Back to This Thing

The box does not sit still. The box moves. The parts assemble and plans assemble. People go to work and find time to sleep.

The box knows weather and strangers’ hands. Once in a while another box is overlaid the box. The box holds air, it holds words, it holds a body. The body corrupts, renews. The body leaves the box. It returns to say “box” and lingeringly leaves yet again. It will not return again.

The box is lifted by interested hands and carried a distance. It is set down for the night under a tree, or in the corner of a shop, or in someone’s garage. I hear a tricycle being pedaled in circles.

The box does not sit still. I say “box” and invite you to say “box.” You say alphabet or commercial undertaking in the sense of a coordinated structure involving a set of documents proscribed by the rule of law. Here is black-and-white footage of the Russian Premier standing at attention at the de-planing of the box. Those men are playing an anthem, but that is not the box and cannot be blamed on me.

Here I am, and there I was, and here I am again. This is rock and roll. This is swing.

Once upon a time a box into a box, first in parts and then the whole. Once a breathy pause and, “box.” She suddenly stood and turned and scampered over the hills. I looked for her where I knew to find her to hear her say, “box.” I gave myself over to the memory of having failed. Now I remember her saying “box” as if I can hear her saying it. I have a good job and should find time to explain exactly what I mean. I am certainly capable of such movements.

Just like earth, the box has the kind of personality one ascribes to it. I love using the word “ascribes” because “ a scribes” is allusive while grammatically wrong while exactly the thing itself or the person we might be or have been, and the “a” in “ascribes” really stands out when I say it.

The box is somewhat proper to all including the linguist but cannot be held in one place either.

O for summer and the gathering of bells countenance by bell-makers and bell-swingers, of wine poured out for hands and words in common for an age and a summer.

So I write what I have not said which is this and what is now. The box for a word for the box. Box not because but then, and say you knew, but you never knew in the way one said now “box” and being not-the-box at once.

Box.

Just like a How and a Scurry

My first serious or concentrated thoughts and discussions of God in and without the context of philosophy occured with Mervyn Fergusen while working at C.B.G.B.’s in NYC where I formed among other opinions that God has a sense of humor.

My experience with the Roman Catholic church has not changed that opinion.

It would be a laughable understatement to say, that He gives us just enough rope with which to hang ourselves. Think upon it in light of Judas and it isn’t that funny. See that the parenthetical cites the exception. That is proper but not the real work.

To humor, the spirit that is perfect and calls us to truth. To the neighbor, the lover, the self who forms plans. Time goes by and more often than not we imagine our wagons still hitched in its cleansing wake.

I cannot laugh with God. I am the joke. I am partially formed, and devoted in the manner of the sparrow and a seed. I am complete in parts to the eye that sees a whole where, in fact, regions of passion idle and curdle like the Pacific in a tidepool.

To laughter and the threads that bind. A glance to seal an evening’s rest. Faces line up to say, Me not the other, like musical notes. I have eyes that see but I will not take myself literally.

You can be discrete and knowing, of course. You can make a habit of nodding. Nod away. At me, my wife and child. At God. You will waste no one’s time. You will remain unembarrassed and unimpressed. Nothing can shake the nodding man. He is awake and not awake. He falls for nothing and is never erect. There is no trouble where there is no concern. The heart is an ancient vessel.

Original for years, a face takes its rest in a concrete television set. Your work makes of flowers jewels set into the eye cavities of remote though adjacent deities. If only one could set it to a score – but, see. It is done. More glory. More taking away.

Laughter and the short excuse. I was lost. I was hurt. I forgot. That wasn’t me.

That was always me. I was always there. I will always be there. I can forget everything else, I will not forget that.