Read This Now. Ed's book, I mean.

from:

Labors Lost Left Unfinished by Ed Pavlic.

...

A deep breath domes
against your face & you hope
you'll never cease to love

...

That is all.

Verse re: Word.

From our new poet laureate, W. S. Merwin:

TERM

At the last minute a word is waiting
not heard that way before and not to be
repeated or ever be remembered
one that always had been a household word
used in speaking of the ordinary
everyday recurrences of living
not newly chosen or long considered
or a matter for comment afterward
who would ever have thought it was the one
saying itself from the beginning through
all its uses and circumstances to
utter at last that meaning of its own
for which it had long been the only word
though it seems now that any word would do

Online Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/antholog/merwin/term.htm

Deliveries, DeLillories: Daily Bread.

"In the morning I walked to the bank. I went to the automated teller machine to check my balance. I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request. The figure on the screen roughly corresponded to my independent estimate, feebly arrived at after long searches through documents, tormented arithmetic. Waves of relief and gratitude flowed over me. The system had blessed my life. I felt its support and approval. The system hardware, the mainframe sitting in a locked room in some distant city. What a pleasing interaction. I sensed that something of deep personal value, but not money, not that at all, had been authenticated and confirmed. A deranged person was escorted from the bank by two armed guards. the system was invisible, which made it all the more impressive, all the more disquieting to deal with. But we were in accord, at least for now. The networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies" (46).

#defenses against racking fears of self, "White Noise."

Out-of/Inside Context 101.

_although of course you end up becoming yourself_, page 115:

READING LADY: I'm sure if you have any questions, David wouldn't mind answering them.
FIRST QUESTION: How do you get your ideas?

...

AFTER READING
HUNGRY MIND BOOKSTORE
THE SIGNING LINE
A LONG, EXCITED LINE

[It's not an easy process. People want to talk. They're thrilled when they get to the table: blushing, excited. David draws a smiley face next to each signature. One woman looks at hers with a frown. She's not sure what it is; she believes he's drawn a computer.]

It's a smiley face. If you want, I could put Wite-Out over it. It's your book.

[Someone pulls out a copy of _Broom of the System_]

Oh no. This old thing.

[After the signature, he does a birthday-candle blow over the ink, to dry it.]

Little, Brown taught me that.

from page xv: "He wrote with eyes and a voice that seemed to be a condensed form of everyone's lives..."

Cut/Pastries: Proof's in the Pudding.

Independent update Re: "the beauty of the light of music": "I think about this world a lot & I cry & I've seen!"... but I'm in this kitchen! WITH DON DELILLO'S _WHITE NOISE_... so everything is beautiful in the space of the language, and indeterminate outside.

A passage from said novel, that a teacher much older and wiser reminded me to remember:

"We can't answer these questions because we've read the signs, seen the people snapping the pictures. We can't get outside the aura. We're part of the aura. We're here, we're now."

I hope people are still "immensely pleased" because, like teachers and scribes before me, I feel compelled to record with accuracy and humility, but I'm unable to explain comprehensively.

The aforementioned teacher also gave me a book, _Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace_. This gift made me feel terribly grateful and sad, because I feel that the brilliant voices of the generation will always either fail to impress effectively or fall silent too quickly. I hope that's just cynicism and disappointment talking...

Mythopoietic Conversions! Happy Freedom Day, y'all.

Read: Rilke's "Der Magier"

THE MAGICIAN, Romantic-like (French, English, Italian, and

Le magicien, les yeux tout creux et vides,
emet le mot qui correspond...
Et Deja nait, dans le silence aride,
le trouble sourd d'un gros remous fecond.

(His eyes shallow and empty, the magician
utters the corresponding word...
And in the arid silence, the deaf chaos
of a great fertile tide is already born.)

L'excite-t-il, ou bien deja l'arrete?
Et qui l'emporte --, est-ce le magicien?
On concoit qu'un fait fatal complete
son geste qui ordonne et retient.

(Che egli non eccitare o che già lo stop?
E chi lo porta via - il mago?
Noi concepiamo solo un fatto irreversibile completo
ordina che il suo gesto e mantiene)

Le mot agit, et nul le reprend.
Soudain, a certaines heures, ce qu'on nomme
devient...quoi? Un etre...presque homme,
et on le tue, en le nommant.

(Se mueve la palabra y nadie lo capta.
De pronto, a ciertas horas se convierte en lo que denominamos
BECOMES... WHAT?... A BEING... ALMOST HUMAN,
AND, NAMING IT, WE KILL IT.)

:(

+ Elizabeth Bishop "Late Air"

From a magician's midnight sleeve
the radio-singers
distribute all their love-songs
over the dew-wet lawns.
And like a fortune teller's
their marrow-piercing guesses are whatever you believe.

But on the Navy Yard aerial I find
better witnesses
for love on summer nights.
Five remote red lights
keep their nests there; Phoenixes
burning quietly, where the dew cannot climb.

= + one ART
(Man-Moth)

...Then from the lids/one tear, his only possession, like the bee's sting, slips./ Slyly he palms it, and if you're not paying attention/he'll swallow it.

AND

against my love
against my will
become art