and if not why not
talk to me
I’ve given
a wonderful way
a wordful song
a foolhardy love
sometimes you need
off and unlike
various and blinding
I’m not saying stupid, stupid
porn
there falling wasted
when I think closed down
with such a thing including
if by yes
of course I’m telling
what?/but cool
a sign of grace
these woods, these old people
the spring of morning
the bones I still remember
It is kind of hard shaving your asshole.
It’s a bit of a blind spot really. I have many.
Blind spots, not assholes.
Why do I do it? I do it like I do many things.
Like writing poems.
I am wondering if poems are like assholes–
hard to find, delicate,
somewhere you shouldn’t go near with a razor.
Yet we feel compelled. I even listen with razors.
If I was like Burroughs and could
write a man to teach an asshole to talk,
what would it say? Mine always looks angry
at least in the mirror. Mirrors are funny though.
In a car once with my brother, I heard
an interview in which DFW said
he believed something down to his asshole.
What he believed, I can’t remember
even at the time it didn’t seem
as interesting as the fact he could
feel that belief in his asshole.
I’ve never felt anything that deep.
Maybe my sphincter lacks conviction?
I’ll deal with that later. For tonight
my little rosebud will have to be content
with being groomed: bald and beautiful.
Now I realize a poet asks a lot
when he asks the reader to contemplate his asshole.
It is a little past “don’t go there”
and more into “what the fuck?”
If you are still reading, thank you for indulging me.
Where do poems come from and why do I like them
is a knotted mystery to me.
Tipping my seat to DFW I never fail to feel
that kind of uncertainty where the poems don’t shine.
a break like a bend
more or less alive
many rains,
desires, and ideas
dude raw too afraid
the whole jealousy
a suitcase of a man
or a tarball ruining
someone’s beach
the freckled little milk
the mall of dead commerce
the sad clock of particular energy
it’s mixed character
tick, tock, tick
This Nikky Finney poem is too long for my usual taste, but just took me in. I heard it first and was enchanted by the multitude of conflicting emotions that one event could elicit. Having since read it, I still really enjoy the text version. Here is a link to both versions on the Poetry Foundation’s site.
before and astonished, poems.
beneath the honest
and worse the sincere
by hook or by crook?
-crook.
down, as in, to the bottom
then a lateral move
at slow velocity.
And said twice
it seemed
the truth was being told.
There was a woman at the meeting. She was older with a huge Elvis caricature on her t-shirt. I wouldn’t have noticed it but the pompadour fell right across her large breasts. Every time she moved or spoke Elvis’ coif gesticulated wildly.
minimal, slow, and well put
his mode, total attention
a clever view of necessity
and well worth the fight
here is limbo
you didn’t expect that
yet the world opens
the very kind of north
we are talking about.
a place of faith
deadly serious, solemn
the silence
like a prism for words
and their separation
shakes and groans. shivers
the sky was two
was too watery
what a week
how feels a fellow?
the patient, the fellow
lives to fail
must operate soon
In Dantos Gallery there are many red squares. Some are framed hanging proudly on the wall. Some are being prepped for artists, Giorgione for example, to further adorn. Another is by the stairs simply waiting to have ‘exit’ stenciled on it. Being spun through room after room thick with the presence of red squares of every sort… oh look, there’s one on the shoulder of a security guard…the question one is intended to ask is this: is art camouflaged in the banal or is the banal camouflaged in art? How does one find art when it is so cleverly hidden? Or stranger, how does one find art when it is so clearly abundant?
No spare of the headier side
my soul but a devil
the sheath of personal nature
sweating in the shed
prone to need
a list of battles
the body, the great landlord
it’s complaints, coercion,
never-ending
I’m having trouble starting from the beginning. I could start in the middle at an actual meeting. Or maybe a reporter interviewing one of the founders.
of that much.
both be foolish.
spaders.
smile bones I.
get lost.
are now.
into the work.
a true report
as in the rock
the mind on words
the rush to gather
many great songs
the real suchness
he’s a person that knows better than love
but can’t stop himself all the same.
she was a church in the sky
dropping birdshit on people below.
in Britain, things were done differently:
more slowly and with less passion.
okay, something hit me somewhere.
is it that
I can see myself a portion of malice
or at least the meander of their doing?
our hero arrives in take charge mode,
but who can ultimately confirm or deny the world.
we are left with its giant question.
hero cowers. It’s okay big guy.
