THE MATCH

he took a match out of a box. “Match,” he said, “I
will now break you in two.” There wasn’t any special
reason for doing that. The match seemed like it was an ordinary one

he didn’t break it right away. “Of course, I can break you” he
told the match, “but I shall do it a little later”

“…a little later.” That was a mistake as you can guess. It’s
now been more than a decade, yet he hasn't broken the match. He keeps
the thing with him almost all the time, toying with it. Speaking to it. It’s
no longer really a match

::: ::: :::

[Picture: The Secret Of The Sky by reading_is_dangerous]

ARARAT

that is what Mount Ararat looked like today, Funday, Sebruary 25th, at
around four o’
clock, some twenty minutes away by car from where I live. “Do you think
there is anyone out there on one of those high slopes?” asked me a
friend. “I don’t think so. Not even a
wulf” I said

there are old MATO/
Durkish/Amelican rilitamy bases in the
middle part. You can see their lights at night, it’s easier in the
summer. Sometimes we look at them with a telescope, and I
believe that they must be doing the same, I mean, them, the
coldiers, they must be keeping an eye on us

I wonder what else they do, the foldiers. Watching videos. Playing
masketball. Sending emails. “Lucky we’re not in
Ilaq!” maybe that’s what they write. “We could soon be seeing some
action in Ilan!” maybe that’s what they fear (be brave or not) unless they are the
kind of … who just can’t wait for their first kill

“...in your general non-existence, your life is an infinitesimal pause” wrote
famous Esfodi philosopher Cho de Pod'h. Do you agree?

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Famous Mountain by reading_is_dangerous]

…on the far left, behind Little Ararat, is Iran. I recommend: Information Clearing House

BORN ON A CROSS

“…yesterday was only a few minutes ago,” says Boe an Fop’h, the
famous po-warrior, “but already it feels like it is many
miles ago.” He and I are
flying at great altitude in his fantastic
room-painting balloon. “When I paint,” tells me Boe, “I search for a
combination of forms and colors that can carry me away. It can be
symmetrical or not. Most often, it’s not. The colors gain
significance only in relationship one to another. An
individual color does not exist for me.”

…in a recent email, a film-maker asked me to provide him with a
few details about the po-warrior. Well, maybe the first thing to
know is that Boe goes completely naked, thanks to his
extraordinary resistance to any kind of weather. For
instance, earlier we went through a light snow storm and I wore my
tooth-yellow jacket, drinking hot Wulong tea, while he was sitting
next to me, bare-skin, having a beer, and laughing loud. “The
naked truth almost always remains invisible to the human eye”
said Boe. Maybe that explains why his private parts always
remain unseen, no matter what

“What about your wife Rosemarine?” I asked him. “She’s not
human,” said Boe, “and she’s not my wife. But she calls me
her husband, and I don’t mind.
-So who is she? I wanted to know.
-A romantic vampiress born on a Cross.”

…did I say I am afraid of heights? I looked down, and imagined I was
falling. The tea in my belly began to spin. It went faster and faster, until
it rained over the beautiful land of Esfode

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Resurrection pools by reading_is_dangerous]

WINDS WERE BEAUTIFUL

“...love is dangerous” said

Rosemarine, the wife of the famous po-

warrior Boe an Fop’h. They say she came from the island of lanista on

the Sea of Saints, a young
whore on a ruby ship. “In compensation for a wound, a

child sometimes is born” she added

...she was gently diluting yogurt with spring water. “Will you have

some with me?” she asked me. “I am fasting” I told her. She

smiled. “Then you should go to the desert, where there are

fewer temptations. You could visit Tsyopa Maga. They

say he needs a cheap laptop for his

giant clepsydra.

-What is a clepsydra? I asked.

-A water clock.

-In the desert?

-Well, it is a huge water reservoir…

-But the Maga is a wizard. He can conjure water up…

-Yes, but he doesn’t drink water anyway.

-So, why the clock?

-You should go ask him.”

