reading | J.J. Smith's "Numbers"

CLVI.

January 9, 2013 § Leave a Comment

all wanted was this

stage presence, lights, faces, voices

(ignore bland words; pretend they are great synonyms)

all wanted was this

acceptance, laughter, silence, awe

words I say — you can say them

words I say should mean something different

than if they were to erupt from your mouth

all wanted was this

reflection, revolution, deconstruction

does it matter? in your ear holes, your thick skulls

does it matter? — the words I say, how I say them

how

the

and

those “joiners”

“connectors”

how sparingly I adopt their usefulness

is this useful to you? notice?

to base, to found

context?

all wanted was this

understanding, interpretation, influence

following

CXLIX.

December 21, 2012 § Leave a Comment

tracking stats and “likes”

twice, LXX is ignored

just that awful, violent roar of a machine

the [vacuum] I am steering over a carpet sewn by

hands sewn with sperm and egg

this man-made object is being steered by a man-made man

a union [of women and men]

which laid down these bricks [the building I am standing in]

…me, squeezed between a space, the same properties that bend this vacuum toward my will

the properties of physics and of chemistry

myself, bent in this sucking, awful roar of the [universe]

the killer suns, and all that I will never steer

I seek to steer a vacuum, bent within a vacuum

it drives me, relentless in its own way, never my own, never me

here, there is doubt. Nature is a complex, varied organism. See: atoms. Zoom out, see: a human. Zoom out, see: a planet. Zoom out: you see a thing, not the many things trapped, bent within its awful, violent roar—

—the atoms bent in the noise of war, intercourse, ingenuity, musical vibrations

—the people bent in the starlight, oceans crashing, land shifting

—the planet bent in its orbit, its turn, its satellites

—what steers?

tracking stats and “likes”

CXI is enjoyed

I must practice writing as Earth practiced itself

the universe practiced

as did its parts, its galaxies

water planets—our solar system—Earth survived

multicellular beings practiced

until I emerged

my mind, my eyes, my hand–they practiced

now words surface

- -

often, I fear my words are read

the meaning, lost

Returning: LXX.

December 17, 2012 § Leave a Comment

Just that awful, violent roar of a machine, the one I am steering over a carpet sewn by hands sewn with sperm and egg, a union which laid down these bricks which stack all around me, squeezed between a space, the same properties that bend this vacuum toward my will, myself, bent in this sucking, awful roar of the vacuum, the killer suns, and all that I will never steer — it drives me, relentless in its own way, never my own, never me.

- -

Always me, always everyone; in its own way it makes itself in the only way it ever could, as no way other than the way it formed could have occurred; it is perfect in its disorderly manner, in fact, by means of its perfection it is not disorderly but, rather, it is in order — all is in order; that is “us” (you, me) and all outside of “us” is also “us”; it is never within something in the same way that everything is inside of it; all is outside of it (think of it as being within and out of itself) and my feelings to its pull, its bending, are subjective and weighty with misunderstandings — I was mistaken in my seeing of the energy, just that awful, violent roar of a machine…

CXLVII.

November 21, 2012 § Leave a Comment

If I could stare long enough at a single point . . . say, I was standing in a room and staring—not into a corner or at a blank wall, but if I could stare long enough, holding my friend’s hand while I did so (because her presence provides such strength), I could see into that spot, into this empty air, this vacuum, this invisible little nothingness between the ceiling and the floor and the walls, the part we walk through daily without feeling it pass through us—

if I could stare into the nonspecific space long enough I might see the atoms buzzing.

There is a law in quantum mechanics stating the specific placement of an atom cannot be exacted. A definite number cannot place its presence. The measurements are given in scientific notation so as to account for error. This is because the atoms are never not moving. Everything buzzes always. Without movement, nothing survives. Without the moon’s gravity and the tidal push, organic matter does not shift, life does not emerge on land. Stagnant lakes harbor death and bacteria. With only movement does life and light exist. With collision, new life is birthed. With a dying star, elements are hurled out into the nothingness; here, the debris collects and compacts. Planets are made. They move. The atoms they are made of move.

