at npk is a situation where Herb knows that something is the case but has no idea how or why. We want Herb to look at a spot of grass and correctly report that a moose slept in the spot three days ago, but we also want Herb to have no idea why he believes what he believes concerning the moose, except, maybe, that he is aware of being correct in most instances about where moose have slept. We may now have worked our way into a rather interesting situation philosophically. While Herb may not be aware of what it is that moves him to think that a moose recently slept in a certain area, Herb is, presumably, picking up on some feature(s) of the area, at least subliminally. It is reasonable to assume then that those features can be investigated scientifically. If the features can be uncovered as suggested, we are not in an
altogether different situation from the pianoplaying scenario. Herb was making use of inputs without knowing all that is involved. Investigation teaches Herb and then Herb is in a position to make use of his new pk, and npk turns out not to be distinct in a philosophically interesting manner from pk. Herb’s failure to articulate the features triggering his judgment is a matter for empirical psychology to investigate rather than an interesting conceptual problem.4 But what if the process of Herb’s moose divinations is not open to empirical investigation (and let us call such a situation mcase)? Does Herb have knowledge? What distinguishes npk from luck in this last, mysterious case? Here, now, are the questions that take us to the problem of philosophy in general, at least as an academic discipline. Philosophers generally
Some philosophers may suggest investigating the appropriateness of the description of Herb as possessing knowledge in the current case. Such an investigation will result only in usage recommendations for “to know” rather than revelations concerning the conditions for the application of “to know.” The reasons for this claim will be given in rough form shortly. 4
approach a hypothetical situation like mcase in one of the following ways: a) the philosopher makes use of traditional philosophical definitions of relevant concepts (e.g. “knowledge” and “propositional knowledge”) to show that, for instance, Herb’s knowledgeclaim meets, or fails to meet, some standard; or, b) the philosopher considers what she takes to be the ordinary usages of a term in order to locate a term’s conditions of application, and then claims, for example, that Herb can not claim to know since there is no corroborating evidence he can bring forth to support his claim, the possession of corroborative evidence being a condition of application for “to know” in ordinary circumstances. Both approaches are misguided and for closely related reasons. Take approach a first. Naively making use of traditional philosophical treatments of concepts is clearly a mistaken way of answering questions such as whether Herb has knowledge in mcase. We need reasons to think that
some treatment correctly characterizes knowledge. Otherwise, philosophy is merely butting words up against one another. No, we want to discover the truth and prove our claims, which brings us to approach b. Approach b is the way in which philosophers attempt to demonstrate that some treatment of a concept characterizes the concept accurately. Just as scientists do not merely meditate on the string of letters tree but look to the thing named by the string, so philosophers do not merely meditate, for example, on the letters knowledge. Philosophers look to what a term is applied to or why it is applied, i.e. to what usages are ordinary or correct by society’s standards of usage. The approach is correct if one wants to know what knowledge is, just as the approach is correct for learning what the Spanish word “arbol” applies to. Unfortunately, the approach is fatal to philosophy as an academic discipline.
