Category: Riffs

Streams of consciousness, automatic writing, running at the mouth, and/or beatings of dead horses.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Privilege

rock oak and beeches b&w

I am not ready to let the colors back in. The sky in black & white retains a pleasing uniformity: it’s either a wall of light or the nightly well. Shadows have authority, making a man appear as solid as a tree and a tree as stolid as a gnomon. I am not ready for brown & green & blue & the grievances of noon. I am not ready to stop being white & seeing white as blankness, the default setting. The kind of self-effacement that ennables is still so comfortable. The old ways might have been wrong but it was a wrongness that required careful attention, like the shape & set of a fine felt hat. It was ugly, yes, but it fit. Now we have such a crowd of proud misfits, loud in their ain’ts & their complaints, shrill as the shills who killed their appetite for books. I watch their hands shaping the air & think, what if someday we all switched to sign language & to Braille? What would that do the hard cell of self? Then perhaps we could free ourselves from the shame of misbegotten speech: the N-word, the F-word, the C-word, the S-word. Then we could all luxuriate in a world of scent & soft outlines — a touchy-feely city on the hill. Then only those without any hands would still stand on the wrong side of the wall, their unbranched shadows inching across the snow.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

25 Random Things About Me

If there’s anyone in all of Facebonk who has yet to do this so-called meme, I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t like doing things that everyone is doing until no one is doing them anymore. That way if I can’t be original, at least I can be retro chic.

  1. I have the head of a rat, the tail of a snake, and the body of a lawnmower.
  2. I am the direct descendent of the lost tribes of Friesland, who were quickly found again after a perfunctory search of the premises.
  3. My favorite philosopher weighs fifteen pounds and lives behind the furnace.
  4. I like sandwiches better than life itself.
  5. When words fail me, I have them fed to the geese.
  6. I channel a mute spirit with autism. Let’s just say that channelling isn’t either of our idea of a good time.
  7. Whenever I can’t sleep, I recite acronyms to myself. I always nod off in the middle of a C.
  8. When I was six, I grew a third penis in the middle of my forehead.
  9. The internet changed my life! I forget the details.
  10. Cardboard is my middle name.
  11. My favorite color is not in the visible spectrum. It’s shy.
  12. Angels disgust me.
  13. At 18 I was a drug mule, the offspring of a drug horse and a drug donkey.
  14. I shot the sheriff.
  15. Nobody can tell when I’m blushing with this goalie mask on.
  16. I have never actually dated a sheep.
  17. I believe that children are the future — at least for embryos. For the rest of us, old age and death seem more likely.
  18. I know Jack shit, but only in passing. It’s not like we’re friends on Facebonk.
  19. There’s a dog-shaped hole in my heart. Or at least I think it’s a dog. It could be a coyote.
  20. When not fighting crime, I use my powers for morally ambiguous purposes.
  21. I am music, and I write the songs.
  22. When I was your age, I was grateful just to be unemployed.
  23. Everything I need to know I learned from studying prestressed concrete.
  24. I’m not wearing any lederhosen.
  25. If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution. And believe me, I can’t dance.
Posted on by Dave Bonta

The fog of fog

foggy barn

The black walnut tree keeps dropping its ordnance on the roof. When will the fog burn off?

I’m not talking about financial fog, the fog of war, the fog of charm, or the fog of epidemics. I’m not talking about Fat, Oil and Grease, Friend of Girl, or Fear Of Google. I’m not talking about Utility Fog, in which microscopic robots link arms to form apparently solid furniture that can shape-shift on command, much less electronic fog, a mysterious phenomenon allegedly responsible for the Bermuda Triangle.

It’s a little confusing, isn’t it, all these fogs! I’m not talking about Alzheimer’s, the mental condition attending chemotherapy or chronic pain, or impediments to reading comprehension. I could be talking about a Photoshop effect, but I’m not, and for once I’m not alluding to existential ignorance, either.

I mean actual, honest-to-Whomever fog: clouds that form on the ground instead of in the sky.

Of course, when you live on a mountain, your fog might well be someone else’s cloud, especially in the winter and early spring. But this time of year, you can rise above the clouds simply by walking uphill. Or you can stay inside and wonder vaguely, between bouts of election-season-induced fury, who the hell keeps knocking on the roof.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

The visible spectrum

A woman has seen her own heart on display at a medical exhibition. Scientists have discovered a species of brittle star whose outer skeleton is covered with crystalline lenses that appear to work collectively as an all-seeing eye. In the past few days, researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through “methane chimneys” rising from the sea floor. I’m just wondering what the heck is in our water supply, what the heck is in our oxygen supply, of the metallic outside salts that create a rainbow effect in a sprinkler? What is oozing out of our ground that allows this type of effect to happen? It caused me so much pain and turmoil when it was inside me. Seeing it sitting here is extremely bizarre and very strange. Restrictive cardiomyopathy causes the heart muscle to stiffen so the heart cannot relax normally after contraction. As the disease progresses, the heart muscle continues to stiffen and eventually contraction is also affected. Thanks to evolution, they have beautifully designed crystal lenses that are an integral part of their calcite skeleton, said Hendler. Those lenses appear to be acting in concert with chromatophores and photoreceptor tissues. At earlier sites we had found elevated levels of dissolved methane. Yesterday, for the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. Not just around our sun and our moon anymore — everywhere we look, the visible spectrum… is rainbows. This cannot be natural. Finally I can see this odd looking lump of muscle that has given me so much upset.
__________

