Chapter 1 

Today I gathered a satchel of faces; a long, skeletal face, "pale unto death," sunken as one from the dead with long, lanky hair, dark peerful glasses; sitting with his body rocking back and forth in strict, taut rhythm to some invisible exigency. Confused, dark Chicano man. Beautiful black woman with hair braided thinly and wrapped with turquoise beads. Scabbed, forlorn face of one not at all impressed by it all.

For So Long:

he said to me, "For so long I was driven by a restless vanity that reached its dutiful conclusion in apocalyptic visions. For so long I have been hiding; roaming the fields and boroughs of the imagination. The people suspect the worst but then they should be ashamed of themselves and when I think on it they have sold their shame to the most absurd temptations so the back of my hand to them."

"For so long oppressed by a kind of telepathy! For so long unable to understand myself buried under the thoughts of others! I have only recently understood the way voices organize themselves. For so long believing I was relating to the world when I was actually relating to my self-consciousness, to my "impositions."

Language is a strip eternally moving through the body and soul. What the poet does is heighten its appearance. A language formed out of the spirit. A kind of false pride with try and manipulate itself to spirit through the manipulation of sentences. First, the spirit and its experiences through life. Then language that comes brave and beautiful form the heart.

The difference between "ornate" and "hard, common language" that the poets of a previous generation struggled over, William Carlos Williams and so on. A man who says chair and think they have said a great deal are either laughed at or provide the greatest opportunity to succeed.

Reach the truth through the shortest distance.

Here. This place. Living in this particular place, this part of the country, this astounding vitality that breaks here, always signaling for a new man or new woman to arise although it is a place where men and women become disembodied before anyone else. All myths have a grain of salt in them. The people live horizontally the expectation. They dream in other words and even if the dreams are vulgar they are dreams and the fact the dreams are innate gives impetus to the more profound and real dream one finds in the ancient world or at the tail end of some golden age. Slowly but surely the dreams take on the character of tribal dreams of vanquished nations. Two world lower on each other, plus the Spanish. The mansion of the Emperor turned into hacienda spreads. Catholic missions. The Spanish is old, noble Spain and god-dark Aztec. Two dark bloods. Ancient dreams! Representations you have, here, in this place. The dreams of youth sadly flag in the mind. The dreams of manhood gain strength.

The Stuttering Utterances of a Cosmological View:

I love reading about the stars but I love looking up at them even more. And if it were a choice between the two I would choose the second without regret.

David Eide
January 24, 2014