Insofar as ordinary usages reveal trees and knowledge, philosophy is unequipped to investigate such matters. Usage is an empirical matter. So, to biology go the trees and knowledge goes to psychology and cognitive science. But even more fatal to philosophy is this observation: conceptual analysis belongs to lexicographers, linguists and sociologists. The conditions of application for a concept are an empirical matter. Take any concept one might wish to consider. To uncover what it is the concept applies to, the philosopher will have to consider the proper usage of the concept, an empirical matter. Without doing so, philosophers are not investigating concepts, but are inventing new languagegames that may or may not have anything to do with our life and our world. The point can not be made enough. Philosophers appear to be engaged in science without data, or else we are merely insisting on adopting certain usages and abandoning others (e.g. claiming that knowledge must be supported by corroborative evidence
when the ordinary usages do not always, or even usually, regard such a condition as relevant). In either case we are not investigating anything at all nor are we pushing intellectual progress. Science without data is a flawed practice, which is a subject that can be passed over for now as altogether clear, I hope. Recommending usages is also a faulty enterprise, though the enterprise is not altogether to be rejected. It is a faulty philosophical practice first because philosophers present their recommendations as proofs, i.e. we are a disingenuous bunch. But secondly, and more interestingly, it is a hidden instance of philosophers doing science without data.5 As I discuss data, I primarily have empirical data in mind. However, I want to acknowledge two major areas from which data can be drawn, and my claims ought to apply equally to both, I believe. Besides the area of empirical data, there is what I will call procedural data, rules that allow us to make a claim given previous claims. Logic and mathematics make use of procedural data. The reasons for adopting the rules seem to be inconsequential at this point. Here is one example of why the reasons behind the rules are inconsequential: Take a set of rules that includes the following instructions: 0) when Mark steps forward and Pete sees Mark do so, Pete points to the spot where Mark’s foot strikes the ground and utters, “Aystup air;” 1) when rule 0 is satisfied, Mark utters, “Ay ya, ay ya,” pointing to the same spot as Pete. While the rules give reasons for the utterances of Mark and Pete, there is not necessarily anything more behind the utterances than an adherence to rules 0 and 1. Mark and Pete may simply be playing a game without making any claims, asking any questions, etc. To uncover why the rules are employed we must do something beyond meditate on the utterances and the rules. We must investigate the actual uses of the rules. We want to know if Pete and Mark are playing a game or whether some sort of argument is taking 5
People have often remarked that the sort of empirical conceptual analysis I have pointed to above is fine as far as it goes, but misses the point of philosophy, which recognizes the possibility of a need for new language in order to break new intellectual ground. While it is quite true that developing new language may facilitate (or even be required by) intellectual progress, e.g. the development of calculus and the discovery and development of Newtonian mechanics, the point does not help philosophy. While the language of the calculus was able to be tied to the world in such a way as to make predictions, the language of philosophy does not do so. It may be noted that mathematics does not always find empirical footing. Still, there remains a great gulf between philosophy and mathematics. Whereas mathematics has procedures for demonstrating claims, philosophy does not, at least not in the realm of conceptual analysis. place, etc. Still, the rules “justify” certain utterances regardless of the motivation behind adopting the rules.
Philosophers do not agree on how to analyze a term (or which conditions for application to recommend.) The problem with such a situation is this: philosophers have no data, empirical or procedural, on which to base their recommendations/analyses. And yet it is possible, if accepting a philosopher’s methods, axioms and definitions, to follow her to the conclusion of her conceptual analysis. So the difference between mathematics and philosophical analysis is one of degree rather than kind. There is merely a greater degree of agreement on procedures, definitions and axioms in mathematics than in philosophy. Again, philosophy is not preserved as an academic discipline. While mathematics shares certain features in common with philosophy, mathematics ceases to be mere symbol manipulation once it is able to be used to describe our world and predict future occurrences (in either the natural realm, e.g. the timing of the return of Hailey’s comet, or in the technological
realm, e.g. the weight under which a bridge will buckle). 6 Because philosophy can not show itself to be anything more than symbol manipulation, we can not justifiably take it as anything but symbol manipulation. Another way of putting the last statement is this: whereas mathematics makes use of procedural data without claiming to have discovered anything about how to describe the world until their procedural accomplishments find application in, for instance, physics, philosophy virtually always is engaged in making claims about what we mean and how we ought to describe our world, thereby engaging in empirical matters for the reasons already given. Insofar as philosophers wish to meditate upon knowledge rather than a mere chain of letters, they must look to what is picked out in practice by the word
It may be worth noting that Bacon and Newton were classed as philosophers although they developed scientific methodologies and theories. The classification is not important however. Rather it is the methods used to investigate their questions and the reasons that can be given for their claims that matter to us. 6
