To be small is to be distant
& vice versa.
The asterisk calls.
It leaves a message.
You turn it all the way up:
it sounds like a small fan.
In some parallel universe
all the stars look like this
& books with too many footnotes
collapse into black holes.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Ab Ovo
- The Origin of the Exclamation Mark
- Screw
- Cursor
- Shark’s Tooth
- Acorns
- Book Match
- Toenail Paring
- That Button
- Stone
- Thorn
- Knots
- Knob
- Fulgurite
- Coin
- Sugar Pill
- Peach Pit
- Eyecup
- Asterisk
- Bullet Casing
- Nipple
- Indicator Light
- Salt Crystals
- Asterisk (videopoem)
- Fish Hook
- Oak Apple Gall
- Pearl
- A Thumbnail Taxonomy of Rivets
- Wingnut
- Baby Carrots
- Computer Chip
- Thimble
- Lentil
- Blastocyst
Dave,
I love this. I can visualize that fan, hear it even.
Thanks, Robbi — I’m glad that works for you!
Very evocative, Dave. Back in the days of very very old typewriters with sharp keys wedded uncomfortably to inferior paper a number of my ‘o’s would collapse into black holes. (grin)
LOL. I remember that, too.
Hey, hey with the black holes. Fear not the footnote, as tis merely a properly-addressed parallel universe.
I muchly love that fan. If overused, asterisks reverse spin to star-pellet sentences, pocking them like car roofs in a hail storm.
Yikes. But what about the move away from asterisks, daggers, etc. to boring, numbered footnotes? Very disturbing, I think.
To eradicate asterisks et al. absolutely would drain joy from the world. An asterisk is a daisy, which signals dessert.
No one salivates at a footnote. But for those of us whose content/tangent ratios skew, numbers can at least restore the illusion of order and intention.
Apotheosis of Whimsy!