...Sitting Bull's remark about white people: "The love
of possessions is a disease with them."

In a limited universe of signifiers, things say them-
selves, & truth is self-evident. In an unlimited,
difficulties arise at every stage...questions of point
of view & veracity; ambiguity & the right to opine.
--Thus it seems revolutionary to open up a universe
of signifiers, however slightly. But i rather believe
the conditions for revolution precede its articulation...
The trouble is, writers of history identify the whole
process with the final conflagration. Thus writers
appear to foretell catastrophic events, over & over.
But they don't!

"Larvenschlupf, Sternschlupf, mit allen/ Kielen/ such
ich dich,/ Ungrund." ('hatching of grubs, hatching of
stars, with every/ keel/ I search for you,/ Fathomless.')
--Celan

"Etna da luz azul a Dante." --Juan Jose Arreola

[In Baja:] The Virgin Mary, painted in a satellite dish.

The ocean is too yang: bitter, violent, cold. Three
ways yang. As "three pieces equals mate" (a saying
in chess), three ways yang equals death.

Very low humidity makes you aware of being a bag
of water--a leaky bag. Rain here must be like the speech
of god. Sleep, in such a place, like smuggled ice. You
get out of your vehicle, immediately you recognize
there is "nothing to do". --Could one persist in that
realization, it would lead to enlightenment. But that
would be like prolonging astonishment beyond the
instant of realization. A secure beginning might be:
reluctance to describe.

...i found a dead vulture, crucified on a cactus--it
must have died a terrible death--i wrench a tail
feather loose for my hat; & wear it the rest of the trip
though it gets raggeder & raggeder in the cramped
confines of the bus.

Wind + Sun explain everything here. Boulders
spraypainted with names & years. I guess humans have
been doing something like this ever since they first
ventured into a desert. The immensity seems to demand
some defiant response. Ego vs non-ego in the starkest
opposition. (Interplanetary exploration will be no
different!) The alternative--is to identify with it all.
(And the alternative to that?)

The desire for meaning creates the Void. People ask
the meaning of life, the meaning of the world...they don't
ask the meaning of a pile of rocks.

Using spook words in poetry is like that sculptor
who exclusively uses cast-off radioactive debris
in his art.

   "Hillbilly Heroin"

1.
  Altair, rhostgitten oblong,
Foins through the rooky owl-light.

2.
  Fanboys wax much piqued at
Groovy jackal zoo.

3.
  All cold over there
As the color red leaps out,
As windy dreams bloom.
10 07 03