April Roundup
The Permanent Marker Drags Across The Land, Blotting Out Our Every Single Lives
The angels bring terrible news.
I call bullshit.
At The Burning Palace, we like to call bullshit.
But we don’t like the bullshit… These “angels” ingest poisons and come to me, stomach aching, eyes jaundice, insomnia flareup, tattooed self-harm.
As a Doctor, I see this all the time. The “Man in Black” comes in with all sorts of attitude, I’ve seen it, Charles, I’m a Doctor, too— of love. If love is Patrick and Benjamin Binder, joined at the head, call me Ben Carson. I am smart at this one thing and stupid for everything else.
Charles, of course, between us we can talk plainly, as Doctores, its annoying right!
Yes, yes of course I also agree every person is infinite value and is of precious little pearl, and when its accident I can sympathize. but. They INGEST POISONS, and COME TO ME, stomach ACHING< eyes JAUNDICE INSOMNIA FLAREDUP TATTOOED SELF HARM
I loved Charles March’s poem for the complex psychological projections. The question is which way does the image play? Forward; the CIA-like redactions handsomely undermine the clinical patient report, clawing away to reveal the violence that brings “The Man in Black” to his care. Backward, Charles is projecting his own despair onto profoundly blue-shifted instances of pain.
Either way, as a Doctor, you have to wonder, “Why am I carrying the weight of their universe?”
your love is always blueshifting
whenever I redshift, you blueshift
whenever I blueshift, you redshift
The patient is currently on testosterone. /He has been feeling better since he started the cream.
Happy that this line remains unredacted. Thank you Charles March.
Once Androgenic health has been stabilized, there will be other problems. We will have at least ruled out which problems are a result of current Androgenic unhealth.
Easter is coming, and I am wondering, where is God. I am thinking, we are in the redacted space. I am thinking, God exists in the future and the past, and we are in the redacted space.
In the future God is a being outside of temporality. So he’s not entirely in the future. It is not crazy to think of history as leading to a perfect being in the future, a being who has the capacity to exist in multiple time streams, that this being could have perfect attention, no lack of time or energy or strategy, an incredibly motivated being. It' is not crazy to think of a being in the future of perfect compassion and motivation, who is genuinely motivated to not only get out of bed in the morning, but also to make his bed right after resurrecting, and also to metaphysically accompany us, every single one, throughout our days, soothing our pain and offering refuge in our hardest moments. Highly motivated individual. Maybe, on the beach, the God in the future carries us. Maybe, the existence of this God in the future justifies our waking every morning. Just an Idea.
In the past, God was the hallucinated voice that was hidden away in the right side of the brain before humans created reflexive self-consciousness through a Burning Palace of metaphors. We pay a deep price for our words— for one, our short term memory, for another: God has abandoned us.
We are redacted. Outside the loving knowledge of the God in the future, and the vanished God in the past. Our human history is like a commercial, in between the real show, which happened before we were conscious of it, when human beings played around in the sun, totally baked off their minds on their nonconsciousness and local psychedelics, and after, in the far-future, when they have tamed their suppressive consciousnesses, and have developed politics capable of long term planning. Until then. The permanent marker drags across the land, blotting out our every single LIVes.
And when someone comes to you, in the twilight, with a huge wound, and as they come up to you, they are continually stabbing themselves, making new huger wounds, making a total fountain of themselves. You have to ask them, “WHY?” “WHY ARE YUOU DOING THIS TO YOUR STOMACH< YOUR THIGH< YOUR SIDE OF YOUR KNEE< FOREARM.
Same way someone comes up to you, “I have no God,” n is disappointing Gods left and right such that they can’t help but abandon forever, and now even creating new and complex mind knots such that they can not even conceive of God in the Future, especially not feel his Impresence.
