“Bela Lugosi’s Dead” EP (1979) on blue vinyl...putting
it on cassette now so i can listen at work.

'The Mind of the Father said that all things should be cut
into Three...' --Chaldaean Oracles, quoted by Proclus

I imagine a world where, instead of bilateral symmetry, all
lifeforms are triform; animals have 3, 6, or 9 legs. Three
genders: he, she, se which are yang, yin, & balance. Any
two can mate but it takes all three kinds to procreate.

"The Sk [Sâmkhyakârikâs of Ishvarakrâna] and the Ys
[Yogasûtras of Patanjali] present a clear-cut doctrine, by
which all three gunas are inherent in every phenomenon
and cause the differences between them by the ever varying
proportions in which they enter into each. This theory is
known as gunaparinâma..." --Early Samkhya, E H
Johnson (1937)

Their nature causes them to instinctly analyze things into
triads, just as ours creates dualistic philosophies. And where
there is no third term, their minds perceive a blank, which
they call the DORD.
------------------------------------------------------- `

    NOTHING MEANS NOTHING

This morning i understood.
Or this afternoon.
A fly cast its shadow
on the gray wooden floor,
its wings a translucent one
a semi-shade.
Not that, not this--
cried the sage in the marketplace.
He wasn't playing
a sophist's game
with that Asian sun
nor did he seek to stifle
our questions like you'd swat a fly.
Invisible wings
(not this, not that)
were fluttering, and the half-tones changed shape.

When i saw her again today
so briefly,
i understood.