“knowledge,” i.e. they must take up the methods of empirical science. At least they must do so in the realm of conceptual analysis. Returning to mcase, in light of what has been said there is quite likely no answer to the philosophical questions raised concerning knowledge. Where the usages have not yet developed, there are no usages we can study to get a bead on knowledge. Mcase is an apparently aberrant situation, so it is plausible that our language is not developed enough yet to deal with it. Philosophical arguments of the issues raised by mcase will get us nowhere, since philosophical arguments can not uncover what is not there. We can describe Herb as lucky or as clairvoyant or as knowledgeable. What is important, I suppose, is what we are trying to say about Herb. Of course, we could always be clear and honest, and we could say that Herb makes true statements about moose quite often and we are not sure how he does it (and so maybe our language is sufficient). There are, more than likely, no rules for
the borderline linguistic areas occupied by mcase. If there were, it would be a matter for science to investigate. The Taoists and Zen Buddhists, together with many Western philosophers, all in their finest moments of course, correctly refused to deal in disputes over definitions. Such disputes can not be settled in the old ways of philosophy. The Taoist approach to philosophy, if it may be called that, rejecting conceptual debates then may be the most promising for those of us who wish to continue on in our field. What is the approach? To live, meditate, and record our insights into how to live and to meditate and to record our insights. That approach may be the first positive contribution philosophy has made to human life and intellectual progress in a long, long time. While philosophy as an academic discipline may come to an end, the treatment of language will be set on the right track and our vision as a species of how to learn will be healed of its beliefs in old myths. We can no
longer say anything and be taken seriously. We may be no more in command of our language than a bird commands its calls.
the syllable that opened an eye
Magic Start again in the bondage of the city lamps for tenement old garage made into a used bookstore where the rich like him are hungry and I will lose imagination to start again The boy was from Oaxaca spoke Mexican the first heroes of civilization Stop. Start again.
The boy was from Oaxaca: What is it that you think of when the savage: the run of the red dragon of a Chinese tribe the red boy naked and pretty walked behind me to the calendar kept by the cock headed priest Telhototec where Octavio had visited before me to gather notes on the carvings of Aztec soldiers and chickenwinged dragons which tell the entire history and its direction War and twohundred thousand camouflaged aryans eat Burger King in the field and spoil pristine "Have some coca leaves, General, and como te llamas?" Without a name the General is just a soldier out of place in the myth no songs no words and where is the young boy I may have lost the thread that unravels us The gray pyramid is more gentle than civilization The young boy and his young boy crimson and smooth sit on its steps
making love at night the smells are their own and the damp leaves on the ground.
Love
In another language this poem is revolting
But here where we are now
this poem is eyes and teeth
Underneath the table the line makes my heart itch
sluice of maple helicopters & mud
You Are
If I drink
waves of hair
follicle strands my intention
steal
mad potter turns my face for wax drips so
warts bloom
bumblebee
Every piece of me a word
shudders sweat
teeth littered with papers
is
You saw a Walk
well
with waves
drawn
from
the chest
in buckets teeth sweat in
in buckets
whispers
Laundry crowding the lilacs remembers seeing cloudy light
Theory waves stand and
Each eye is the time of the movement of a fan
Sutra in Progress Yo: Every finger points away left to the infinite right An arm goes weak at the elbow but the other hand drags it across the page but the story gone in delible character of washed ink All these lines as one and have an alphabet that cries Re: Suitcases in my bedroom closet full of notebooks mostly and looseleaf pages and postits Sentences that go on expanding letters, accordions aching sounds Remember that shell which becomes a locket becomes an extrasolar orbit around which I can smile O: The word 'Jatun' stands as a name and a tongue Jatun by the black cloth reminds me of Rea with her silver cuffs against the dark curtains He wants to cut a swatch for my cuffs
At night Rea is next to me scratching paper reading wet hearts of prison in my ear Rea’s space of an eye floods a corner of a building in downtown Athens Dark as hell in a list: every object hides a dead grace but nothing is an object (a smile): a sacrament A wafer casts thin shadow tickle in my rib of a song a song a song For nothing like it in a world of cab headlights Touch the ink of the Jatun stanza which is my thought recalled written then rerecalled Because it is night right here in the patio window this afternoon dry and pale Sun Imagine that every 'black' thinks itself 'curtain,' 'water,' 'fork,' 'eating eagle' What the line feels in me a wide space that can't shutup and smiles
Reading Machado “There are places The soul sees a butterfly as a map of the world in a dream when waves break over clear eyes that see in a dream Sun child in the woods sits on the elm down the hill
“What have you done with your eyes?” The child: “they are on the dresser in the window watching sun rise” a memory of winter He keeps his eyes open Dreams every second of his tangelo, or his Jew’s harp
The child looks back at a lake in his forehead
“I can’t see…I’m broken” Break a glass frame in a puddle in the sink “I’m old” he says, but lost in time is closer, not quite right, waiting Sun in January and snow in May (“I’m broken”)
No soul is without his mirror The well black completes me
If I died tonight I’m a child twice
lake
because he reflects me
river
swells
Memory Experiments of Being 16: or, the syllable that opened an eye
Night The orange hat in the street peers down the sewer Dark stain on the table Bruise on my cuticle Dream a somniloquy A woman objects
I shivered on the edge of the fin de siecle romantic era started to scream I want . . . Shouted life.
