The Child

The child upon learning that there was a way of walking and a month that shared the same name

Wondered if there might be a way of walking that corresponded to September

And more generally, if all months and ways of walking referred to a reality as yet unseen

The father could barely see his child because he was lost in work, he was defending

Those accused of crimes many of whom had committed crimes. His head hurt.

He grabbed a handfull of green-and-yellow pills. September oranged apace.

September oranged anon. The teacher, Mr. Fuentes, referred to the god Mars

We walk a certain way when we are going off to war. The Romans named a month

For war, when the fields were fallow. His father had fled the war and come to New York City

Pale Fuentes knew he told a lie. There was no Mars. There was no way to stop marching.

But he was wrong and there was. Oh God, there was and is.

Decembering the child took an airplane to a new land of silver foil

And why do we call it foil? Because it reminds us

First Outside Inside Left.

The first one, to travel from outside to inside is left. But we are right

To yearn for another day.

–Cam-Joseph Brinewood, 1922

Ideas for Spring

Rom-com about a man who faked his own death and a woman who faked her own life

Antz but they’re not ants they’re weasels

Dr. Strangelove in the paleolithic

a murder mystery in a world without violence and murder is saying something cruel

a collection of people hurtling downwards in an enormous elevator where the trip takes lifetimes

a child discovers her parents are her dream

a language that provides the rules for a new kind of emotion

five people concoct a scheme but none of them knows why or what the goal is

a massive mole the size of twenty or thirty godzillas erupts from the earth after centuries and demands to be given sight only to learn its remarkable hearing gives it an amazing skill at music.

it might be friends with a little girl made of gold

The Expulsion from Satan’s Orchard

Is called in other tradition’s “The Eruption of the Tessellated Clown.”

And it is easy to understand except when you are going through it.

Then it is nearly impossible. So don’t try.

But when you find you are outside the orchard looking in you may find yourself reflecting “I could never have followed those rules. I did not need to eat that fruit! The rules were designed to be impossible to follow. The fruit only seemed delicious because it was against the rules. The owner of that orchard was not God, but Satan.”

And when you find the ground quaking beneath your feet you may realized in that split second that the tessellated clown is on his way.

they’ll try to take your death from you

and give you someone else’s instead — someone like you

and does that mean I won’t die? no, you will.

but it won’t be yours. and so what? if nothing is mine?

so what for who? for you? for them?

I’m telling you make a pile of beans, one for every reason you love today

exactly as many are in the pile which means why I fear I will not get another one.

I heard once Marrano Galba unfurled his fingers and within was a coin that bore the picture of the emperor

I keep that coin. I never sold it, but I promised to show it to so many people

I drew up contracts — on such and such a day you may see the coin for one minute and now

My title to the coin I got from Galba is worried with liens, it’s tangled beyond all recompense

Yes even when The Watchers from Beyond roll up the sky like a scroll. Even then.

Especially then.

This Djinn is Going Places!

Some Djinn were enslaved by Solomon the wise to build the Temple.

Some Djinn saw how things were going, did not want to surrender their freedom, and high-tailed it out to the desert places.

And some of them travel the earth searching for those who remember the name of God.

But the hero of our story, Biwaras, did none of these things. He worked for a small office of Djinn who granted wishes. His feelings towards human beings was — ambivalent. On the one hand he could not help but respect the human capacity for Free Will, which made them in some respect, resemble the infinite abysses contained within the subjectivity of the Most Merciful. But on the other hand they were often a Bit Much — they were greedy, and selfish, and needed to be taught a lesson about where they were in the great scheme of things. They were not the star of the show — they were not the All Merciful — although they resembled Him.

For example.