The laws of physics we are submitted to are specific to us and our size. Our atoms do not follow the same laws. They follow their own. How is it that the very essence of which we are made of does not follow the same rules?

The meteors and the red giants and the colliding galaxies are rushing ever-always, looming overhead. We are stuck between the quantum-sized fabric of matter and the ominous threats, the larger, unfeeling, relentless beasts. We are the Middle, a harmonizing of the unseen and the incomprehensible, all coalescing into brawn and sensuality and intellect and humor.

Vibrations of the atoms affect each erogenous pocket of matter—

screaming, we enter

pleading, we exit—

how magnificent, how frightening—

this begs interpretation but the truth remains evasive (“truth?” is the wrong question to ask here but I am left lying here, fighting off sleep and these poisonous thoughts that often plague a young man in his twenties.)

Another quantum law states how no prediction can be reached on what will happen in any given circumstance.

CXLVI.

November 20, 2012 § Leave a Comment

Took bus 34 downtown; walked eastward over the Nashville bridge. To my left, the hills rise far off. The river running north underneath is wide; if only I could leap up and see this expanse (I see it in my mind’s eye)

if only, might I know it better? Putting greater distance between myself and this planet –

when? we return to the sky, to the currents that silver bird rides, to the spot on this spinning rock I call “home”

there is a friend there waiting

–

night fell

halfway out the bottom of a hedge grown against a chain-link fence

a cat lay twisted

clawing at soil for good now

eyes dark and open

it is not moving anymore

–

bus 34 routes a half-circle eastward and north

men talk

lights pass

the hair on the back of my neck is wet from a day’s walk

CXLIII.

November 18, 2012 § Leave a Comment

During the flight, Simon & Schuster’s World of Physics brought consolation; Weaver and Feynman affirmed my own life-mulling in the way that Fichte and Kant had this year previous–thank the Germans! Today, Blaise Pascal–thank the French! But these are only names, only heritages. Their words transcend them in the way that my own notes scribbled on airport receipts belong no more to me than anything else (do I “produce” these notes or, rather, discover them? And what is it I discover? That which lies dormant, breathing and waiting in nature.)

On the receipt acting as a page placeholder,

unlike the Greeks, I must form a concept of the nature of physical laws in the way that I have sought a relationship between the forces and structures of nature

no structure can exist without forces

the laws of nature which apply to a human apply to any celestial bodies as well

observation, reason, experiment

methods of understanding: control/isolate, deduction, approximation

CXLII.

November 17, 2012 § Leave a Comment

Confined, knees pinned against backseats stuffed with pamphlets:

emergency evacuation, vacation hotspots, celebrities — commercial fodder– high contrasts, candy colors

My forehead presses to the window; out, is a runway. The beast lifts, my belly lurches — in me is a collection of elements assembled by the terrestrial life shrinking beneath me

The beast wavers; I flutter

Up, rise, ascend — all great words, each unsuitable

–

Caught between the head of a stratus cloud and an overhang of wispy cirrus tendrils

we move smooth, a ship on fog water

Higher

we move unheeded, our mighty craft traversing white dunes

sand, water, air

does it matter? The blue much higher darkens black

bruised, the planet squirming in its womb

CXXXII.

November 2, 2012 § Leave a Comment

Nothing inspires. I will not agree with this sentiment at a later moment –

no, I will then put together the necessary words to form an exclamatory sentence expressing wonder and awe with the processes of nature, its many functions in the grandest of sizes, be them inconceivably large or microscopic.

At a later moment, my chest will strengthen to support this weight. The heart-load will not lift or subside;

in time, I will grow to sustain it. But for now these parts of the tunnel I am navigating through are their darkest. The light in my hands is out. The paper is unseen –

whatever is written is committed so blindly. These words accomplish little for me.

Returning: XCII. & XXVIII.

October 31, 2012 § Leave a Comment

XCII.

Soon as I dictate my thoughts to my limbs

to my fingertips

the keys

the thought vanishes with the magic of its inception

- -

soon as I etch mentalities into a yellow legal pad

I become less of who I was

I become much less

enhanced by refinement

bereft of any chance of purity

- -

am I More now or Less now than prior to This?

XXVIII.

