Postcard 73

In a rush from the car to the house in the too cool air, he remembered to grab the last few days' mail. Unease from the dark driven into, and sharpened with the headlights cut, followed him in. He fumbled keys and dropped the mail in a clumsy fan in his unnecessary rush. Sure to shut the door firmly behind him, he sought the lights. Switched on, he saw the postcard kicked past the threshold alone on the cool tile. What is this? Not a wish you were here, or majestic nature, nor mighty buildings in their dotage. Not even bikini-clad humor, but a chopped assemblage out of context: a masked, or unmasked and disembodied woman with hair cast like fire, the wrong hands crawled past her, reaching from and into some impossible gate, like a theory drawn out only to fulfill its uncanny form. The moon, or a planet, loomed and pulled and cast a ring of dripping black gravity. Behind all this random words floated down and settled in deep mysterious drifts. He flipped it over. It was only vaguely addressed to him and bore no return address. The text started and stopped in an irrelevant middle and was frustratingly self-descriptive. It sung along like a blind wire, and seemed even to attempt impotently to describe him in the moment. The strange epistle held in his hand had a charge as if written under moonlight. He looked away from the card and let it fall, fluttering silently away to a dark corner. He felt compelled to see himself and stepped further into the house to a half-lit mirror. The man gazing back did not menace, but was decidedly unfamiliar. They examined each other with curious unease.

Postcard 68

Think of me, don't think of me. Think of you through me, my eyes, my gaze. Think of misty nights of bus-stop waiting, in blurred confidences buried securely in oblivion. Think of crying, solid-shouldered brotherhood and clumsy corner punching jaws. Think of love captured and committed, as complex as river-cut stone. Think of proud parent gazing down and the wonder: what happens when I fall? Think of you through me, aging friendship found and strained. Teeth on lips and shoulders, and 'you know better' and 'I know'. Think of fire-warmed skin in forest dark and all our gleaming-bodied friends. Think of scared unsure and hurt and the hope and grace of my strong-muscled hand in yours and yours in mine. Think of too worn apologies thrown and skipped and skipped and accepted into dark like river swallowed stones. Think of laughter, of teeth, of eyes. Think of the beauty of bodies aging, round or lithe. Think of sun-kissed shoulders new and tight, of chapped lips and the graceful lines of living long across your face. Think of holding me weak, of me holding you strong. Think of witness. Think each smell that holds a whole. Think that moment when, through me, you were all, and that walk away.

Postcard 50

A writer who doesn't trust language is a like a priest who hates God, a Bodhisattva who denies free will, a groom who believes in the sanctity of nothing, a lawyer who knows there is no legal justice.... Let me tell you about the vanity of dolphins. Dolphins love mirrors. It is true. Give a dolphin a mirror and they will return to it again and again. Are they bored? No, there are plenty of other dolphins to play with. These creatures, to whom hearing and touch are certainly more central than vision, are enamored of their own visual selves. They see themselves and think something along the lines of "that's me!" I wonder if they think that when they vocalize, and I suspect not. Sound projects out and shares the (perceived) instancy of thought. Who could deny that dolphins have a hedonistic joy? I recall the Douglas Adams quote (look it up). My point is that there seems to be a binding between language and self. The words are for identifying between what is and what is not. Say I call a thing a 'tree'. There are many things that are trees, but I most clearly have eliminated what is not a 'tree', so that you know that at least I ma not talking about those things. Now say it out loud: I, Me, My, Mine. You have established a 'you', but only in regard to what you are not. Not the table, not air, not they or them, not bird. Its good to do because I could describe those things so they are indistinguishable from you. A collection of star-furnaced matter, an organized bunch of carbon, a seemingly choice-given being, a person. But you know there is a you that is not those things exactly. What is it then? And where does it come from? Where is it now? As we grow aware and begin speaking, we become better at separating things. And as we grow older and more sophisticated, we continue and our self-seeking identities become more defined. Brittle sculptures. I wonder if, when we die, it collapses and we realize and experience: we are like everything else