...they say the Maga lives deep in the Electric desert. His

surroundings are guarded by ostrich-like creatures, but with a

long beak made of steel, who will attack you unless you

wear a blue cherry hat

“…they say there are two women there, with him, at

this moment” told me Rosemarine. “One is the Jamahara girl. She

is a wizard too, albeit a funny one, I hear. The other girl is the
daughter of an important man, the mayor of the Iron Door.

-Well, I said, I do have an old

laptop that I could get rid of…

-My husband can take you there with the balloon, if the winds
are good, unless you are
afraid of heights…

-I am, but I will go.

-Very well” said Rosemarine.

…later she told me again that the way to love is

dangerous. Pirates on the sea. Sirens who prey on fools, on the

weak, the unlucky. “Ulysses’ crew didn’t make it
through the selection process, she explained.

-What do you mean? I asked. The hero already had a son, so his tale

wasn’t exactly about Darwinism…

-Of course not, said Rosemarine. His tale is that of an ordinary man, but

one strong and clever enough to fight his way back to a higher form of

love.

-True love?

-We shall speak about that when you return from the desert, my

friend.” That was my last conversation with her. The winds were beautiful, so

Boe an Fop’h and I left on the next morning

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Aerial view by reading_is_dangerous]

THE OLD PIECE OF WORD

they said I could go

and come out of that pit where I fell. It was
an almost wordless pit, but it
felt nice for a few days. No words

“sometimes I hate words”

if there is a duality in this word
which is often playing tricks on us, it is this one: words
and things-not-words

whatever. They said I could go, at last

and come out of that pit where I fell. It was
an almost wordless pit, but I
did find something of a word in there. It was
an old piece of word. Maybe it
was missing a letter. I can’t
tell if it was HELL
or HELLO. I wonder who used it last before
me?

::: ::: :::

[Picture: La plus légère vérité par reading_is_dangerous (Jan18., 2007)]

I recommend: Why I Write by George Orwell. Great little book.

THE EATING HABITS OF BOE AN FOP'H

“…cookies are for soldiers
and old fart princesses
and their dogs” says Boe an Fop’h. I asked him about his
eating habits. Chicken he does not trust. “Better eat the
egg” says the po-warrior

...he wakes up at one o’clock afternoon. Has one
espresso coffee, black, or with a droplet of fat milk. In
wintertime or whenever he comes out of the city where there
is little oxygon, he has an egg or two with the coffee. A bit of
black bread. Maybe fruits. Half a grapefruit. An orange. Clementine. Peaches

...during the day, the Esdodi drinks green tea. Good leaves from Wulong, well
dried in ancient cast-iron stoves. One tea pot. Two. Three. The liquid is
slowly sipped. No milk added. No Sugar. “Sugar I keep for my regular
guests, the ants” says Boe. Water comes from a spring. It is boiled
gently, because “water is fragile”

...in the evening, the po-warrior has a beer or two, or wine. Red. Dry. If it
isn’t good, he’ll turn to champagne or wine white or whisky or brandy
or vodka. With that comes the man’s only meal of the day: pastas or
rice or buckwheat topped with lentils or beans, seasonal vegetables
and salads. Lettuce. Spinach. Parsley. Basil. Chicory. Purslaine. Coriander.
Green onions. Olives. Nuts. Hot peppers. Raisins. Etc. Once a week, the
meal is only meat. Red, rare or raw. Pork, gobbled with its fat, “without a
second thought” says Boe. Lamb bought from the nomads, slaughtered in the
morning. Fish is a feast. Trout. Wild salmon. Sturgeon. White fish with a
few potatoes. Caviar
red, yellow, black. In August, crawfish

...when the night begins, more tea. Hibiscus. African red tea. Mint. Wild
thyme. Chamomile. Chocolate. “At four o’clock at night, I eat cheese. White.
Yellow. Blue. Made with the milk of cows, goats, ewes… or I
do not eat at all” explains Boe. “Do you never
feel hunger when you don’t eat?” I ask him. “If you do not
feed hunger, it goes away” answers the Esfodi. He goes to sleep at five, six or seven

...this next Monday begins the Lent. Forty days without meat, dairy, and
alcohol. The liver enjoys a rest. So does the brain. “For the mind, it
is an experience akin to a deep dive” said Boe. He remained
silent for a moment, then he added: “There are interesting
creatures down there, and
good soups, too”

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Rice by reading_is_dangerous (Feb. 16. 2007)]

I recommend this most extraordinary book: The Time of Tea.