No matter how I try, can’t trace my pen-hand. Its shadow attached, trapped existing; out of light, extinguished, is its only rest.

Move a thumb. It moves. It interprets. It soothes. It means. It mars. It takes.

CXXXI.

October 31, 2012 § Leave a Comment

It nags, pulls here; it is not the impulse to write but

you sleep; I write

is this not true? Or am I deceived?

Skin of my bones, my muscle, my egg-carton of organs (cook, crack, split them; they expire, they spoil; all it takes is time)

all it takes is time and these nights fade

you sleep; I write

there was a life here, was there not? Out here floating off is a boy

a balloon missing its weighted-piece –

not “decorum” because my inflated form does not belong up here

not “decorum” because the wind whipped it about, scuffed the plastic, wore-down the edges

faded; all fades as these nights are closing

in, around — I am deceived

you sleep

I write

CXXX.

October 29, 2012 § Leave a Comment

Each new entry is an apology for the last, each new word having healed what others damaged

/ steady washing, the forms of water rushing –

sleet, snow, rain –

rocks, even vulnerable to the slosh-and-cave of things –

things, how bland, how vague

/ words, how colorless, how white

/ soul, how empty, incalculable –

no amount of back-dashes, hyphens, colons, or markings will alleviate the dissatisfaction

no markings make pause for thought no markings make reason for cause

no justifying my means

nothing answers the call of the clouds

the great descent / the great ascent (of all things water)

as nothing answers the urge to write of it

/ it, how bland, colorless, incalculable, vague; how empty…Is this entry healing what I have irreparably damaged? Might the elements purge the page of it? Might the waters wash it from record?

/ might the fog in this head clear / time, how empty –

might “time” be the sole healer?

CXXIX.

October 28, 2012 § Leave a Comment

I sat here before

again, I wait for responses, replies, critiques, rejection

(many words to suit the effect, each ill-suited for it)

Eleven Few, do your worst.

Do unto me what my words deserve. Not a year has passed

I am here once more

(as I will until my writing-hand is cramped, eyes clouded, head-of-fog)

as I will until the flesh drips

as the rain does; out the window to my backside, dripping, dripping

as it has before

CXXVI.

October 25, 2012 § Leave a Comment

From memory, I recall what resonates with such tremendous impact–the following:

“Insects don’t have politics. They’re brutal. No compassion. No compromise. I would like to be the first insect politician.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m saying I was an insect who dreamt he was a human…and loved it. But now that dream is over. And the insect is awake.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying that if you stay I will hurt you.”

–

“Please, have the baby. It’s all that’s left of the original Seth, the original me.”

–

“See? You go in there…and I go in there…And we come together there…You, me, and the baby. We will be the perfect family. More human than I am.”

–

But the insect does not belong. The family and it cannot coexist. It is a vain wish.

CXXIV.

October 13, 2012 § Leave a Comment

I am typing from an unreachable space. Here, you are sealed off from the immediacy of the emotions coursing through my nerves, exacted by (oh, as I have referred to them as before) these interpreters made of bone and flesh and all that is invisible to me unless I were to peel these layers back until an emptiness revealed itself, until the void creeping into my thoughts as of late is revealed–

you should feel alienated by my words now. Good. It is best this way. The relationship we are forming is too knowable…You read; I live, I write; you read…How are you living? Well? Not-so-well?

If you are not familiar with this manner-speak, please, humble me by allowing yourself entry and entreat your mind to wander; do me this courtesy and I shall offer a heavily contemplated experience. I offer you honesty.

Here, you are sealed off from knowing me. You know the words. That is all I have anymore, really (do not mistaken this for pitiful remarks of Self.) It is true. The words say what my laughter and my new pair of shoes and my haircut and the artifacts on my shelves cannot.

CXXIII.

October 7, 2012 § Leave a Comment

Isn’t it wondrous how we can publish our thoughts immediately into this nonexistent void? Then, months later, we can read our own convictions begrudgingly. This tracks your ignorance and also your ability to learn past it and continue onward, humbly.

–

There are Numbers I do not stand behind. But I stand behind the past, regardless, bruised ego clenched in these ink-covered fists.

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