He can’t write himself out of a fracture because it is
life reading no one hears but he reads it single piece until wood lead begs him to stop
empty countertop empty lamp stand she empty sits
doesn’t burn
she looks with hands something open like a jar no fragile removed can’t be pigeon but real real as a highsounding syncope she traces everything lined with day _7 7
We exist like laughter on lilac branches broken in the winter
I: In the dark B: Sí, es oscuro I: Blessed by the dog god B: Sí, es Pluto, by Poems of little mermaid trinkets around the stem of my wine glass I: Ah, see, you are the bread and the butter There are times that I only walk I wrote only for one B: Dig I: Sí, dig, so play B: So play and taste and sing I: What’s your line? B: I am the gold and the bell. Ring. The drum. And the song. Singring. I: Here out by Pluto B: Sí, out here by Pluto where the
_
space is endless cold the pregnant wait you come the song and drum the leather dance on the reservation north of Grand Marais I: Sí, There is a sun somewhere B: Can come open space
(The gravel pit where we’d fall into a soft pile of rocks.8)
The well runs dry when there is no black water reverie lost in translation out like a sentence I challenge John to a hot pepper Plastic gloves to avoid burns I swallow mine whole Nothing comes out untranslated So I write until the next language hits me Of all the dreams
I saw Matisse yesterday
his old thoughts aren’t much for photos but walk with his other friend both with books in their pockets but they don’t talk because they’re laughing alone at the line that made the corona or the syllable that opened an eye 8
He did not have this problem 9
naked
memory of10
the cold, wet air weighs down leaves _
nonsee the nonsunlight in the nonstreaks in the nonwindow but this is what I see: The peace lily and the glass of milk are rituals every time scratched next to a pot or a napkin with a fork looking down at dinner to think that turkey is brown crisp skin and no feathers 9
10
“memory” is his window trimmed in glass sees …whatever’s in the window
red
do(n’t) touch nohim n(on) the noneck no red in his nonolive cheek nonwaits no flush from nonbody11 _
waves
Roll out and in for ever physics _ on grass he’d float in bed with pillow drum throbs Broccoli and potato knish after school he watched M*A*S*H but at the bus stop on Hennepin Avenue are legs breasts and coats 11
the body I sit in when it is
In bed pygmies dance carrots on their dicks around his dark head can’t see a thing but the wall, laughs There is time when he hears to make his heart itch so full that it swells black water
she’s weight light/ he spices it/ tomorrow morning in the kitchen
the pressure of bright reality extended to another world of no shadows and dead that walk in streams without order in the same direction a stone, or as feeling as the white meat beneath rough bark now pushes outward or inward now sounds are echoing in a dead heart or in the dead hearts of the streams of people now a poet − or poets, or artists, − wakes up in a stream as dead as anyone else but listens to swallows and swells the other earth with fire in maples and in the canyon suddenly like the world of cubes without shadows slowly sleeping, dreaming the whole world or only one life of women and starfruit in a child, his brown eyes watching limbs shake in the wind, his whole neighborhood shivers calm down to the tender bones reality crackling or cracking a heart
his dry stomach his dry stomach ate daytime need like an infant needs the swollen breasts and darkhaired eyes feeding the stomach with woman and stars and memories and death and oranges and children chasing donkeys the streets are not dusty cars and no orange trees there is the dead ocean opening up at night, and now the dead ocean opens at day splashing on clouds the sun’s hot life: disturbed middleaged breasts and hips the Lady with Combed Hair the Girl with the Rubbed Stomach the Powdered Girl with No Clothes a turbid, dead spring lights being just as soil’s trail of life writes a poem while a being sleeps poetry kissing moons becoming dueñas o rameras
Shines that nothing, now full