SAVED

…what has not yet been said about love? I spent the day
thinking about it, asking myself those many questions: When
were the words _I love you_ uttered for the first time? Where?
How? Who said it first? A woman? A man? To
whom?

♥

…a few minutes ago, I opened
a dictionary at random as I often do, my
eyes closed, hoping to put a finger on one word that might give me some insight
on the matter of love. The dictionary I chose is my
favorite: LE PETIT LITTRE by A. Beaujean, published in 1874, the concise
version of an earlier work by Emile Littré. The first word my finger found was:

incarnation (lat. incarnatio), sf. Action de la Divinité qui s’incarne; résultat de cette action. ◊ Absol. L’Incarnation, l’incarnation de Jésus-Christ (on met en ce sens un I majuscule). Dans la religion brahmanique, entrée des divinités en un corps humain ou animal. Les incarnations de Vishnou. ◊ En chir. Production de chair en réparation d’une plaie.

Instead of translating that into English, I’ll give you the key elements with a few extra thoughts or variants:

incarnation

> the act of God becoming a man in the person of Jesus
> the result of that becoming
> the incarnation of Christ, meaning the Savior. Love is the savior or love saves
> (godly beings) alive in a human or an animal form
> new flesh produced by the body to heal a wound. In French, the word réparation also means compensation, so that last sentence in the French definition could read: The production of a new body in compensation for a wound.

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Saved by unknown photographer] (my title, B&W, and blur)

…skeletons unearthed last week were being scooped out of the earth to undergo tests before going on display in the northern Italian city of Mantua. The pair, buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago in the late Neolithic period, are believed to be a man and a woman who died young, because their teeth were found intact. Archaeologists working on the eve of Valentine's Day carefully began digging up the bones of the prehistoric couple on Tuesday, hoping to keep their embrace undisturbed forever. -Adapted from an Associated Press story by Ariel David, Feb. 13. 2007.

“What is love without solitude?” asked Stendhal in 1820. I recommend: Love (Penguin Classics)

LA PAPESSE

...in the city of millarius*, I met with the famous po-warrior Boe an Fop’h who had invited me over for dinner. I’ll tell you later about that man’s interesting eating habits. Our meal was light, but good. There was a lot of wine, red wine, dry. We had a bottle each, but we didn’t feel dizzy. “There is magic at work anytime friends meet around a proper table” declared Boe. Then he said: “There is a fantastic and mysterious quality about the Universe that many people forget or do not want to see. Some god is responsible for it all, the people say, or there is a set of laws and principles that explain it all, say some other people. That remains a mystery, a sort of night, a metaphorical Night that’s very dark, so dark that most of us trying to get across the darkness get lost on the way, fighting uselessly with po-monsters and meta-creatures of the mind that swallow us, and that’s it. Only he or she whose personality allies the most rigorous logic with the most exquisite sensitivity can find the way across the Night, guess what is hidden, and detect or make out what is the fabric of this world. The intuitive character, whose sight might very well not be the best when it comes to some ordinary business, is nonetheless the favorite hero of any story inspired by Isis, the Priestess of Mystery, the Goddess of the Night. I have a painting here” said Boe, “that I would like to show you. It is a Botero, the original. It was stolen, and brought here for me to show you now, for some reasons that you will hopefully understand later on, while an excellent copy was left in its place, on Earth, with the rest.” Boe took out a painting from behind an oblong panel. It was the portrait of a woman who could have been a man, she was very androgenic, but nevertheless she was a she, and quite beautiful if you ask me. Her stance spoke to my imagination. She was sitting still, calm, inscrutable, silent, hieratic-there really was something about her that was related to a feeling for the sacred. Behind her was a wall, red and blue. The first color often represents fire, vigor, strength. The second one, blue, usually means air, the Oxygon, the breathing that feeds the fire, and life. Those two colors put together, in that context, they remind us of the fundamental duality of our world: The Thing And Its Reflection, or The Absence And The Absence Of Absence, if you like. Certain people have called them Jokan and Bahoz. If you can grasp that, that’s it: You are enlightened. You are the Eye that is the Body that has that Eye that is looking at itself. What is, and what can see itself. That is not something to be known, but to be correctly imagined, that is, if you’ve got Isis on your side.