Just an idea. Until the God of the Future arrives all we can do is manage pain, Just an Idea. Just an idea. Our time is triage commercial. Just an idea. Redacted, but together on our little spaceship. God I hope if the aliens exist they live such beautiful lives and are on Better trajectory towards this idea. There is a lot of dull dull pain to manage. The Man in Black has been Unredacted by Charles, I hope he likes it there. Under the weight of all those universez tho, Word is,
His back is bothering the flight.
The second poem of our April was Daijiro Ueno’s “Valentine.” I think in this poem, as in life, there are two “natures.”
First we have to establish that nature doesn’t exist. Okay, now we can talk about the two natures.
There is nature with story, and nature without story. Nature without story: “trees drawing gravely up on the sidewalk,” Tiger who is no longer fooled by mask cleverly worn on back of head, cow whose tail disfigures mosquito like *blauw*.
Nature with story: “No, I am never to dare unravel the power of this whirling conviction:” God in the future, Coronavirus.
In terms of humans, there are no humans (humans have no nature). But also, they have two potential natures:
partnership species (small sex differences in role n shape, raise kids n balance work as equals)
and tournament species (big sex difference, female raise children while men dig holes),…. We haven’t decided which one of those we would like to be. And everyone suffers from our special (read:spee-shal) indecision. (OR as I would define our current indecision as our fake decision to b partnership while secretly maintaining n enforcing values of tournamentism such that anyone who isn’t on their tournament shit has been sincerely duped …but its too late)
For the record, I am not like Tao Lin, I do not believe in cooperation nor do I believe that others can handle being stoned the way I am.
In “Valentine” Dai takes huge leaps forward of the heart. The heart lurches kneesovertoesguy. When nature pulls back, the puddles in its wake bring deep mirror questions, n they show face. The grand release is I don’t think an orgasm. His relationship with nature is like a relationship; as it grows too close, it pulverizes n enslaves, as it pulls away, it seduces with enchantment. No one ever wins in nature except nature. No one ever wins in love except love.
No one ever wins in politics except politics. No one ever wins in football except football. No one ever wins in life except life. No one ever wins in the casino except the casino. No one ever wins history except history. No one ever wins in technology except technology. No one ever wins in the future except the future. No one ever wins in religion except religion. No one ever wins in war except war. No one ever wins in peace except peace. No one ever wins in art except art. No one ever wins in existence except existence. Your love is always blueshifting.
No one ever cries for anyone, they cry for themselves.
I am unenslaved by this juvenile fear/that love is what deteriorates, and that’s incongruent with my dear.
I want to bring this analysis perfectly on home. Because Dai is such a beautiful writer and because I think my analysis is so good. Love, in this case, is nature with story, we mentioned before. Dai is watching world wither away, and is worried that nature with story is the one that is dying.
To me, you are not redacted.
As the willful birds are away, where the sun beats/and I am ready for the grand release
Both Dai and I are happy to inform you that it is the world that is dying, not the world’s stories. Not love, but everything else.
To gesture towards my own worldview briefly, I find the space for mystery in “the hard problem of consciousness” only consciousness is mostly bad, and I would prefer to emphasize “experience.” The “hard problem of experience,” to be like a vast chasm to the side of a bed, where monstrous ideas can hide at night, like love, civil duty, pride…
I imagine a quantum web of stories overlapping the rock of the world, like an alternate universe, the way that light can be both a particle and a wave —the world is both story, and dying.
Realizing this, one can be again vast and romantic, and this is perfectly expressed in Dai’s language, which, to me, elevates the English language in a way that is increasingly rare. I read something like this and I feel confident that English is beautiful again and I must admit I had some doubting moments.
No I am happy to inform you that poetry is not dying, just everything else.
