the dregs of tao

i.
wangwei spoke of a distant t’ang
no longer viable

as nature     dufu laments laments
his song his

children poor his ambition sharp
sharp till

he channels laotsu but he is late
the river recalls

—

ii.
a bedevilled notion of bloodflow has
ancillary cooptions

tooting a mandatory horn     we have
algebra lessons as

our guide to a moral aesthetic     (so
foundations are

necessarily wrongfooted)     beyond what
the rope of an

eyelid can climb     behind actuarian
uncertainties

lie certain possibilities     the rope
is mountain –

—

iii.
a burnt conscience stokes the
lament of

objectionable beauty     this
form that

begat the warmth of forgetting
now heat

now axis     now the plumb of
terror woven

—

iv.
Dread is my mouth’s resonance     dead is
the willingness

of its voice     which voice?     the stone
demands     which

need goes in search of this voice? the
stone is now rock

in becoming     in riveting itself to the
tales of two pasts

one which is my mouth’s resonance     one
which is its voice

—

v.
so we can say physics is the aftermath
of reason

ethics the shell of the shell     & art?
art is

the longing for wrong when right-left
revels as an unjust di
          chotomy –

    

Five alpha experiments

I.
Filaments of air – hints of vapid remembrance, a return to form

Dire shackles of somnambulence – their lazy cast an excuse for the call to inaction

Mites of tenureless hyperbole – globules, albeit tiny, of a hyperspace fitted for a resigned experiment in spacetime.

II.
Last known refuge, it can be tempted to know in the same measure
In the same measure as the regal tide is confined to its torpor
In the same measure as the torpor is regaled off into numbness
Numbness that is no measure of hurt
Hurt that is furthest from truth
Truth that is grain
Truth that stains.

III.
memories of flesh, signposts, bird tweets, chug you along
on the path where dream meets the tarry road where

the untold is made rhythmically real through allusion of
flesh again of an aesthetic bound by the law of freedom

seek gently glance lightly lest you aim to see more than
what memory warrants for that is possible more than

possible it is the norm to over extend it is the template
in fact of error the shore will nevertheless guide you through.

IV.
Bird tweets as signposts, the low probability event
as dawn, future melts rightly into an icebox.
Can’t say anymore if the blighted will fly low, if the
road’s bumpiness is any indication of its lowliness.

Let’s just say tomorrow is another day for the sake of it and be done with.

Let’s just remind our inner decibel making machinery that to pray is to prey.

And you will not gain much
Not extend by much either.
If you tick tock this timepiece any more, it will break into so many pieces you will find it hard to count, although it won’t be because of lack of time.

V.
This much it can be said, if it can be said at all, that
Manufactured dreams can be allowed to park in this
Corner or that, yet you will not have access to their

Technological innards until you have mastered the
Algorithm that enumerates the signals that cross
The wire that speak or try to sound the truth byte.

Sufficiency in algorithmic interpretation can give
You a head start, the kind which tears the machine
Apart in an instant, only to build it back in another.

Sufficiency in digital metaphor can give you some
Sort of leeway that will think it can cross the
divide forgetting that metaphor is always analog.

Quantum games we play

Possibility gets around. It is in tune with sap that flows in the veins of trees. And then there is the end of possibility. Choked as if by drowning in the crowd of clouds. There is a trick to keep drawing sap in the middle of all this choking. It is possible.

Choice is in cahoots with chance. Throw dice and you will see a smattering of chance. And choice. There is some agreement as to what constitutes this random act of choosing. But this agreement is lost in the crowd, in the noise. So you will have to excuse the guest who stays the night and welcomes the day, only to curse both light and shadow. The teeth of possibility have only dawned at night.

A game is to be decided upon. Some will choose to play. Some will choose to abandon it in favor of the lesser game of chance. Where cards are stacked up and thrown about. There is the card of death the pleases the fantasy of everyone. For it is only in the absence of the possibility of death that night strikes. And you are struck by the awesomeness of it all. As if it was played for your sake, and you were the only one seeing it.

A door opens, and you can only hear it creaking. A door closes, and you still hear only the creaking. The noise of opening and shutting is lost on you, for you are caught in the process of evaluating. And when the evaluation ceases, the door will either be open or shut. And you will hear it. It will be silent, but the event will not be lost.

It is only the tide that gathers and wanes and falls. Falls as if the rhythm that constitutes the gathering and falling is its own. That is a mistake perhaps? But no, the rhythm is deliberate. Only the appearance of rhythm is contingent, consequent, foretold.

Degrees of Freedom

Reality is bricks and clothes and streams and dirt and smoke.

Will freedom fit into those clothes? Will the bricks detach and greet the dirt? Will the smoke say “hello” and become one with the stream? In the realm where all things are possible, all of it will happen. Where the brightest of greens will hover over transparent grass wondering if the two have met before.

And why should the universe not be pliable enough to accommodate every whim? It is large enough. And by extension, pliable enough. So it follows.

And so the greens will wonder, the smoke will become one with the stream, and the bricks will be busily detaching themselves eager to greet the dirt. But physics is not content to sit it out so quietly. It too has a plan, and like a boring headmaster insists that it be followed. So it follows.

And bricks and clothes and streams and dirt and smoke, they behave. And freedom does not fit those clothes.