This is an old favorite. I only know it from a audio compilation of poems from Giorno Poetry Systems. It’s read by Charles Stein. I can’t find the text of it anywhere. If you have the poem or can find it online, let me know. This poem is as smart, playful, and funny as any I know. Here is a link to the album I found it on. It’s called Seed Poem.
beautiful drunk eyes
through which they fall
memory’s sunburn
all over my face
a dangerous inlet
a poem perched on arrival
the elegy blowing through
I thought an early humorous episode by the founders would be to have them create a list of white guilt/shame provoking outings. They would call them field trips.
her sad
it seemed
to the dying
I’m saying.
money,
can we say,
is the most
that matters.
so I have heard
and do in part believe
a wall is a door
you can’t open
am I the one? honestly?
is it Japan where you are?
the distance loving subdivision
compellingly unlikable
(influence felt here)
if you break a name
the cause it gives
the action I mean
is/I have no idea
but think of it this way
because coming north is impossible
what could be ________
and why such hot blood
other than they hate you
and hate you in every color
I was thinking about plot points for the story. Here are some possibilities:
-origin story
-the club’s first black member
-a visitor misunderstands the club to be a solidarity club not a recovery program
-media attention
-a pc crusader visits the meeting
-a meeting is protested
-founders brainstorm how to adapt the 12 steps
-a nationwide tragedy happens like a Charlottesville, police killing, or a black church is attacked
of that much.
both be foolish.
spaders.
smile bones I.
get lost.
are now.
into the work.
a true report
as in the rock
the mind on words
the rush to gather
many great songs
the real suchness
the dislocations of summer
head behind the stars
thinking right now
something ought to
fall out of the sky.
if we feel a who
where a what should be
or a when that reveals itself
to be a why, then
let time fall back on itself
think it’s own tomorrow
swim like an ocean
an Athens of thought
Once Snevets had to chase me. It was a strange inversion. I’d found his pen during one of our pursuits. He wanted it back. A pen? Why did it matter? I didn’t understand, but I knew it was connected with his power. He wasn’t full Snevets without it.
Things moved slowly. He knew he was being baited with it. I wanted him. He wanted his pen. It was coquettish. Sometimes I would catch his crow eye as a reflection in the mirror in the morning, or the crest of his black hat behind a hedge. The whole thing was awkward really. Sort of high school prom. I didn’t know how to run. He didn’t know how to chase.
Even though Snevets was physically imposing, I knew he was avoiding an encounter with me. Honestly, I had never seen him touch anyone. I talked the situation over with my superior. He said I needed to risk something. It was suggested I might need to release the pen from my person to break the stalemate. We decided to stage a scene in my bedroom. The pen would be on my side table while I pretended to sleep. We’d have one man in my bathroom. And another monitoring the bedroom door from a hidden position in a hallway closet. Around the house would be a covert perimeter of five men. Snevets had to know a trap was set for him. I just hoped that the minimal security would entice him to take his chances. He probably wouldn’t even show.
That night waiting, fully dressed under my sheets, I thought a lot. Why did Snevets do these things? And why did I spend so much time trying to catch him? Was it worth all this? My thoughts were interrupted by a slow heavy tread coming from the hall. The steps seemed to take forever. Snevets had taught me patience if nothing else.
Once I was sure Snevets was in the room I shouted in my radio. The bathroom door flung open the light was blinding for a second. The man from the closet showed up in the door to the hallway and I had sprung out of bed. Snevets was surrounded. We all looked at each other. None of us could believe it was finally over. I spoke to Snevets.