Our last poems of the month are two works by Nikola Tosic: “listen to rap” and “the future of entertainment”
Nikola Tosic Is the future of poetry. I hope he doesn't read this because it could ruin everything. but what he's doing is perfect and I never want it to stop. I think I mentioned elsewhere in this essay about how I think the poetry can be like interpreting the voice of the bicameral Gods a la Julian Jaynes, but obviously poetry can be a lot of things mainly what makes something poetry is the poetry.
but we can imagine all of poetry on the spectrum between glossolalia and and essay with most of the poetry sitting somewhere between. The glossolalia The glossolalia is side dominated for a long time pretty much 60,000 years I'd guess and in poetry was you know if you go far back it's incredibly incomprehensible and then you get a little closer and it becomes more and more understandable
reasons you should stay:
njnsjgnfsj;ngjf;snibnfjdknbjknfdjbnjkfdnsjnbkjfsnjbnsiudufhsdunvjkdsnvjkndsiouhuioesdnfjkdnsjknvdsnivnsduinfueabfyibdahjnfjkdsaniofjsdiuhfihabwrdbwajksnkdnaiohfuiwqhyfbdhjasjf;diousahfuibwaeyucbejkasnvdnsiuenvuiabwfuicaniodnios[nfiucaeniuwnaiunsionzsdiocsnaeuoanuiwonefjsdaioefjieo;sahjfioejawiofjoea[‘jfoipjrsiogjfioe;sjgioehjsiofjhiawoheuiwhGEQUYIW
history is a process of flattening— every process -structure - idea becomes flattened it's not so much that that the juice or like the blood gets sucked out of it but the purist principles become abstracted and applied to everything.
So The central part of it is is a move from away from a top down structure of a central command system like a monarchy which is flat in which changes happen from the bottom up this happening everywhere
one instance in which this happened was in an art it happened in Picasso with Cubism and it happened in film with Caveh Zahedi, and in democracy with politics, and in love with it is best not to mention, but I think it happened best with Nikola Tosic.
So because what makes him so special is that he uses communicative language 2 talk about the realest shit. He's on completely clearly concisely and persuasively about the things that need to be aimed at. and you could juxtapose that with the activism that is so popular today, and I think a lot of those actors would probably say that poetry should be doing what Tosic is doing right now in the in these poems so there's a parallax going on between the language and this strong vision for the future /strong and clear vision which is actually very rare these days So what should I do ?— I think I’m waiting for the future.
The incomprehensible mumblings and ramblings of profits and oracles. and then on and then as consciousness develops the gods the hallucinated gods recede and we're left with well we're left with the consciousness which is trying to figure things out and grow and totalize /what I'm trying to say is Nicola Tosic represents the moment that consciousness turns back on itself and frankly assesses what it has gained and lost in the language of consciousness. He’s still looking forward to the God-in-the-Future. His poetry is redshifted as hell.
rap music allows storytelling/which makes it an important step/towards a future in which/ we are all immortal and equal
I like the refrain of important step an important step because I think exemplifies to sticks understated and progress oriented philosophy what if when you wake up in the morning have breakfast you said that was an important step towards a future in which all humans are immortal and equal what if even when you smoke the cigarette he thought that was an important step towards the future in which all humans are immortal and equal when you put out it's good art that was an important step towards a future in which all humans are moral and equal this essay is an important step 2 towards the future in which all humans are immortal and equal Eminem was an important step towards a future in which all humans are mortal and equal Kanye West was an important step towards a future in which all humans are moral and equal Public Enemy was an important step towards a future in which all humans are moral and equal
I didn't see any reason to correct Nikola about calling me “will,” Because I think if he had called me Billy it wouldn't have been as good for the poems, and also it would have been less surreal. also less meaningful given the connotations of the word “will.” but I am glad to have prompted him to write these poems. that was an important step towards a future in which all humans are immortal and equal.
I do think he is a lot more optimistic than I am. for one his vision of the future involves us building outwards um to a world, in which humans master their bodies and the world around them —to expand into longer life times and far-flung worlds.
Whereas I see a disturbing trend towards inwardness, and imagine the most feasible immortality being tiny simulated realities.
I much prefer to see things his way, and when I read Nikola I feel hope. I realize how much I want all human to be immortal and equal, and I think all people should just say that all the time. Greeting each other: “I want you to live so long that you will be able to take some time off to reverse the dying of a black hole, just for fun.”