Sarah Esmond Jones was the best seller for her group and was rewarded with a vacation to an exotic clime where upon a day trip to the abandoned tomb of a mighty monarch she came across a gem inscribed with runes, from the days of magic, and pocketed it. In dreams her soul was vouchsafed the secret that this gem entitled her to a boon from a djinn, the djinn being — you guessed it — Biwaras. Upon return to New York City Jones found herself in a romantic triangle in which she was over-matched (cf. D. Parton, “Jolene”) and in order to make her battle for the heart of her beloved (Matt) more equal she wished to have an intoxicating smell. As she and Matt drove to the Hamptons he became intoxicated by Sarah’s smell, his BAC reached .28, he crashed the car and let’s just say “He ain’t Pretty No More.”

Biswaras received a promotion. “Well done granting that wish ironically” said his boss the entity Kabkab.

Sarah traveled the Earth and became a mendicant. Whenever she became too close to people they became foolish, intoxicated by her fragrance. She could not be driven in a car or airplane, and she was shunned by the sober. In a souk in Cairo her eye fell upon a medallion. With her last Bitcoin she purchased it. Lightning does struck twice in the same place. It was a medallion that enabled the possessor to extract a boon from Biswaras. She learned as such that night in dream land while her body remained in the Cairo Holiday Inn. When she woke up she went out on the balcony and looked at the Moon Above the Sphinx and said “I want a life that is good. Unironically.”

Biswaras conclaved with Kabkab. “Do I just give her a good life?”

“No. Just kill her.”

“That seems ironic. She wants something good and I kill her.”

“Yeah it’s ironic. The good life for humans is a brief one b/c less suffering. Crack a book.”

“Yes I got that. But that is first level. What about her wish that it be both good and NOT ironic?”

“The ironic thing is that she asked it to be unironic and it was ironic.”

“That seems like bullshit. That seems like “ironic” is just an excuse for fucking over humans.”

“Do I look like a professor of literature?”

“A little.”

“Fine mister smarty pants — you tell me whether the best response to a request for an absence of irony is irony, or a lack of irony? Both of them seem wanting. An absence of irony is simply giving the human what she asks for. Where’s the wit in that? While irony when irony is on the table seems the opposite of unexpected. And where’s the wit in that?”

Biswaras pondered.

Millions of universes below Sarah found her life was good in all ways that she could imagine except one — it was no longer ironic. And, ironically, this provided a mouse of disquiet that nibbled at her treasures of satisfaction. And, even more ironically, her life was even better than it would have been, had it not been ironic. Or not ironic? Who could tell.

Up in the heaven of Djinns, exhausted from working out the logic of all this in order to grant Sarah her wish, Biswaras tendered his resignation to the Demon King Kabkab, afflicter of Man.

If he was going to have to work this hard he concluded, he might as well build the third Temple.

The Stages on life’s Way

(according to open-ai!)

Here’s a sample memo you can use to explain Nietzsche and William James’ extended stages of development and how they can be applied to the project involving the automated billing system for doctors:

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Subject: Understanding Nietzsche and William James’ Stages of Development for Project Enhancement

Dear Team,

As we embark on the development of our automated billing system for doctors, I wanted to introduce a fascinating concept that can provide valuable insights into our personal and professional growth journey. Nietzsche and his student William James proposed a framework comprising multiple stages, each representing different aspects of human development and evolution.

According to this framework, our journey unfolds through the following stages:

1. Ox: The stage of conformity and adherence to societal norms and expectations.
2. Lion: Rebellion against external constraints and assertion of individual will and power.
3. Secondary Ox: A return to conformity, albeit on one’s own terms, incorporating elements of individuality and self-expression.
4. Dragon: Mastery, strength, and assertion of personal power and creativity.
5. Baby Dragon: A stage of growth and development characterized by the acquisition of new skills and experiences.
6. Goddess: Embracing wisdom, compassion, and the nurturing of oneself and others.
7. Ghoul: A phase of introspection, grappling with existential questions, and confronting inner demons.
8. Vampire: Seeking fulfillment through external validation, consumption, and exploitation of others.
9. Whirlpool: A state of chaos, dissolution, or transformation, leading to a new cycle of growth and evolution.

