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miscellanea


bad poetry, line prose, and ill-opinion

by j jackson

I can write
as good trash
as anyone,

like stupid
poetry
books published,

pretending
to be all
insightful.

8-9-1

Appreciation for Emily

The Loss presumes the Presence
that suffers not for Thee.
For if the Truth be ever-known,
then evermore I see
the Presence of Another
alike unto a soul
that though it leaves the Physical
is ever at its Goal.

5-6-4

Too Tired To Tango      

I'm too tired to go outside, but not enough to sleep.
I'm too tired to work at art, so all I do is think.
Thinking provokes fantasies not near so good as dreams.
In this realm between the two my life is as it seems.

5-6-4

A Great Cosmic I/O Device      

I, experience, composed of particles of
a sub-atomic nature, left/right, up/down,
charmed, attentive, waiting, stirred to action
by the least little interesting bit of information,
satisfy myself by echoing a universe
filled with so much content I can't sort it out.
It's not my job. I only pass it through,
some of it, a lesser part, that which I'm allowed
to see, to possess, for only a passing moment
until I decide, what to do with it, and open
the gate to hell or heaven, to let messages pass.

7-20-3

A Microcosm Gone Astray

The human race doesn't deserve to live in peace and freedom.
We're an ignorant mass of superstitious cunts and animalistic cocks.
(No gender attributions intended. We're all both, at different times.)
People can't seem to get along even if their lives depend on it.
(And they do. Look at the Israelis and the Palestinians. Ignorance.)
This is my area of expertise, and sometimes even I can't get along.
Although I've been pretty good the last few years, I must say.
(But that's only because I've removed myself from most of the fray.)
Sometimes, I feel very confident in my abilities. Other times, not so.
But this is normal. (Ugh. I'm normal.) In and out. Up and down.
My real area of expertise is my self, which I project onto the world.
I study the microcosm affected by the larger whole and re-project.
We exhibit confidence in that at which we are competent or expert.
Lack of confidence proceeds from those areas where we are weak.
I am most confident (competent) within myself, a microcosm.
[The world is confident, because it mostly knows what it is doing.]
I should, therefore, be more confident when I am out in the world.
And I am, when I realize this fact; but, often, I do not understand.
It's not really a matter of psychological adaptation; it's physical.
When I feel physically "up," alert, awake, well rested, I am fine.
When I'm tired, run-down, weak, I lack the confidence to compete.
At these times, I'd rather hide away, when the seasons transition.
I feel disoriented when the earth-tilt changes weather patterns.
I feel out-of-sync with the world, a microcosm gone astray.
Winter or summer, in or out, one or the other is otherwise okay.

4-18-2

As Big As I Am            

If, I do not see myself but, others
misinterpret what it is I see, then
others who are small and desirable,
in my small mind are not themselves, but me.

I mean, I am, myself, in my mind small,
see more myself in others' small demean
as they see. Do they wonder how I see
as much myself as them, as I am seen?

I want so much to be small, as they are,
I create myself in them, I can see.

4-3-2

Night Traffic            

This is, all there is, a lonely sound
of night traffic passing on the highway,
of ringing in the ears, not room noise,
of warm air blowing through ductwork
and in between, creaking as the house grows cold,
of rain showering the eaves and rooftop
and in between, dripping off the facia to the ground
like whispers dropping in an unheard conversation.
Alone in the darkest hour of the night,
wide awake in the darkest section of the mind,
seeing nothing, like an empty sphere before me
within which I am, completely self-contained,
I fear tomorrow, but am forever, now, remained.

3-20-2

Too Far      

I know someone
I must remain
a distance from.

Too close, she is
too dangerous,
an entity

apart, of me.
Too far, she is
a distant loss.

3-20-2

Evolution

The sun soaks into me. Something inside
begins to loosen, as if bonds are being
softened in an opposite way as it begins
to tighten in the fall when cold weather
settles in. I am a figment of this cyclic
motive, slave to its mere anti-purpose,
an accidental oscillation of a recurrent
cosmic event. I am an insignificance of
nature--except that I've evolved enough
to know it.