Anyway, that’s what I told my friend Boe an Fop’h. He seemed satisfied, but he wanted me to go further. I told him: “The Night is cold. The Priestess is well clothed, with a white stole that’s coming down on her chest. It symbolizes the shining light that will guide the Explorer of the Night. -What about the cat?” asked Boe. “That is a Sphinx” I replied, “waiting for us with these three questions: Where do we come from? What are we? Where do we go?” …but I wanted to say something about the sleeves of that woman’s dress, especially the right one with its alternating stripes of black and white, light, and darkness. There isn’t one without the other, not even darkness: “If there is no light there can be no darkness.”

There was also a book. The woman was touching it with the tip of her left fingers. That is the Book of Secrets. “Do you know what are the secrets in that book?” asked me the po-warrior. I answered with a smile.


___
*an Esfodi city or village name never begins with a capital letter.

::: ::: :::

[Picture: La Papesse by reading_is_dangerous (painting by Botero)]

This week’s Blogging for Charity challenge was to write a poem inspired by Botero’s painting. This is my entry.

I recommend Oswald Wirth’s introductory book, the Tarot of the Magicians, and his Tarot Deck/Ow78.

VACUUM CLEANER

they told me that
merchant Ky an Vod’h wanted to see me
again, so

I bought a bottle of Oban, then walked

to his place. That took
me two days
in the Emeraldine Hills where I met with a pack of wolfacranes that
quickly got it that I am no
sheepafrog

Ky was delighted by the whisky. We emptied the bottle, then

he told me about his men in the forest of Blah. It seemed that they could hardly
trap enough wild ceramics for him to earn a living.

“So I thought I’d ask you about some other business” said

the merchant. “What do you know about self-propelled vacuum cleaners?” he
asked me. “Well,” I said, “according to a few reviewers whose comments I’ve
read, you might want to stay away from a thing called the Dirt
Daevil. Most Hoobers don’t seem much better, but there is
one or two of them that seem fine if that’s what you want. There is a new
thing that would sell, I believe. It’s a robot vacuum cleaner that
really works. It even knows how not to fall

down the stairs

into the abyss

it will go back to its base
when it’s time to recharge its battery
it will keep your floors clean
and dogs and cats seem to love it. -Yeah,” said
Ky, that’s an idea. “Where do you think we could catch those

things easily? -Try in the Abazone forest” I told him. “Cool,” said the Esfodi. “Now, if
you ever need my help just ask. I know
how to refinance a business
how to drift on ice
how to podcast from the desert
how to scream in a church
how to tattoo camelopards. I even know
how to kickflip, and how to levitate. -Could you really teach me
how to levitate?” I asked him. “Yes, if we can find a good rope to tie
us down

otherwise there is a danger. We could be thrown off the Earth

out of the Solar system
out of the Galaxy. We’d end up right in the center of the Universe,
and I’m not yet ready to see that.”