an eyelid shines in black folds painted with fresh limóns: That
is
the word, the reason isn’t needed rather than a sun or a moon: Nothing follows the old trail of light or the old trail of broken beings Now laughing, now Full with our own fruit, our own words, our own tear drops: a flood, waves of fresh black and warm colors sound
Three Letters The mail carries letters and perfume. I live in a place where there is no mail. The paper I scribble on is pounded ferns and the ink is berry juice. I sit here for days waiting for the paper to become a little bit brighter. I get old sitting here and I smack mosquitoes. Dying old hands and a slow, fat, plaqued brain. The thoughts of old men do not turn in on them. Somehow the sea is miles away and smells here: so I know I’m old. And still my thoughts collapse like beaches on my pounded forehead and my pounded chest. I remember wide thighs under sheets but the memory is somewhere I have never visited, Africa maybe. Africa is where the thighs are rubbed in charcoal. Somehow the sea is in the air with charcoal thighs. And maybe I am old. Not even birds sing. The birds' songs here are melodious warbles, not carrying any letters at all. On my table this morning, a different morning (I have aged), my pen and paper were there. I sat down and wrote a letter about charcoal thighs in the smell of the sea.
The sun passed so close to the earth, it was a mile across. Two boys stood on the monkey bars and saw the sun half beneath elms. One thought it was far enough to walk, ten blocks away. Too far before dinner. Later, in the winter the devil was seen walking north on the sidewalk. Later, in the summer the janitors tore a hole in the street for some pipes, a dump truck loaded with black diamonds grunted, the boys sitting on the yellow curb watching the hole down to China, one waiting for the wide tires to roll over his toes: it won’t hurt when the truck is moving. Later, in the fall two boys dig a hole down through the red layer of clay and the white sand layer, ages of geology, biology, noting now that they are more likely to come out in India.
Today the mail arrives. Behind it the light trail of fire always follows. The trail is a note. Otherwise the sky forgets its blue soil. The letter glows. Life in the pages. Somehow life fit in the envelope and didn't pay the postage, so now the light trail behind the trees hangs all afternoon. Neighbors complain, the sky is dead, the earth is dead, the sea is dead, why should he irradiate the sidewalk?
A Philosophy (1)
There’s a way in which poetry is a psychoanalysis of the soul Mind, in particular the human mind, has rhythm being a series of strings echo echoing on walls a happiness, sadness but as a mango or a dream, but a sad dream where your wife knows your thoughts that is, you see, that you can write until you can breathe time infinitely bright like a taxi headlight reflected in the street during the day at noon a swan’s fender blinds me I’m wondering: what’s in me today a black lake or some other
memory I know that childhood always lingers I know that infinite expanse exists in tree cells I know I’m flying at you I know that light in the bathroom is not the same quality as sun I know that the hot sky dries in the pores of my neck I know that water unfolds, but not time or life, though it grows and it has geological layers, which is why my chest unfolds at night, shadows dripping as thick as Egypt There is a moment we rest telling stories about fire
. . . Plato wrote a letter to a friend: “I certainly have composed no work in regard to the subjects to which I devote myself, nor shall I ever do so in future, for there is no way of putting it in words like other studies[…] when, after close companionship, suddenly like a blaze kindled by a leaping spark, it is generated in the soul and at once becomes selfsustaining.” (Plato, Letters: VII, 341cd) So maybe Stevens is right when he insists on wine that poetry is philosophy. But, my god, he says metaphysics! What could be beneath a poem? ink? Right now rain splatters over the red grates When I noticed the sun in my stomach I took up coffee and in the morning wrote a psychoanalysis of fire
. . .