7-28-1

Aliens Like Porpoises

Cetaceans hear via vibrations transmitted through the bone of their jaws
into the ear, which is completely enclosed within flesh, to be waterproof.
It occurs to me that porpoises, for example, do not know this anatomy.
No porpoise has ever autopsied another of its species. We want to think,
sometimes, that having brains of equal size to ours, they're as intelligent.
And maybe they are, but their knowledge would be of a different kind
altogether. No evidentiary science per se, no methodology or technology.
I mean, what kind of an intelligence is that? I know I'm a chauvinist fish,
in this sense. But consider this: Porpoises live in a foreign environment.
If they consider us at all, we must be "alien" or even "mystical." When
they are abducted and subsequently returned home, they may entertain
their friends with stories of being cared for in huge tanks by humans who
used them in horrific experiments, training them to jump and play, even
artificially inseminating them in alien laboratories. They may be thought
weirdoes by their fellows in the sea who do not believe in this other world.
If porpoises are intelligent, and it appears as if they are, they're not so smart
as this other intelligent species that rules the land as they fail to rule the sea.
If they're are so smart, how come they're always getting caught in tuna nets?

7-27-1

Bit By Bit I Try To Change Myself

I would like to write at least one thing every day about my life and post it to an online journal, as an ongoing self-(re)definition, but I don't do this.
Instead, I write, almost always daily, and I parcel the pieces (of my life) out to various places, projects, Websites, at least one of which pretends
to be an ongoing entity-defining site: this is me, my mind, developing, I hope, evidence of the process of my thought unfolding. Otherwise, I am
dispersed throughout my mini-universe of evidentiary artforms until I recognize a reticence to delineate myself in so straightforward a fashion,
whereupon I begin to close myself off, not to expression, but to exposure. And it takes a great effort to open myself back up once again.
I want to think that a daily posting of my routine life would prevent this schizoid reaction, but I doubt that it would. We are what we are, despite
the activity we engage in to try to change ourselves.

7-27-1

sometimes

this is who I am:
sometimes wise, sometimes stupid
sometimes experienced, sometimes naive
sometimes optimistic, sometimes pessimistic
etceteraetcceterablahblahblah
all of this taken as a whole
and much more.

If you feel you have to be
critical of me,
be critical of the whole me,
not some small part of
what I am,
(Maybe, in this way, you will think twice
about how people are criticized for
what
often only in very small part
they are.
But I doubt
it.) Each specific idea or incident
I report about my life
is just that,
one out of a whole.
Any one particular piece is
what I wanted to say
in the way I wanted
to say it at the time,
each insignificant, except as
a fragment of what I sometimes am.

7-15-1

Crazy With The Heat

"You're going to upset my life, aren't you?"
"Oh, I hope so. I'm going to try."


I can feel the world beginning to change
again. The pressure builds like a boiler
doing its ordinary work, contained, yet
in miniscule increments increasing gas/
combustible soot, preliminary to flash-
over. An explosion is coming. Perhaps
though, this is only a feeling I project.


Yesterday afternoon about six o'clock it began to get seriously overcast and the wind began to pick up, which was a welcome relief from the heat, despite the ominous feelings I wanted the weather to create in me.
Neighbors were running around gathering up delicate summer items to put them inside, things like chair pads and whatnot that could be damaged by the weather. Everyone was battening down the hatches.
Everyone but me, that is. I keep my hatches battened all the time. I'm prepared for all emergencies, I think. That's why, when I dream of my life becoming upset, I pay attention. My mind is warning me.
Something is about to come undone, especially when I dream of a woman I know, someone with whom I believe the attraction to be mutual. She's about to upset my life. I know these dreams. They're portents.
Last night, for no apparent reason (maybe its the heat; excessive perspiration robs the body of vital nutrients), I began to feel a little bit paranoid. I worked my way through it without incident, but who knows?
These feelings are often signs of things to come. The weather. The dream. The paranoia. An upheaval may be coming soon. But things have calmed down now. I think I'm getting crazy with the heat.