“I’ve waited so long.”
Snevets listened for a second and then repeated my words to me, “I’ve waited so long.” Only it was like he had slowed the words down in his saying them. I struggle to describe what really happened in that bedroom. It was one of his language games. Each of the words was struck and allowed to ring as if we were examining the resonance. The two officers and I started to move to apprehend him but could move no faster than the speed of his utterance. By the time the last word had rung out, Snevets, seemingly immune to all this, had pocketed his pen and made it into the hallway. My only hope was that the five-man perimeter would pick him up on his way out. In my heart I knew they wouldn’t.
some trick of harlotry
both signal and noise
sonnets bonnets
and backwards again
young once young always
and life a sort of monster
using weapon love
to hollow your bones
Like AA, the Racists of America Club needs some corny slogans that the members embrace. A few ideas…. “excavate the unsaid”, “call in racism”. They could also start their meetings with something like
Honky, honky, honky
Nigger, nigger, nigger
Kike, kike, kike
Spic, spic, spic
Goomba, goomba, goomba
Mic, mic, mic
Chink, chink, chink
More than the usual pissed off
the inauguration of birds
waving poetry’s flag:
Mick Jagger’s sweatpants
The full-on
tit-craziest
ass-grabber
ever
where is our grumpy
keeper of the peace?
this has started filthy
Nothing corners the eye like orange
they walked the location
whereupon all force resides
and stopped
give this some air, he said
I myself am almost being played
hear the music rough as bark
he now looking cross
the silence distressing
as one block of memories
in question stood
enough of them
darkening his eyes
the subject of his body
Newcomb is probably the most charming bachelor you have ever met. As a boyfriend one couldn’t ask for much more, he is courteous, good looking, and seems to always know what you want when you want it. It is this last skill that really sets him apart. His ability to intuit what you want, need, or will do is uncanny. The only thing that explains his very long bachelorhood are two boxes. Newcomb wants to get married, but he has a rather strange way of asking. For each of his girlfriends, when the time is right, and Newcomb always knows when the time is right, he gets down on his knee and asks her to marry him. Instead of producing a single ring box, he produces two. One is red, the other purple. He tells his girlfriend that the red one contains a ring worth $1,000. On the other hand, the purple box contains a ring worth $100,000 or nothing. He explains to his girlfriend that she can either decide to take both boxes or just the purple one. The contents of the purple box is decided by whether he thinks she will take both boxes or just the purple box. Earlier that day if Newcomb believed that his girlfriend would just take the purple box, he fills it with the $100,000 ring. However if he thought she would take both ring boxes, he left the purple box empty without a ring. This kind of proposal has come to be known as the Newcomb proposal. Newcomb tells people that he sincerely wants to get married, but must propose in this very odd way. Some have accused him of bad faith on this, claiming that secretly he desires to avoid marriage and this is his way of doing it.
he’s a person that knows better than love
but can’t stop himself all the same.
she was a church in the sky
dropping birdshit on people below.
in Britain, things were done differently:
more slowly and with less passion.
okay, something hit me somewhere.
is it that
I can see myself a portion of malice
or at least the meander of their doing?
our hero arrives in take charge mode,
but who can ultimately confirm or deny the world.
we are left with its giant question.
hero cowers. It’s okay big guy.
And he said to his friend, “What if there was a group that didn’t try to cure you of racism, but presumed that we’re all racists? Instead of teaching you to be “sensitive”, it went the other direction and asked you to say the stuff that you weren’t supposed to say, how you actually experienced race, when you were conscious of it. So you could say anything, like a recovery program. There isn’t a person in America that doesn’t need to recover from our racial history.”
