CW83
Valence With Tassels (2019)
“Scared Of Wisdom” (If you didn’t like that last one Maybe this one’ll do you) Scared of wisdom I do too Scared of wisdom I do If I knock on a barn I hope there’s a cow If I knock on a barn I hope I hear a normal moo Scared of wisdom I do too Scared of wisdom I do If I go in a house I hope there’s a roof If I look at the sky I hope they have a normal blue Scared of wisdom I do too Scared of wisdom I do If I’m floating away I hope it’s a dream If I’m floating away I hope it isn’t actually true Scared of wisdom
Each central place I look in is a hole and that hole is the central place. If I show you something twice I can make it change, but I can’t make it stay the same.
By drilling down into the matter, the tone of whine must climb. The surface-to-air ratio is totally obnoxious to the business we are gathered here to attend to. Which is a blowing up, a pop, and then reversing the tape for telling anomalies. Like: I tell you what they are and then you start seeing them.
Open the glove box, the glove compartment, whatever. See that fancy folder, thick and navy blue? That’s the instructions for what you are to do. It’s not orders, a command, what have you. It’s just very, very hard to argue with because it makes so much sense.
Go up to that railing and look out. Look out over the whole complete view. Reach out and grasp a pocket of the air, a sample. Smell the purple night for a hint of perfume, barely there; search the air. Put a slip of moonlight in your folder. Give this to the spy riding your ass and tell them to buzz off, twice, loudly then quietly.
I’m an absolute basket case for your no-show. I’m a total freak about commitment. I’m rapidly becoming clenched, territorial. I want tight, close-knit, LEGO-locked order, a perfect hug. If only everywhere, always! But at least keep the spotlight of my attention swept bare of flecks, noise, that dullard’s business of unexpected garbage, hoops, improvisation. I don’t want to go there. I just really don’t.
Every grain of sand is another co-writer. I’m concerned we’re just making things safer, less thorns, stand-outs. Salient angles smoothed away. Get a little lost in the grid snapping to the grid oneself. I wish, even just, there was a bit of twig in my shoe. One little piece of life brought to bear by a troubled individual with some agenda other than success.
Several factors led to my arrival on the scene, but either everything is relevant or nothing is. Only a fool tries to collect the raindrops back into a cloud.
So I learned to hold attention, like stroking a cat just exactly right so it doesn’t run off. Or scratch or bite! We strung our instruments with the straw from brooms in those days, and so they were no longer guitars or banjos or anything else. They were too quiet to be. But that’s what we had and so we were sad. So I started telling jokes.
It’s a ruthless business and it’s always been, don’t let those parasols across the beach fool you. Those people are competing with each other. They think those things are a shield, define property. They’ve all decided you need one of those to do it. It’s the only collective decision they ever made. In ever-so-wonderful colors, snapping like sails in the wind as if they were going somewhere.
I’m going through the writing, going through it to look for the snap to attention, like canvas sails on a bright day, ice chips fanning out across the game table.
I wonder maybe there might be a wake-up behind the moon. The dull night holds its fold behind a thousand star rain. Charms and sparkles can’t explain your tone, even to your own self.