7-25-1

The Accidental Artist

Art, like life, is created while we are intending something else, as, for example, drippings from a paint can while we paint the bathroom walls, or the transparent overlay of images as we try to paste sub-images together. And we don't have to go to places like Paris to learn it, or to do it, life and art.

7-16-1

A Migraine Is Just A Headache

Everyone has to have an expensive label for everything they do these days.
You just can't have a headache or wear a pair of jeans or sneakers.
I've had migraines for most of my adult life, sometimes lasting for weeks.
I never called them migraines, because I happened to know their cause.
I killed the pain with medication, when it worked, and I moved on.
You get used to it, the pain. Kids now have sub-woofers. I had speakers.
Life's becoming so pretentious. Everyone's getting fatter, more obnoxious.
Grossly obese women complain they are not accepted for who they are.
But the fact is, they're accepted as the fat pigs they made themselves into.
They're fat because they're stuffing their faces with Twinkies and Hohos.
Do something about it or put up with it, shut up, and stop fucking whining.
(This is me yelling at myself. At you too. Just because all criticism is self-criticism doesn't mean it doesn't also apply to you.)

7-7-1

belief

We are programmed to believe
what we believe is truth,
conditioned by society and culture,
we search in vain for self,
independent of creation.
There is nothing
to search for.

6-24-l

The Other Half Wanes

Height of the year. This is as good as it gets. Today is
a double whammy: a new moon appears. What a time
for starting over. The consequent solar eclipse blocks
the celestial light and for a few odd minutes, we begin
again. I examine the motivation: in half the world, we
end, putting to rest the theory that astronomical events
control our lives. They do, but... It's actually our own
selves doing the controlling. The changing sequences
key control within, our own bodies. Periodic switches
are thrown in our physiologies, each specific to self.
Otherwise, why would half the world be waxing as
the other half wanes.

6-21-1

The Fragile Inner Self

"channel insecurity in a positive rather than in a negative way"
(one of the head honchos of Sun Microsystems on a talk show on PBS)

I remember back when I published my first book. I was so insecure
about it. I doubted its worth. But I had to do it, to prove to everyone
who knew I was a writer that I was actually working on something,
that my years of isolation in the name of art were not wasted years.
Now, it hardly seems important. Even if they had been wasted years,
it wasn't any different than working for a job doing something I hated.

I spend a lot of time (or I used to; I avoid the work as much as possible
now) maintaining systems that monitor my finances and net worth and
organizing files of personal data and expression so that I am afforded
the appearance of being in control. I rationalize this as a positive way
I channel my insecurity, rather than, for example, whiling away my time
developing elaborate systems of idle social structure and relationship as
fantasies, designed to assuage my inadequacies in this area of my life--
and, I theorize, to learn how to better relate to a world I am not really
comfortable with, which would actually be a positive manifestation
except that I suspect that the theory is flawed and that I am engaging
in mere catharsis rather than insight therapy--not that this isn't also
a valid use of my idle time. Let's face it. My life has been wasted in
a lot of ways. But that is only a social definition. In the same light,
many lives are wasted far more so than mine, people whose lives are
disenfranchised by the social structure, who would otherwise be
valued productive citizens, except that the mainstream culture chooses
to ignore them, or worse, to determine that they are not worth saving,
rehabilitating, given a chance to redeem themselves and to "make
something" of their lives. At least I would be given a chance, if I would
choose to take advantage of the situation. I am not disenfranchised.
I do this to myself, isolate myself, because I don't trust the status quo.
My insecurity is deep-seated, ontological, but I have overlaid it with
a veneer of respectability, in part. I am a writer and former employee.
I am a valued, if distanced, citizen of the society at large. I make
these definitions up, I create myself and my self-image, like I create
the characters I write about, or the personas I establish on my websites.
I am secure, but not at the core of my existence. I establish my security
through extra-ordinary means: I make it up. This is not the real me
you see. Deep down I am an insecure and hopeless mess. But I persist
in maintaining the identity of someone who has got it together, and so
channel my insecurity in positive ways, making the best of it, using it
to motivate me to establish artificial structures that protect the fragile
inner self.

