Being Geniuses Together

I'm not so much interested in the visions people have. I am interested in what they do with them afterword. The next day. And the day after that. Everybody's got a vision and the visions change every day. It's like we'd tell our dreams over and over again. What earthly structures we will build with our visions.

Book Slinging

I am obsessed with the new non-fiction books at the Fayetteville Public Library. An updated slate of books appears there daily. I take the newest political books home to my shelf so I can keep an eye on them. I keep the new history books there until they are out-of-date again. 

A History of Torture

Imagine a world, imagined. A world where a president proclaims that these books are illegal. And now you can only get them from a qualified and licensed practitioner (permitted by the president).  If you spent all your time looking for books, waiting around for book dealers, getting ripped off but knowing these books are all you can get. The ones the booker chooses to offer you. When he doubles the price, you pay it. Because you feel best when you have these words, evil words, idiotic words that hurt people. These things—true—make you want them more. Anything bad for you is bad for you, and hence becomes illegal, by order of the president. One day soon we may be bad for you. There may need to be a war against us: the writers and printers and publishers and sellers of books. They will burn us to ashes and burn the ashes; that will be the motto. And eventually even you, the watcher, will be taken, and seated in a dark room where no explanations are necessary. And you will long to look through the eyes of the dead. You will deny it; you’ll be forced to. But you will give your dignity to feed once more on the specters in books. Give your dignity to look once more through my eyes, to look at the images and take them from me. Hold on hope, once more, that they will become seamless. 

Like in Lear.

No. No. That way lies madness.

Yeah.

Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Letter to an Imaginary Friend

after Thomas McGrath


The idea that we need or have a guide
gives solace to those up front.
Someone will tell us whether we are
right or wrong. The thought of deciding
on our own is terrifying to us.

(Could we say fuck you to our guide?
And if so isn’t the guide just a god,
an invisible parent?)

So we conjure up the notion that someone is
always watching. We can’t. We won’t
know for sure—until we are gone for good.
We may know it all in the beginning—before we become verbal,
but I think we forget it once we learn to make words.

We speak in an attempt to bully each other.
So much more is said otherwise. We say things
when we talk as well, but we are too busy to notice.

Most Popular Hypothesis So Far:

We are all really something else

So why do we keep analyzing each other?
I talk as if I know what you mean and you
talk as if you know what I mean too.
I notice birds rarely tell the ornithologist
what they really mean. I mean
their songs or the way they fly, of course.
Birds don’t give a fuck what they think.
When did you forget you were a bird?
When did you decide you were an entry
in some anthology or encyclopedia
or contributor’s page?