Postcard 97

Blood and sweat, laughter, tears -- things that drip and flow and peal. We enter and come with pain-pleasure, the push-pull of pulse flow. A new clean spring draws stones from soil, mountains sharp in cut and cry.
And old King Whirl, born crying, comes round on himself, self-satisfied and corpulent with the collect, the labor's sweat, the g;uttony of damn-up. collect and swell.
And old Death comes on like a flood and a drought, sooth-said and expected. Old death, a nattering madman, muttering and humming, meaning nothing. He carries, in his moment, cataracts of tears, lifetimes flowing ocean lightly.
Then finally peals out what is most feared, Silence. She speaks from corner to corner, to rafter's peak. Not a sign, not a moan, not a creak not a woosh not a drip not a groan or a squeak. But listen close and tight and do not waiver in the quiet deep and you will add the fluid peal of laughter, whole and pure and real.

Postcard 93

"Writing will create forgetfulness in the learner's souls."
Once, the whole story was fluid in a head. The story settled and filled and flowed like the ever-changing, same-named river. Each word was a drop, each meaning a bond.
I must abandon this analogy before -- as all analogies must -- it fails. I will leave it with you to gather and precipitate.
Give me a book. Give me a pile of books! Give me a mountain of books! Let it collapse upon me. Let if fall like an altar to hubris, a crushed babel.
There are two ways to kill a word, you see. First, define it. Second, write it down.
Like a man, a word is only when it connects, meaning - ever sought - between the names. Keep up! Every word is analogy. Every word pursues its meaning, as slick as water in hand. Remember, metaphor, analogy reduced becomes idolatry.
Carve a book and see!
It was easy enough, but now, with new tablet in hand, we descend, the whole world transcribed. No more creation spoken over the water. No more speak friend and enter depths.
Yet, in this embarrassment of riches is a new Homeric memory we can each and all access. I can rise from that avelanche. I can be a standing white crest in stream. I can reach outward to my fellow beings.
Hold and release!
Here is what you must do: discard, discard! Divest of this and this purpose here. The meaning is between the words. The meaning is the travel from my hand to yours. The meaning is the enriched blood, and words the stale air exhaled. But all around, on glass, on walls, precipitate!

Postcard 77

When they say danger, well what is safe? Is safety destroy-create? No, safety is sterility. And where you may say destroy-create, which is forever yes, they will say no, obliterate. Where shall we live? In something called a house? And if we must move, then we must drive. We must have drive and then success, which we know, but they will name arrival (at a wasteland), clothed, prepared and stranded. We know this dream, the lotus dream of constant invitation. We must prop open eyes and use legs unbuckling to carry them that would be us.The only dream bigger than our myths is success. When they say secure, they mean invest. Well, cash is the only lie bigger than the fictions we make with stone and gel and sound and ink and pen. The lie of the present, future-bent. An open car on a desert trip. Sometimes we are right to boo,and sometimes it is good to burn and to watch the dishonesty: When they say danger, they mean we, the honest liars. When they say secure, invest, they mean forget. When they sing praise, exalt, show up at vigil, mourn, respect -- what they mean is they are terrified of destroy-create, are terrified of terrified, of waking up and clarity and please please please forget.

Postcard Project Revisited

As I pass fifty postcards posted, and probably closer to a hundred made and mailed, I must call myself into question: What am I doing here?

If I am trying to share with a wider audience, then I am failing. As far as I can tell, I have about ten faithful readers. (This is a good exercise for sublimating the fragility of my ego.) I am not above self-promotion, but neither am I very interested in it. I have been putting off a few ideas to widen my audience, in fact. When I do fret about it, internally or externally, I am immediately aware of the pathetic sound of dross. It is similar to me of the feeling I get when I attempt to synthesize the sublime into some sort of linear coherence.
Which does lead me to what I am doing here: I am synthesizing my sublime -- transcendent and despairing -- into a parceled, non-linear coherence. Reviewing my cards is like watching the arc of my philosophical/spiritual/artistic development in a statistical scatter graph in many dimensions. This was not at all my intention when I began, or even when I began formalizing and sharing. Here is an explanation of my original intent.
I can see now, that I am creating an historic documentation of an informal world view as it examines itself and develops. The form itself is of course feeding back to that development. Its not that I think in the 4.5 x 6 inch boundary, but that I am engaged in a one sided conversation without feedback or reference that would normally be of no more significance than the thoughts that whirl around in my head and fade out of memory. Regardless of the limitations and looseness and loneliness of my form, the structure of writing and the vulnerability of sharing creates responsibilities to both internal veracity and posterity. This is all a lot to say about so flippant a "project", but I take it seriously (but not too self-seriously, I hope):
I have gotten to the point where, on a variety of subjects, I could reference a postcard that would at least begin a conversation on my perspective. I am often tempted to do that,or to tack the link to some specific card onto an online conversation. I have also gotten to the point where I feel that anyone who would take the time to read each and every postcard as part of a larger tangentially connected whole, would have a pretty good sense of the person they are engaging, that is me.

So, taking this project -- that has become a project, that has grown legs enough to have essentially taken over my blog, that has ushered along and matured a perspective to make the more static ideas of my novel fall into question, taking this project as it is -- not seriously, but engaging it, I move forward with the intent of mass and momentum:


I will self promote while hopefully barring my ego from the process. 

I am constantly curious about serious, educated and well developed philosophical ideas as well as ideas in science, the arts,religion and literature. I have no interest in specializing in any of these; I enjoy remaining a dilettante, in fact I feel it is a helpful tool for a writer, but I would like to cultivate a type of feedback that could be transformative to the development of my perspective.

I will be more formal about my postings, aiming for one each Monday afternoon. If you enjoy catching my postcards, that gives you something to look forward to. 

I will continue to make, write and send postcards