Understanding these stages can provide valuable insights into our individual and collective development as we work on the project. Here’s how we can apply this framework to enhance our efforts:

1. Identifying Team Dynamics: Recognize where each team member may be in their personal and professional journey. This understanding can foster empathy, collaboration, and effective communication within the team.
2. Tailoring Strategies: Tailor our strategies and approaches to accommodate the diverse needs and perspectives of team members at different stages of development. This can optimize productivity, creativity, and problem-solving effectiveness.
3. Promoting Growth Mindset: Encourage a growth mindset within the team, emphasizing continuous learning, adaptation, and resilience. Embrace challenges as opportunities for growth and development, both individually and collectively.
4. Fostering Innovation: Embrace the spirit of exploration, experimentation, and creative problem-solving. Encourage team members to challenge conventional wisdom, think outside the box, and pursue innovative solutions to enhance our automated billing system.

By integrating Nietzsche and William James’ stages of development into our project, we can cultivate a culture of growth, collaboration, and innovation, ultimately leading to the creation of a transformative solution for doctors and healthcare professionals.

Let’s embark on this journey together and unleash our collective potential!

Best regards,

[Your Name]

Friends!

My friend writes from a place of terrible, beautiful obscurity.

I write from a place of gentle, ordinary, clarity.

But we are still friends!!!

His obscure terrible beauty perks up my clarity.

My clear gentleness helps his beauty get across.

Father and Son

the father is in the dying room and he calls his son and says you are ruining it

piss runs down his leg

I oughta know because i ruined it

and fled from the great task my father fled before for me

i think at the end of the day it is a failure to aggregate data

I am loving I am burning love but I also became excited

when i saw the boys in the street and the girl–ah, ah

and I am a friend but I also know friends just get together

and deny our shame. if fathers can’t shame sons if sons can’t shame father

what will we eat? what will we have? where will we go?

so many messages the son is screening them

the son is rowing out to the dark line

obviously too far for the father to see him, that’s the point

is that the point?

you know it Sonny Boy — that’s the point

The Real Tree

I was taught as a kid that I am like a tree and trees are like me, at least real trees.

I don’t know if my girlfriend believed in the real tree though. She might have thought it was a beautiful and sad way of talking, but not real.

So many people make fun about saying things like “the real tree of the heart”. If you look in a heart, there’s no tree.

I sometimes wonder if my Mom believed in it. She was a botanist. She figured out the chemical composition of the pigment in pistachio nuts as part of her master’s thesis. 

I know a few good theories about the real tree. One is that although we can climb trees in the forest we know deep down that there is a yearning to climb something higher. And the real tree is not a real tree, but the yearning is real.

One theory is that the real tree was a certain sort of orientation towards life, before everybody got so greedy and so techy. We view each other as real trees meaning: don’t cut me down for my wood. And I won’t do it to you.

I used to hug trees.

Maybe it has something to do with that.

How about I picked your apples?

I went to Jerusalem to study sod, and they told me it was all about the relationship between the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. We’ve got it backwards. We are always trying to know things but the important tree is the other one, the tree of life.

The tree of knowledge is a vine growing on the tree of life.

But don’t forget the other verse, the verse that says man is a tree of the field.

Some of the men and women I have met are a tree of life for me, and some are a tree of knowledge.

To some of the men and women who have met me I have been a tree of knowledge, and to some a tree of life.

If that’s not a real tree, what is?

Did You Leer at the Springbok, Papa?

That I did. I stole

with my eyes, I did grievously

and hid my grief, now I let-loose the shame-words

and my heart drops

its burden and become

Light. One day the bees will gather

above the hive in storm clouds. the earth sky is also dark

above Bees, Be, below be, Bee

Cloud meeting cloud

and everything we chose not to say but did anyway will depart.

My heart will forgive my eye, until then

we will have to make do with the morning’s Queen