dreamattack | a dialogue in pictures

Tristan Tzara

There is no such thing as a dada lecture
a manifesto is addressed to the whole world
I am opposed to every system except one
love is irrational and you are the reason

a manifesto is addressed to the whole world
but bells ring out for no reason at all
love is irrational and you are the reason
I am a bridge harboring your darkness

but bells ring out for no reason at all
you are a fresh wind assaulted by sails
I am a bridge harboring your darkness
let’s not lash ourselves to the flagpoles

you are a fresh wind assaulted by sails
I am a wound that sprays your salt
let’s not lash ourselves to the flagpoles
let’s not swim to the music of sailors

I am a wound that sprays your salt
ambassadors of sentiment hate our chorus
let’s not swim to the music of sailors
we cast our anchors into the distance

ambassadors of sentiment hate our chorus
they can’t pollute our smokiest feelings
we cast our anchors into the distance
we sail our boats for the netherworld

they can’t pollute our smokiest feelings
each of us has a thousand virginities
we sail our boats for the netherworld
I’m giving you all my nothingness

each of us has a thousand virginities
we still consider ourselves charming
I’m giving you all my nothingness
I have doubted everything but this

we still consider ourselves charming
there is no such thing as a dada lecture
I have doubted everything but this
I am opposed to every system except one

– Edward Hirsch

The Quiet World

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly a hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

– Jeffrey McDaniel

Oh Yes

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than
too late.

– Charles Bukowski

The Blind Leading The Blind

Take my hand. There are two of us in this cave.
The sound you hear is water; you will hear it forever.
The ground you walk on is rock. I have been here before.
People come here to be born, to discover, to kiss,
to dream, and to dig and to kill. Watch for the mud.
Summer blows in with scent of horses and roses;
fall with the sound of sound breaking; winter shoves
its empty sleeve down the dark of your throat.
You will learn toads from diamonds, the fist from the palm,
love from the sweat of love, falling from flying.
There are a thousand turnoffs. I have been here before.
Once I fell off a precipice. Once I found gold.
Once I stumbled on murder, the thin parts of a girl.
Walk on, keep walking, there are axes above us.
Watch for occasional bits and bubbles of light –
birthdays for you, recognitions: yourself, another.
Watch for the mud. Listen for bells, for beggars.
Something with wings went crazy against my chest once.
There are two of us here. Touch me.

– Lisel Mueller

Florida’s West Boca Raton High School has assigned the Book of Genesis as its summer reading requirement for incoming juniors, and another Florida high school requires juniors in honors classes to read from the book. [ read more from the bookslut blog ]

why not, it’s fiction innit?

Library card? Check. Fingerprint? Really?
Citing security, Naperville libraries will make patrons prove their identities before using computers. Privacy advocates fear misuse of the data. [ read more ]

what the fuck are they thinking???

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no tolerance for his children’s carelessness with their dirty clothes. His wife Maria Shriver says that if he finds the kids’ pajamas and t-shirts lying around, he simply burns them. I urge you to take a page out of the Terminator’s book, Capricorn. It’s an excellent time to throw parts of your wardrobe into the fire–especially things that may still look OK but no longer suit your style. You know what I mean: the clothes that remind you of the person you used to be but no longer are. Once you’ve got the blaze started, why not fling in a bunch of other stuff that’s outdated, worn out, and weighing you down?

Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology

Fever 103

Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple

Tongues of dull, fat Cerebus
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean

The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.
The tinder cries.
The indelible smell

Of a snuffed candle!
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me like Isadora’s scarves, I’m in a fright

One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel.
Such yellow sullen smokes
Make their own element. They will not rise,

But trundle round the globe
Choking the aged and the meek,
The weak

Hothouse baby in its crib,
The ghastly orchid
Hanging its hanging garden in the air,

Devilish leopard!
Radiation turned it white
And killed it in an hour.

Greasing the bodies of adulterers
Like Hiroshima ash and eating in.
The sin. The sin.

Darling, all night
I have been flickering, off, on, off, on.
The sheets grow heavy as a lecher’s kiss.

Three days. Three nights.
Lemon water, chicken
Water, water make me retch.

I am too pure for you or anyone.
Your body
Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern —

My head a moon
Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.

Does not my heat astound you. And my light.
All by myself I am a huge camellia
Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush.

