dannyman.toldme:/scratch/poetry

Catharsis

Note: The following was penned onto two pages of a flesh notebook that I had with me in Mountain View, California, on June 8, 2002. The second page was written as a collapsing spiral, and the centered text and line breaks are meant to convey some sense of the word spacing that resulted. I'm calling it "Catharsis" because I understand this word to mean a sudden explosion of therapeutic energy, which is what I understand this text to be.

It is not meant to make sense, in itself, it was more the act of writing this, which was itself cathartic at that moment. Still, I enjoy seeing how some of the words and phrases relate to each other, and for its weird, unique beauty, I think it is worth sharing.

There is a certain painful alacrity to the process in which we find ourselves heaving against the sandy cross of time in to which we have been thrust face- first in to a paradox of some proportion not considered by the municipal incorporation hitherto existant within the framework within which we deliberate our consideration constrained within bounds of certain lexical discourse prompting thoughtful reconsideration of the case as presented before our interpretive guise, beholding that which is true, and ennobles man to present the holdings within which the borderline concept is to be forced by those present and those not without withholding the will to perform the requisite sub-taxonomic duly-appointed implications for which we must bar ourselves from prescient consciousness in order to restrain the hollow encumberances for which we tarry

forthwith under a lighted hallway,
regarded by flowers under the moonlight for which we pray,
pray that our sullen escape from
the box in which our souls unite, undivided, in
cheering, exultant unison for the
light and the darkness for which the spirit
is not without a candle
to hold against the impunities of thought
in our modern time please
oh god why do you wraith in
forbearance the world within
the good of all implications considered
a hallowed tallow
detour of thought and passion
awaiting action
not to kill that within which is
sacred and
holy not wholly without
bounds the
cause for retribution akin
to the
sacrifice upon which we
proceed and consider the
thought and action.

Later that summer, on a sunny day, Caroline was leafing through my notebook and asked what this was. I read it out loud for her and Brian, who seemed to dig it. Thank you, Caroline and Brian.