6-16-1

In Memory of the Human Animal
or
Because We Kill
(a politically incorrect eulogy)

I don't think McVeigh was wrong in any way
that Clinton wasn't wrong in his campaign
against Serbia. (And I was a Clinton supporter,
but only after the Monica affair. I got to admire
a man with the balls to get a hummer in the Oval
Office. But I digress.) Death is death, and killing
is killing. When we kill killers, we become what
they are, if we already were not, projecting
our secret enthusiasm onto them, enabling
our denial. When we maintain we're justified
in our acts, we project away our identification
with the killer instinct, refusing to feel the same
passions that are so obvious to anyone who will
step back to take a closer look. We are bound
up in the same game, killing. We are caught
up in the same value process. McVeigh had
his values, which, conventional thinking goes,
conflicted with those of the society at large.

Despite sensibility, I find myself admiring McVeigh
for the dignified and courageous end he put
to his life, disarming the vengeance, disguised
or otherwise, of his detractors, the victims'
families and representatives, some of whom,
not realizing the folly of their misplaced remarks,
stated in so many words their disappointment
at his lack of remorse, his stoic determination
to stick to his strongly held beliefs and opinions,
his refusal to apologize for the "collateral damage."
G. Gordon Liddy's demeanor comes to mind.
He is not dissimilar, and I admire him too,
begrudgingly. I just can't help it. These are men
in the vein of the Caesars, Napoleon, Alexander,
Atilla, Hitler, Norman Swartzkopf, et al., united
by the common thread that they are all killers.
This is the society we breed in our struggle to exist.

(Don't blame me for your outrage at this comparison.
I'm not the one who invented our killer-instincts
or acts to perpetuate violence by insisting upon death.)
So, do McVeigh's values conflict with ours, really?
His justifying arguments for killing are the same
ones we (hawks) use when we want to try to think
it's okay to eliminate enemies via socially sanctioned
genocide. When moral values are abstracted out
of the equation, we are left with only killing,
an objective act. Right and wrong, in any activity,
are overlays applied by human minds to the objective
reality: to kill or not.

I believe McVeigh was wrong, because
he killed. But so was Clinton, and the FBI
at Ruby Ridge, and... We should be better
as a species than this by now, but we are not.
We are, despite our human minds, only animals.
We use our evolutionary advantage only for
rationalization, to act as animals do. McVeigh,
a product of our society, is what we create,
because we kill.

6-12-1

Different People

On many days, I am not myself.
Aspects of me are not the me
I know to be, who I have been.
That is, I am others, who exist

within
     wanting, to be, exhibited
     except that I am, much
     too normally conditioned
     that I resist formations.
     Yet time is in their favor.
     (It only seems to be kinky
     the first time you do it)

                    and

without
     as others whom I know
     exist, as (a)part of me
     intent upon believing
     I am, as they are, one
     of them, assume I am
     fulfilling the prophecy,
     never knowing the truth

that some of us are real, but
some are not, fragmentations
of an ego desperately trying
to hold onto a fragile integrity.

6-8-1

It's Not Me, It's Life

If people put their words, themselves, out over the Internet
for the world to see, and especially, if they send you e-mail,
even if it is part of a mass-mailing, they invite response.

A pattern develops: I respond, they (sometimes) respond,
I respond again, they are silent from there on in, I feel
what? Inappropriate? Did I write something wrong? No.

It's some kind of dynamic. But it wants to set me off
into a panic, like I am, after communication, apart again,
left to my own, devices, transforming events into a crisis.

I have a life, and every right, to feel the way I feel, and say
whatever I feel a need or want to say, specially, in response.
If I'm then cut off, I need, to know, I'm no less appropriate

for having been so bold as to opine what others ask of me
by implication when they invite themselves into my home
to lend me their own momentary selves, they may regret

later when they read my cautious accolades of thought
that may seem strange because I am so different as to be
unique, surprising them perhaps. Whatever. I'm alive too.

6-8-1

Art Form

Some artists seek technical perfection,
some seek mere expression;
some find the former through the latter,
some the latter through the former.

Some editors examine photographs
with loops for pixel acuity,
some rely upon experience to know
what's good, without magnification.

Some writers sit down, to create
stories out of thin air,
some scribble notes on old envelopes,
capturing ideas as they occur.