I think I am going up,
I think I may rise —
The beads of hot metal fly, and I, love, I

Am a pure acetylene
Virgin
Attended by roses,

By kisses, by cherubim,
By whatever these pink things mean.
Not you, nor him.

Not him, nor him
(My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats) —
To Paradise.

–Sylvia Plath

one winter afternoon

(at the magical hour
when is becomes if)

a bespangled clown
standing on eighth street
handed me a flower.

Nobody, it’s safe
to say,observed him but

myself;and why?because

without any doubt he was
whatever(first and last)

mostpeople fear most:
a mystery for which i’ve
no word except alive

–that is,completely alert
and miraculously whole;

with not merely a mind and a heart

but unquestionably a soul–
by no means funereally hilarious

(or otherwise democratic)
but essentially poetic
or ethereally serious:

a fine not a coarse clown
(no mob,but a person)

and while never saying a word

who was anything but dumb;
since the silence of him

self sang like a bird.
Mostpeople have been heard
screaming for international

measures that render hell rational
–i thank heaven somebody’s crazy

enough to give me a daisy

–e.e. cummings

Police have now arrested eight people suspected of involvement in the alleged sexual abuse of children and animals by a group of church members described by authorities as “cult-like.”

Authorities say as many as a dozen adults from Hosanna Church may have been involved in victimizing as many as 24 children, ranging in age from infants to teens. Those arrested include the church pastor, a sheriff’s deputy and a woman who triggered the investigation with a call from Ohio. [ read more ]

Jacko used chimps as cleaners
By Metro

Michael Jackson used his pet chimpanzees to clean Neverland ranch, his trial heard yesterday.

The creatures would help the star by dusting, cleaning windows and brushing the toilets, the jury heard. [ read more ]

a bird’s song heard in a dream

12 crows sitting across the street
the scattered wings of origin
perched from the tree tops to the hanging branches below
someone is here visiting
the misunderstanding found in history’s
unknown truths
the feelings that come over you
when you know you’re not alone

drops of rain touching the ground
the secret in magic’s reconciliation
the eye summoning the flower’s
dying tear
calling out for collectivism

in this world of fame there are many forces
standing against the tides of destruction
the voices you hear in the silence of the wind
modernization moving across time’s voided schemes

the players in night’s hour
calling to you
asking you to take a moment
to listen

the rhythms in the breath
of nature’s last wishes
violent
caring

a succession of union
lights one at a time
here
and
there
appearing in the wilderness

all along the way the songs of life
giving us a chance
for solitude in love’s redemption
there can be no blame in our yesterdays
in searching for the ways of tomorrow

here is the answer to the diseased rumors and innuendoes of our heritage
really there isn’t anything to it
if you will only allow yourself to believe in the song of the dream
a bird heard in the night

singing to us a song of forgiveness

– Joseph Mayo Wristen

Fans of rock band Joy Division will be remembering the band’s late singer Ian Curtis on Wednesday - the 25th anniversary of his death. [ more ]

[ hear his song ]

[ captured the ineffable ]

Postcards

I’m thinking about you. What else can I say?
The palm trees on the reverse
are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
What we have are the usual
fractured coke bottles and the smell
of backed-up drains, too sweet,
like a mango on the verge
of rot, which we have also.
The air clear sweat, mosquitoes
& their tracks; birds & elusive.

Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
day after the other rolling on;
I move up, it’s called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward. The roosters crow
for hours before dawn, and a prodded
child howls & howls
on the pocked road to school.
In the hold with the baggage
there are two prisoners,
their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates
of queasy chicks. Each spring
there’s race of cripples, from the store
to the church. This is the sort of junk
I carry with me; and a clipping
about democracy from the local paper.

Outside the window
they’re building the damn hotel,
nail by nail, someone’s
crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
can’t be all bad, but
does it? At this distance
you’re a mirage, a glossy image
fixed in the posture
of the last time I saw you.
Turn you over, there’s the place
for the address. Wish you were
here. Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.

–Margaret Atwood

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Viticulturists have noticed that wine often tastes better if the soil where the grapevines are planted is less than top quality. It seems that when the grapes have to work harder to flourish, they’re more robust. I foresee a similar situation for you in the coming weeks, Capricorn. The growing conditions might be less than optimal, but I bet the stuff you produce will be extraordinary.

Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology

Night Voyage: A Dream

The boatman, a silhouette,
kept his back toward us.