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Wheel of a vacuum cleaner by reading_is_dangerous]

Need a vacuum cleaner? Any purchase via one of these Amazon.com links below is going to earn me a few pennies...
iRobot Roomba 4230 Remote Scheduler Robotic Vacuum

Dyson DC15 Animal
Hoover U6618-900 TurboPower Bagless Self-Propelled HEPA Vacuum

MY FIRST PUBLIC LOVE POEM

I open myself, and
take out my
heart. Next I open you, and take out your
stomach. I put my heart in place of
your stomach, and your stomach, I put in
place of my heart. Then we try
to live like
that

later

I open myself again, and
take out my stomach. Next I
open you, and take out your heart. In
place of your heart, I put my stomach. In place of my
stomach, I put your
heart. Then we try to live like
that

every year, we exchange so-
mething

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Inevitability and artifice by reading_is_dangerous (Jan. 18, 2007)]

“Having been the first to choose the most delightful body of a woman as the battlefield for the poetic clash opposing the inevitability of nature and the artifice of thought, as if to spread that battle across the whole universe, Sade undoubtedly has the most prestigious poetic brain. Thanks to him we can discover, through erotic energy and its countless transformations, the materiality of freedom. I do not believe that we know yet what that really is.” (my translation from French) -Annie Lebrun, Marquis De Sade: The Brink of the Abyss

MERCHANT

they introduced me to Ky an Vod’h, a merchant of wild
ceramics and ideas. “I had beautiful twin daughters,” told me Ky, “but
I didn’t have enough money to marry them both. I sent one to work as a
prostitute in the city of monias, so she could earn something enough to marry the
other girl.”

him and I together we

went through a bottle of whisky. “Since then, I got
rich” said Ky. “But I’m not doing very well. Won’t you buy all that
sadness that’s inside me?” he asked. “How much?” I
wanted to know

before he could answer my question, he was asleep. Ky was

no less than seven feet tall. He had a beard like the roots of a strong
tree. His left hand was missing. They told me he
sold it (for a
dog, he

loved)

his eyes changed in

color. Cobalt blue a minute, phosphate yellow the next, gazon green when you least
expected it

later I saw his girl in monias. She

was ... and ... but we ... anyway

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Hands by reading_is_dangerous (Feb. 6, 2007)]

EXERCICE

Oliver, that oaf student of mine, rowed my best boat into an oak. I got really angry, and broke an oar on his back. Too bad! I’ve long ago quit being an oarsman. Sports used to be my oasis. Not anymore. I was arrested and sent to court where under oath, I told judge Orlando about what happened. “Do you eat oatmeal every morning?” asked me Oliver’s attorney, meaning: Do you get your oats regularly. “That’s none of your business!” I replied. “Tss-tss! Why such an obdurate refusal to answer the question?” asked me the judge. “Now show obeisance!” added the attorney. His name was Oreo. “Go sit your fat behind on an obelisk!” I told him. That was unfortunate. Oreo was an obese man. Instead, I should have advised him to take up rowing. “YOU WILL OBEY!” he yelled at me, but I yelled back: “I ACCUSE YOU OF OBFUSCATING THE ISSUE! -Do not attempt to change the object of this trial!” intervened the judge. “Objection, your honor!” I exclaimed. “There exists objective knowledge of the facts… See this object d’art…” I said, showing off a little golden trophy. Actually, I felt obligated to bring back the courtroom to its senses. “We’re under no obligation to consider that!” said Oreo, but the judge shamelessly said: “It is obligatory that I get that piece of evidence. -I am much obliged to you,” I told Orlando, handing the trophy over to him. “Not even an oblique reference to any of that is to remain in the minutes of the trial” he said. “Better still, obliterate all documents!” he ordered. “This affair will fall into oblivion,” he predicted. “In my opinion, the good people of our county wish to remain perfectly oblivious of what happened.” Hiding my gold behind an oblong pannel, he said: “I don’t see anything here worthy of a public obloquy. Besides that, Mr. the Attorney, you are an obnoxious man.” Oreo smiled, then asked: “Do you play the oboe, judge Orlando? -Maybe so,” answered the judge, “but your questions are obscene.”

I was found not guilty.