I’m working through rhythms right now not even echoes but presences And I don’t want to say they burn. They are firm soil in its cocoon of spider silk mold I’ve seen the branches of a magnolia swaddled in spider silk mold. It was in the front yard of Bob and Catherine’s house in North Carolina. Ailish was just born. Maybe I see now
. . . Maybe I see that time unfolds dark like soul Or that it doesn’t unfold at all . . .
Passing through Minneapolis, Aaron and I stop at our mother’s house. The snow is orange. My brother says that it’s damn cold. It is damn cold. . . . Maybe what I see is that that fire within is myth, but not a dead myth, a lie but one that burns us Maybe I see now that at night the trails of lights are broken beings after all, and that those shivers are my soul wrapped around the world I am in or the city I am in or at least the street I am on. Perhaps another time Cups pouring orange juice and tea back in a decanter…worth watching What I see is worked through in tangled hair beers and bowling with my brother but never somehow when it’s in notebooks’ words – a lie – because the words echo in me Lie about the echo.
. . . Flames have rhythm children play with fire and shamans always keep a fire, which is immanent sits there burning to keep him warm burned to the root of the navel
Ah! In the flame I see children splash I see a brown mother in my bed I see time and I even see space I will open the flame soon enough The way the moctezuma orioles do . .
. Now I open the truth that I forgot myself So I open a fact: I am Twentynine years old and blond My blue eyes are as dark as moons billions of light years away And I live in a universe of light years All around me the rain is bent on hummingbirds and chiles cecropias drinking carrot juice socrateas lambent architectural thorns I have tea at Junichiro’s house; I walk to dodge spirits and catch the scent of piña past his gazebo and under his banana trees Don Jose cuts the grass like golf with a weedwacker Here’s my keys So I go out and drink a pipa Way up over the white sky are more light years dark dark to the edge of the green universe
Miriam’s table fit five of us A bottle of wine, of course, a guitar and a stack of poems. Her kitchencumdiningroomcum the whole damned house, really. I wonder if I heard myself there? But for all the ferns, I had no idea the edge of space was so close. Five of us fit at the table, some poems and the guitar, but we didn’t see the sea. Dan and Tara, I believe, smelled the salt. In the newspaper Sunday there was a story about a swimmer in the foam and the caption beneath the photo said: No need to rescue the sailor from the sea’s rote The unfurled fronds were white fiddleheads. Yellow and red leaves, pink leaves, and torches’ petals holding a cone of a hundred droplets of water. Each droplet was fresh and had the idea of honey for an insect. So when I saw how bright the sky was this afternoon, it seemed too bright for the edge, luminous like the depth of being Ants scurry across wet concrete and the lichen: the thought: I am at home right here but it’s all clear and ordinary.
.
. . What I know is This is my house In place of words I have clear feelings
There are echoes echoing that reverberate the echoes in vases and houses and flowers and sky that is not on the edge or very far away like the Grand Canyon or profound like the Great Wall of China but near like sweating or fire breathing and flickering
Figs for Jiménez His eye sees down the street forsythia willow kid on a bike in a helmet and an orange flag He finds himself suspended the sensation from zazen or falling asleep on a clipboard cutting off the circulation to the back of his head skin goes numb and hair crawls in its sleep or language caught in time itches and laughs in his chest he can’t see without his eyes an alphabet of dead grace of bush in brown spring
like forsythia explodes yellow shocks
He stands on the street over water he doesn’t see he sees the water an inch under the chip seal gravel and oil move a river under earth and no Sun but heat
English A cloud
is salt On Micah’s tongue the Sun reflects motherofpearl taste buds Molly’s back is relaxed in sand Sun under wood Reading a poem listened to his chest All open the waves’ next
wait for light, because in the night old men in the old collection of sun drink beer, because no one whispers and masks give us whole wardrobes, dead friends or dead would-be friends in the street cafĂŠs drink unnoticed as any other stranger, and death is not a wonder