6-5-1

Being. Alone

A good way to end an era is
to give it a name that sticks.

-- I. Illich

Is postmodernism ending? It seems to be so. A world seems to be, reintegrating around me, leaving me, a kernel of post-optimism within an infinitely complex minutia of interrelation. Whereas I have felt that I belonged, isolated among this society of pseudo-social citizens, now I am beginning, to feel again, separated, at a loss: a last hold-out. I know, this is not true; people everyday face the protoplasmic dangers associated with being, cut-off, from the larger organism, yet everyday I feel, we take a step closer to our destiny, which will leave me stranded
once
again.

I remember how it used to be, when I was out, alone in the world pretending to be together. Hardly anyone ever knew, I was a consummate isolationist, I was so good acting a social role. Now, finally having found a niche so large I fit into a desolate society, still pretending, I fail to see how all must end eventually, cycling back, until revelation visits me and I am momentarily sane, aware, there is, no communication, but that it exists within the self I am when I think not too much about it, but live it out instead, going day to day not caring if I meet someone, or not, responding when I do, and when I don't ever, not even daring to hope I will, yet feeling
all the same,
as if I have.

My postmodern method wants a hesitation, pausing to evaluate the piecemeal nature that my mind has come to value, matching wits with a culture that cannot but hold its own as a part of the superstructure dominating the world we live on, seething, straining at edges of, in difference, aspiring to a harmony of agreement but rarely, more often content to be, segmented into functional parts unrecognizing underlying unity. Post-modernism is a superficial philosophy of pragmatic narcissism, which is me all over again. We want to be more, like we really are, unified at the most basic level, not being, apart. But we don't
yet know how
to be.

6-5-1

Life Temporarily Forgotten

Every once in a rare while I awaken to the bleak and quiet desperation
that is my life, and I try again to get it down into words while the insight
persists, because it won't last long, it won't be long before I sink back into
the fantasy that I am doing something sort of worthwhile here---or, at least,
something sane.
Especially at this time of the year, but generally throughout in a less
dramatic way, I am profoundly aware that I am doing, really, nothing---
because living only for art, mostly my own, and showing the littlest portion
of it to the world, is all but nothing. And yet, each time, I realize as I try
to rationalize it,
I am something, after all: I am a writer, at the least. Or at the best, I am
an individual, capable, of great doubt, but at the same time, of great vision.
The fact that I seldom concretize that vision is...irrelevant. The best thing I
can say of my life, then, is that it is mine, I'm alive; no one even tries to tell
me what to do
any more.

I'm no longer even advised in ordinary social ways. I'm left to my own
devices, which is what I've always wanted since I was very young. In this
sense, you may say I am successful: I've become so independent as to be
essentially alone, and I don't mind, not so much, as long as I can continue
to write about it.
But during the most desperate of times, when I awaken out of dreams
designed by some imaginary creator to clue me as to the state that I am in,
(I know that the creator is a less specific form of self), I worry, being, lost.
Then, out of a sense of futility, not having written anything significant for so
long, I write,
and I am relieved, temporarily, lifted up out of a dread of life, for while
I am down in it, I am motivated by my desperation to write about it, lifting
myself up out of it via writing, I no longer have the need to write, not being
desperate enough. And so I go on, feeling smug about my independence,
having written
at least something.

While I'm writing, or painting, or playing music, or even listening to it,
or reading, or merely looking at the landscape, I'm free, to pursue a mind I
am, perceiving, becoming, aware, that I am consciousness personified, alive;
but when I'm unable or unwilling to work, or bored to death with life so that
I will then not,
for the most part, I am not happy, but usually I don't know it, because
I am not so conscious at these moments, having sunk into an ordinary funk
out of which I must arise, usually out of my dreams, to begin to work again.
I may say nothing of, significance, life, at all, having forgotten, purpose, but
I do it, anyway.
Until I become less conscious of the pending disaster welling within, I
struggle with the fear, that one day, I will not be, not even conscious enough
to fear it. Art does this for me, relieves the frailty of humanity, who is weak.
It causes me, not to forget it, but to remember, that I am an artist, and so, I
reflect the world,
alone and lost.