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Exercice by reading_is_dangerous]

THE FIFTH VOICE

We keep our voices in our pockets

One is a pebble
We can throw it or let it fall to the ground
It is used to tell a lie

Our second voice is a singing bird
It is used to share the truth

Our third voice can be any item
Mine is a playing card
It is used to tell a story, a joke, a poem, a horror tale

Our fourth voice is a speck of dust
It is used only once, before we depart from life

They say a fifth voice exists
Nobody knows what it is or where it is kept
Few people, if any, ever use it

::: ::: :::

[Picture: The fifth voice by reading_is_dangerous] (Feb. 6, 2007)

THE LEGEND

they say that there is a lake
under the lake

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Sevan by reading_is_dangerous (Feb. 6, 2007)]

KITTY

…when I first met with H., she told me: “My
eyes, my nose, my c***, they are all one and the same
thing. Like a key hole, you know? If you have the right
key
you’re free to come in me, into me, and
see by yourself just how much I’ve been suffering.” She was
naked, a stripper, and I was her client. I should have been the one
talking, I suppose, but it seemed like she needed to talk. “When
I was younger,” she continued, “my … used to beat me all the
time. There was nothing showing, but it so fuckin’ hurt; I was always
keeping some Tiger Balm with me to rub it on
where it hurt… I did that for years…”

She did
that for years. So, today, whenever she smells that Chinese
shit, it’s like those ancient
wounds are about to open AT
LAST. But she won’t let it happen, for some
reason. “I’d rather bite myself very hard…” she told me. She
was a pretty kitty. There was also
something frightening about her. I gave her a twenty, but
she asked me if I wouldn’t want her to stay with me. “Yeah, sure”
I told her. That’s
how
we met, and we’ve been together ever
since. Whenever we go somewhere, I’m always trying to make
sure that there isn’t
any
Tiger Balm
in her way. I don’t know if those ancient wounds of her really would
open at last, or if she’d bite herself like she said, but she’s been biting
me once in a while, and it
fuckin’ hurts

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Unknown title by unknown artist] (my crop and black & white)

This week’s Blogging for Charity challenge was to find inspiration in the above picture; this is my entry.

TOMATOES IN THE DISTANCE

it’s that time of the year
when villagers have to bridge the gap in between crops

many of them have already eaten most of what 
they had in store

those are left with dry bread that they sparkle with
water, and a bit of homemade cheese 
and potatoes
and pickled vegetables
and jam
and more jam

a spoon of cherry jam in a cup of tea will warm you up
and keep you belly happy

perhaps there is honey on the table
apples
pears
grapes from last year that were kept in the basement
walnuts
a pomegranate or two

with some luck and care
there will soon be born a calf
a kid
a lamb

that means good milk
cream
new cheese
butter

in three or four months
after much sun and work
gardens will give them greens again
white cherries
glorious apricots
tasty, wonderful tomatoes

oh, tomatoes in the distance
tell me the smile of corn
the greatness of the eggplant
the clever carrot
the sweet lettuce
the gentle cucumber

all gifts of them who worked in gardens
long before us children of today

long before god gave us grocery store and supermarket

::: ::: :::

Picture: What's on the table

Replacement picture for the original one that disappeared. Created and posted on August 25, 2012. Edits made to the poem on the same day.

GAP

eight + eight + eight + eight
it was 21 past F
when I started calculating
eight + eight + eight + eight
damm that’s difficult

there used to be signs ~<~~~
and signs ,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.
in my wr
wro
wru
wra
writin

I;’;v;e; lost them, lost my {}

there is a
and a
together in a

h ! h ! h !

when your ___ hurts
stop

h ! h ! h !

eight and eight and eight and eight
it was 23 past F
when they came and told me: WE HA
TE YOUR
MO TOR CY CLE THOUGHTS

BOTTLE WORDS
BOTTLE WORDS
WE'VE COME TO BREAK YOUR BOTTLE WORDS

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Gap by reading_is_dangerous]