It was night, but the summer sky
held on to its subtle light.
We could see a faint glow
on the water and distinguish
the dark green banks we could almost touch.

We stood in the boat and watched
as it glided past the banks
endlessly, like a phrase
repeated over and over,
though there was no sound,
only the rhythm of absolute silence.

We sat down and held each other,
touched each other once more
in the places of pleasure.
We knew it was for the last time,
and though we understood nothing,
we were not frightened, only entranced.

– Lisel Mueller

“In almost every bad situation there is the possibility of a transformation by which the undesirable may be changed into the desirable. In that way enemies are turned into friends, because all these disturbances and antagonistic forces have become our teachers.”

– Nyanaponika Thera, Buddhist monk

Waveform, variance, monolith, mask
Reflection, hat, treestump, bin
Where’s the bells?
Where’s the bells?
Where’s the bats?
Where’s the summer?
Where’s the keyboard?
Where’s the instinct?
Where’s the patience?
Where’s the tiny golden books?
Where’s the notepad?
Where’s the ??? ?
Where’s the woodwork?
Where’s the science?
Where’s the diet?
Where’s the incoming… amount?
Where’s the artifact?
Where’s the post… man?
Where’s the ??? ?
Where’s the old coins?
Where’s the syllabus?
Where’s the red door?
Where’s the martyr?
Where’s my mother?
Where’s my breakfast?
Where’s my punchbag?
Where’s my cornfield?
Where’s the waveform?
Where’s my breeding-ground?
Where’s my paintbrush?
Where’s my horse head?
Where’s my symmetry?
Where’s my torso?
Where’s my ??? ?
Where’s my drum?
Where’s my bum?
Where’s my bum?
Where’s my bum?
Where’s my summertime?
Where’s my footstep?
Where’s my chequer?
Where’s my idiot?
Where’s my waveform?
Where’s my hat?
Where’s my footwear?
Where’s my footwear?
Where’s my eyelash?
Where’s my tongue?
Where’s my bum?
Where’s my bum?
Where’s my mirror?
Where’s the bells?
Where’s the bells?
Where’s the bells?
Where’s my phone call?
Where’s my phone call?
Where’s my summertime?
Where’s my summertime?

glowworms/waveforms / coil

Absolved of Voices

After a long, idle silence,
no sirens for a while now, no more heat
expiring from the morning’s coffee,
whatever drives my chronic speculations
unwinds through the open window, absolving itself
of voices in the sunlight, headlines
blackening the white, iron table,
my chronic mental whispering, give up,
the truth is unendurable, sleep.
Just breathing, I could let go
wholly into the moment, eyes awash
with a neighbor’s bedsheets flapping dry,
sun on my arms, ears
full of bee noise in the apple blooms.

This afternoon the simmering in the air
is rich enough, even the leaves are grateful,
sighing and hushing like steam
released from the dousing of a fire.
But in my stomach a coal
still smolders, and I wonder:
is it really freeing, this lapsing, these quiet
dosages of ease? Or am I just soothed here
like a patient, gradually
sedated by the hedges and the swaying trees?

– Greg Glazner

“I have learned a few things, by now, about Paradise.

Paradise is not that thing in the nebulous, far-off future, in another place, or another world, or another galaxy. It is not a state of mind, or a place in the mind. Nor is it the exquisite sexual pleasure of pulsing blood and moaning desire. Paradise is not achieved only after great suffering. There may well be great suffering before or after Paradise, but it is not the requirement for entry. Wounded ego and rampant narcissism demand suffering. Paradise is just there, here, if you really want it.

I am sitting on the threshold. Perhaps this is the final paradox of God’s paradoxical machinations: my ass is my very own back door to heaven. The Pearly Gates are closer than you think. Sacred and profane united in one hole.

Paradise is free. A gift. A state of grace. A dance of time and space. It resides inside the ego and outside the ego, a place of pure harmony, another body riding your ass like it was the last fuck on earth.

Paradise is an experience that in real time may last only seconds. But in those immeasurable fragments, time stops, and only when time stops does death die and Paradise is entered. It is revealed in the spaces of time when the self is penetrated so deeply that it is pried wide open and love rushes in like an ocean through a porthole.

And Paradise, once known, becomes the goal of every waking moment, its loss inherent in every waking moment. This is the burden of Paradise found.”

– from The Surrender, Toni Bentley