5-4-1

Passing Time

Anything that will capture my interest serves to keep me from wandering, into the deserts, off into oblivion, which is my mind, released from social restraints when I am alone, self-abated, withdrawn from the turmoil created by well-meaning inept businesses believing they are the way to freedom, financial and otherwise. The only freedom that interests me is roaming through the everlasting mind, dreaming of Babylon. But Babylon is burning. And my mind is forever yearning to be, beyond itself, out there, somewhere where the air does not penetrate my lungs like a stale poleaxe signifying the conquests it has abetted in the hands of muscular men--and women, now. Finally, a subject I'm into as time passes, me, by, requiting memory.


Creating Fate

I want to write what I want to write. It's all I want to do--
create: writing, art, music. When I don't want to create,
I don't want to do anything. When I want to create, I want
to create, I don't want to do anything else. Everything else
bores me--or else it seems irrelevant, even if interesting.
People want me to create, what they want created. But
I don't want to, write "stories," paint beautiful scenes,
perform comprehensible music. It's all been done before.
I want to express, myself, as I encounter the motivation.
And, most importantly, the process should be fun, or
at least it should be driven, without a preponderance
of pondering over what I should write, paint, perform.
It should be spontaneous. The worry is a created by-
product of the influence people exert on me expecting
me to want to do what they want done/to do but can't.
So, when my work is episodic, detached, pieced together
into pastiches of apparently purposeless panaceas, this is
my art, this is me, this is my life, you witness/criticize
in your vain attempt to create yourself through what I do,
because you have no talent, motivation, or self-sufficiency.

I want to write, but there seems no sense of it to me if
people will not read it. I already know what's in my head.
It's only wanting to demonstrate it that I will write it out.
(I used to say I wrote for my own self, and to a degree
it's true, but that rationalization only goes so far, alone.)
It's an ego matter, after all, which I consider a fault. I am
showing off, I guess to my own self. So, I am searching
for an audience. It's a pathology, but an ordinary one.

Write a lot, produce a little, publish or post it, and wait.
I sometimes get impatient, forgetting it's a matter of fate.

4-7-1

Apparently

An attitude that will punctuate the winter but preponderate in spring:
I will think I want, or need, to go out, and so plan for it, only to postpone
action, not really wanting to after all, but only thinking that I should, for
whatever reason, to buy things while on sale, to appease a population
who insists that I be normal by not hanging out too much alone, keeping
my own company, to...whatever---you fill in the psychopathologies.

And I will ponder this dilemma: to go out or not to go out, to be, myself
or them. It's an easy solution when it's seen in this light, but often I will not
see it in this way. Instead, I dwell on it too long, until the truth is clouded
over by the angst derived from having been too long alone, suffering from
an isolation (it's not really isolation, but the mind gets tricked into thinking
it is) causing ennui preventing the insight: I will be myself, alone, if that is
what it takes, to be, myself. Otherwise, I am more than I know, I am others
opinions taking over, being too much to be, contained, within a shell of
a house become too small, demanding it be released from the dominance
I exert over it, for a while. And then there is this thought, which will make
everything seem all right: I will think of the money I am saving by staying
in; I better guarantee my future by not participating in social intercourse.

This would seem to be an oxymoron but, for me, it's true. For anyone else
society promotes careers and self; for me, not. I am not the same as you.

4-6-1

short script

"Aren't you done working yet?"
"Almost."
"You said that an hour ago."
"Just a few more minutes."
"You said that an hour ago."
"The more you interrupt me, the longer it'll take."
[She walks around to where she can see the computer screen.]
"What are you doing? You're typing what we're saying!"
"I'm working."
"You're not working. This isn't work!"
"This is work. This is what I do."
"You're playing around."
"No. You're interrupting me."
"Did you finish the chapter?"
"Yeah, but I'm trying to get a little bit ahead."
"Never mind getting a little bit ahead. Let's go."
"Honey, I always wanna getta little bitta head."
"I know you do. And you get it too."
"Yep. That's exactly what I get. A little bit."

5-29-00



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