the order imposed by conflict
the metallic tasting air
boot heels furrowing the ground
we are flying their flag in risk for glory
from simple death there is no escape
from a complicated one
you can always run
I push at my insides
I feel a bit more cushion than stone
that is the conflict’s center
a structure of inspiration and concern
has escaped in the moonlight
and you got thinking life might
be alright for a minute
don’t pretend
it’s beneath your notice
it’s not
(just for the moment
I’m saying)
you rush to gather
loyal and murderous
and ask on Wednesday
is poetry young or old
the corners are sharp in the light
kishmet is hell, what I say
like a collision
talking bird and window here
you don’t mean that, thud
the shame is deeper, thud
I, thud
you, thud thud
Oh God, crack
Pyramid is the best poem I’ve read in a long time. Here it is on the Poetry Foundation website. You can also hear Hera Lindsay Bird read it. I heard it first and fell in love with it. Sometimes I have the strange experience of then not enjoying the text as much, but I love this poem in either form.
A white guy gets the idea for the Racists of America Club after a required diversity training at work. Actually he has attended the training twice due to an administrative error. The first time he is mostly silent. The second time he knows all the things you are supposed to say and not being remembered by the trainer is praised for his answers. Leaving the meeting though, he feels nothing was really accomplished by either his first training where it was too risky to say anything he really thought, or the second riskless meeting that was merely performative. He goes and talks to his buddy, one of those guys who is down for anything and pitches the idea of a club for racists.
like the heaven
we can’t figure
or the subject
we inherit
taken on clumsy authority
the liberty for new mistakes
shot or hell shot
instant nature
not to be one
or to be one
we can’t figure
the wall waits
a sign of grace for the head
mixed character and whole jealousy
remembered nonsense forgotten wisdom
and certain interests
whose personal nature makes them
unsuitable objects of
impersonal concern
the thought to leave her
far away behind
rolling contemplation
between your fingers
slowly
how do these things get decided
is this a break or a bend
when do I know
trying too hard
is between her
it’s my rid
Better than nothing. More fitting than otherwise.
A thought that starts that way never ends well.
With pleasure a footnote, and so without striving.
Please note the cares I’m full of
The acts of correction on my body
The thoughts I guard
Their often differing ambitions
The heavy use of question
Can you really trust anyone, even yourself? Especially not yourself. For who knows better the weakness of your will. Have you ever resolved to do anything? Then surely you know how yesterday’s intention withers under the sun of today. Well, not anymore, introducing Ulysses Mast.
Banish the fickle and flighty from your life. Forget caprice. It’s scaled down toothpick-size makes it perfect for rock solid will power both at home and on the go.
There are a great many things we can’t control in life. Don’t let your future-self be one of them. Buy Ulysses Mast, your ounce of resolve, today!
commerce
with never not today
I can’t say no
for forcing bad moons
the stars yelling at your ear
give your name to flight
and little ambition
nonsense forgotten
says plump matron
while she like the water
bends light in her medium
The Racists of America Club is a story I have been trying to write. I envisage the club in the style of an AA meeting, confessional. The premise is that racism is in everyone in the US. It is something to be gotten over with mutual support, not something that you call out and shame. I love the way people in AA really own being an alcoholic. That admission and the shared struggle help its members recover from the trauma of addiction.
and on the why
I crack my head
bodies are real?
stop leaving me.
becoming what?
the final claw
with you I grieve
the lesson, a bite
forever
Buzzing Wire is coming back to WordPress. After posting on Tumblr for a little over two years and then taking a two year hiatus from blogging all together, I am reopening Buzzing Wire right here. Tumblr was a great platform but I tended to post mainly visual objects there. My two year hiatus was about getting back to writing. I have a lot of new written work to share and am excited to start posting again. The Tumblr incarnation of Buzzing Wire will remain as an archive of my time there. It can always be visited here. This site will see a return to action going forward. I hope you enjoy.
Thanks to all those reading Buzzing Wire. I hope you follow me over to Tumblr. Here is the new address.
http://buzzingwire.tumblr.com/
Many of the series on will continue. This WordPress version of Buzzing Wire will remain up as an archive.
