Sunday, February 12, 2006

Boola-Boola

When a thing is right in front of you. That's when you decide. That is when you make it happen. Or it goes back some time before that, and when it is right in front of you is only the front edge of an intention whose beginning is in the distant past. Nevertheless, when the thing is there it is undeniable that it has become the time for action. The trailing edge of the thing is off there in the past, and the leading edge is going somewhere else, pointing off into the future, to the place you are headed based upon the action that you initiate at this juncture, this moment when the thing is physically in front of you. If your perception was clearer, perhaps, you could look along the timeline length of the thing and decipher its head and its tail and your role into calling it into being and your roll in continuing along the subsequent path, but your perception is limited. The hills rise up behind you and in front of you and all you can see is the truncated reality of this moment, and the thing in front of you. But don't make the mistake of discounting all that other just because you can't at this moment perceive it: it is real. And the repurcussions of your act and intention here will echo. As the echos of your past acts are sounding in your ears now. Here and now, where you are and where you face the thing itself in all of its individual peculiarity and tangible physicality.

I might make a list of the things: a dog, a house, a human being, the taking of a life, the saving of a life, some artworks, some written works, many objects of various uses and usefulness. A handful of scattered objects and souls. Dragged into existence by my intention, removed from existence by my intention, created and discarded, abandoned, searched for. What is your list. What is your list. Of what is it comprised. Whose list am I on? Whose are you? We make the mistake of believing that we are not a causitive factor in the wheezy machine or that we are the only one or that we are one of a handful. That the causitive factors are removed from us, or that they have some concern with us, or that they do not. Wheels inside of wheels inside of wheels. Making the calliope sing. The horses spin. Rising and falling to the music. Slowly, sedately. Or fast, faster, headlong rushing. We ride the horse and reach for the brass ring and we stand off to the side and watch our children and our hearts soar and they ache and they collapse in on each other and if we were to look carefully into a slim gap between the mirrored panels at the center of the machine we could see ourselves, bent and shirtless, sweaty and grinning, cranking away at the intricate, whirling gears. I reach out with my hands and pull you lifeless from the past and swing you around in the grass as you laugh, dizzy and gleeful, then when I'm spinning fast enough I let go and fling you into the future. Where you will find me. Where I will have gotten off the path long ago and all you meet is my hazy ghost.

Where I am in the stars raining down on you and in the red moon falling into an endless night and the wind in the stars is all of my cold breath or the burning in my heart is the birth of a new sun.






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2 Comments:

Blogger Billy Joe said...

dishwasher,

just wanted to say that this is deft, thoughtful, and revelatory.
good stuff.

Billy

11:36 PM  
Blogger tearful dishwasher said...

Billy-

Thanks, man. Glad you enjoyed it.


Scott

4:42 PM  

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