Sources: Woman sees own heart on display; Brittle Star Found Covered With Optically Advanced “Eyes”; The methane time bomb; Sprinkler Rainbow Conspiracy

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Obama time

Sen. Obama spent several minutes going through the music selection and making requests. He finally settled on Howlin’ Wolf’s “Wang Dang Doodle.”
–CBS 11 News Talks With Barack Obama

Ballast of sea water riding through the lake water, filled with an alien and dangerous life. Ballast of rocks. I am on an alternate picnic, partaking of a feast made up of sustenance other than food. I am watching the Daley Show from afar, and dreaming of hog butchers with big shoulders. We’re gonna break out all the windows, we’re gonna kick down all the doors! The drumbeat diminishes as the bandshell sinks below the horizon. Where’s Maxwell Street Jimmy when you need him? Where’s Howlin’ Wolf? When I listen to the radio, even if it’s supposed to be music, it all sounds like talk to me. Everybody’s signifying. The goddamn fog comes in on LOLcat feet. Are we there yet?

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Hope

mantid egg case

Praying mantises put all their eggs in one basket — prayerfully, I suppose. I find three mantis egg cases within 20 feet of each other and begin to worry: what if this is representative of the field as a whole? There could be thousands and thousands of mantises hatching this spring! What will they eat? But then I remember they’re creatures of dogmatic devotion to the temple of the body. Some will make the ultimate sacrifice, and this is their strength as a nation of predators: they have each other.

dangling cocoon

Hope takes many forms, some of them perilous — especially for those in suspended animation. Grave robbers are everywhere. But I’ve always thought that the fact that so many tombs in ancient Egypt were found to be empty suggests that at least a few of the occupants shed their wrappings and completed their metamophoses as planned. Imagine those human imagos standing in the thresholds of doors that didn’t exist until they opened them, stretching feelers out into the night of a new millenium, waiting for their wings to expand like the lungs of a newborn taking its first taste of air.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Big Buddha

Buddha is bigger than you. His scalp is great with child, & his patriarchal breasts bulge with dharma-milk. His arms multiply exponentially like the mother of all Swiss Army knives, & he juggles odd objects: fly whisks, vajras, capacitors, USB flash drives. The Buddha is bigger than you, and easier on my wallet. I found him at the landfill & brought him home & placed him on top of the television, & he’s been growing ever since. Now I can tune in the weather from Colombo and Phnom Penh. The Buddha is bigger than you, & whenever he touches the earth with the tip of the middle finger of his right hand, shit happens. Under those rust-green robes, he’s got an Elvis tattoo — don’t ask me how I know this — & the balls of a brass monkey. Like the number zero, he is both real & imaginary. Ask him anything! He rings when struck.

Prompted by (but not based upon) Katherine Durham Oldmixon’s short film “Daibutsu” at qarrtsiluni.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Call to Prayer

Flame tree, smoke tree, a sky like sandpaper. Mobile phones have been programmed to issue the call to prayer: God is great. A man grazes horses where a lake used to wrinkle in the breeze & stares into the dry cup of his hands five times a day. God is great. The future has been recalled; too many people were dying of natural causes. All weather will now be provided by the private sector, they tell us, as trees belch with flame around the ancient temple of Artemis. I bear witness that there is no God but God. Lines of footprints in wet ash tell a story, but not ultimately a very interesting one. The wonderful thing about movies is that they are always true. I bear witness that Mohammed is the messenger of God. Here you can see where lizards went on pilgrimage to a puddle of water, steering with their tails. Here you can see where the toymaker’s assistants have been poaching charred olive wood. Hurry up please it’s time for prayer. Notice how the shadow grows smaller & blurrier as the bird gains in altitude — hard to say at what point it’s gone completely. What kind of bird? The black-diamond tail makes it a raven, I guess. The point is that weather-related incidents may no longer be ascribed to acts of God, thank God. Hurry up please it’s time for success. And if that’s the case, someone must do something about the suddenness of nightfall in the tropics & those ridiculous short days we have in winter, where applicable. It has been duly noted that the naked Germans on the beach are happy with the extra sun, although the locals are not: God is great. Flame tree, smoke tree, a sky like alabaster now that the last contrails have been delivered to the museum of blueprints. Ah, & the boys from the village are stalking grasshoppers with wooden machine guns. There is no God but God.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

What it was like

garage

The world outside of the story made no sense whatsoever — that’s why, as soon as they learned about something, they worked it in as best they could.

The twelve crows flying over the cathedral became twelve crows flying over the cathedral, just like that.

There was a balloon hanging from a tree, thwarted in its efforts to return to the ground. No, wait — it was only a traffic sign in another language.

A little girl in the back seat watched her father handing money out the window to a policeman and marveled at the gentle treatment accorded those dirty scraps of paper.

The roadsides were decorated with empty beverage containers, empty take-out boxes, empty plastic shopping bags advertising Everyday Low Prices. “Garbage in, garbage out,” intoned the priests. Junk DNA was found to account for over 80 percent of the human genome.

People talked. You couldn’t meet a trucker alone at the end of a deserted road without somebody finding out about it.

Fishermen’s tales were not to be believed — especially after the one that got away didn’t come back, ever, and the fleet rusted in the harbor.

No matter what happened, there were children watching. People claimed to love them, won their trust, then did despicable things to them — and for some reason, people didn’t talk about that. Some things simply remained outside the story.

Balloons were released with notes attached. They often travelled for hundreds of miles before some mountaintop tree managed to snag them. I found a few myself, over the years.