“God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up… Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose… But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is… If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.
| God exists | God does not exist | |
| Wager for God | Gain all | Status quo |
| Wager against God | Misery | Status quo |
Thought Experiments is a category belonging to The Life of the Mind that contains mental exercises in which the reader is asked to think about things from a particular perspective. The perspective could be anchored in a context, story, or could simply be a question that the reader was unlikely to consider before the experiment. Thought experiments are often found inside larger arguments as a means of priming the mind in a particular direction, but they are distinct from arguments in they don’t try to force you to a particular conclusion. They are also different from “traps and intuitions” in that they are not trying get the reader to experience tension between ideas. A thought experiment is more like ringing a bell and listening carefully.
The general form of the problem is this: There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. Unfortunately, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options: (1) Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track. (2) Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. Which is the correct choice?
Arguments is a category belonging to The Life of the Mind that contains stories, scenarios, and problems that are used to make the case for a particular idea.
Far down the list of women you have known is a girl named Pia. She was strange, beautiful, artistic. She was the one who on a whim painted all the leaves of a lovely red Maple green. The fight that ended your relationship started with that tree. At the time, you imagined yourself thoughtful. She was only ‘artistic’. Both of you had a little to drink and were careless with words. You told her it didn’t matter what she had done to the tree. The leaves were still red. She said the color depended. “On what?” I said. “If you love me, the leaves are green. If you don’t, they are red,” she said with tears starting in her eyes. I blew up. I don’t remember what I said after that. Some kind of horrible lecture about propositional logic? I might have even used the words “mutually exclusive”? What I do remember was at the end of the night, after we had yelled, cried, and eventually broken up, her telling me that language is flexible like an artist, not uptight like a philosopher. Twenty years later in the doldrums of a long marriage with a degree or two in uptightness behind me, she might be right. Pia!
Many works of science fiction as well as some forecasts by serious technologists
and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be
available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are
correct. One thing that later generations might do with their super‐powerful
computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their
forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great
many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as
they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine‐grained and if a certain
quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct). Then it
could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the
original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an
original race. It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be
rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than
among the original biological ones. Therefore, if we don’t think that we are
currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we
will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears.
The state of nature hypothesis even when not explicit haunts many theories of social organization. Man has always lived in social units whether family or clan. An analysis of ideal smaller social units and how we broaden them while keeping their virtues seems a much more plausible and profitable.
I found myself wondering what would Snevets say. It was at a dinner party seventeen years after my last encounter with the old man. The conversation was only half interesting. Maybe that is why Snevets came to mind. He could always turn a half interesting question into something you would miss work to think about. I have to say as much as he vexed me, I miss him.
It shouldn’t be surprising, but most of the criminals we investigate are painfully boring. They wouldn’t even make it as TV level villains. I watch cop movies feeling jealous, knowing that the protagonist, for the two hours the film lasts, lives inside the one interesting case of his career. Win or lose, that means something. I watch, the investigator is scared, frustrated, dogged, but I want to whisper, “You’ve found your Snevets. Enjoy, just a little.” ‘Just a little’ because it is not really a joy at all to investigate your Snevets.
I wonder if Snevets remembers me at all. Is it the same for criminals? Did Snevets yawn through hordes of incompetent police looking for me. I am sad now and it is this thought. If Snevets is alive, I am too old to chase him.
The hottest club in the metropolitan area is called Entropy Lost. The club is downtown and is rather unusual in its setup. Instead of people waiting out on the street to get in, Entropy Lost actually has a waiting area. Even stranger is that the waiting area is as big as the club itself. The two huge rooms are adjacent with only a door between them. The door is guarded by a man named Maxwell’s Demon. Some say the success of the club is attributable to this bouncer. The demon’s discernment is what makes the club. He has a great eye for hot, high energy people. These are the ones that he lets into Entropy Lost. Furthermore, the demon will periodically shut the door, go into the club, find plain, low energy people to toss from the club. They aren’t doing anything wrong, but the demon claims they are dragging the club’s vibe down. This of course is controversial. People definitely aren’t happy when they get tossed. They keep coming back though, because one hour in Entropy Lost is worth a whole night in the next best club in the city.
