YOU AND YOU

I thought of a way to exchange thoughts or
positions in our dreams

to exchange words and ideas
and poems and songs and our houses and their doors

and our hopes

I looked for your name in the dictionary
“Ton” that’s the word I found
Tons of this
Tons of that
Tons of joy
Tons of problems maybe

backward it reads NOT
So let’s call her Not
She is Not
She could be my never born twin: Not
She says: “Birds in the field.”

birds in the field
Birds. I hear their song (it actually sounds much like a rumor)
Birds of my imagination

she softly bites her lower lip
“Have you eaten today?” I ask her
“There was a sandwich.” she says

one of Not is a slice of bread
The other one too (there are two Not because of some strange reason)
In between the two of them, there must be a song

“you know that spaceship of light you wrote about,” she says
“Yes, what about it?” I say
“I found a better way.” she says with a smile. Two smiles

that better way is called: the
Blackscale line
It works like this: Now you are here, then you are not

“no no no no no no no no!” she says
“Now you are here. . .”
“Then you are there. . .”

“wait a minute! Let me re-write that.” I say
nowyou arehere
thenyou arethere

nowyouarehere
thenyouarethere
nowyouareherethenyouarethere

“we spoke about this before,” I say
“Yes, what was it?” she says
“The snowball words.” I say

to speak or to be throwing snowballs
to sing or to be shooting water with a canon
“and when you remain silent?”

there is a yogurt soup for you and me
A wooden house, a new radio playing this melody:
La la la la la la la la la la spacetime is but a song

there is a whale whistling in the woods
A nightingale visits the sea
And you and you and you and you and Not

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Not and not by reading_is_dangerous]

BLACK SCALE BLOODY SCALES

The official cost of the US war effort in Iraq is just about to reach 500 billion dollars. All that money has achieved nothing but the hanging of one man and the death of over half a million Iraqis.

500 billion dollars divided by 500,000 equals one million dollars

That means about ONE MILLION DOLLARS spent for every killed Iraqi. Now let’s theorize that 10% of the dead counted among the “bad guys”. . . That’s fifty thousand people, which means TEN MILLION DOLLARS spent for every dead “enemy fighter”. We could translate it like this:

One million Americans paid $10 per hour would have to work for one hour to kill one super “terrorist”.

That strange calculation reminded me a few words by George Orwell: “The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.” Orwell also put it this way:

“The primary aim of modern warfare is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standards of living.”

Now what to think of our leaders when they keep repeating that We need to improve our productivity. . .?

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Blackscale submarines by reading_is_dangerous]

The War Is A Racket
The 1984
The Inside Job
The Bring Them Home
and my Admiral ship the Elbow-Grease

CRUEL KIWI BIRDS

a tasty pork chop
a few hard nails
a few many thousand well-chosen words
may suffice to kill a god
yeah!

a good brush, some ink and paper
a sharp knife and a good piece of wood, maybe some paint
a little bit of love or maybe a mirror
may suffice to bring any god back to life
yeah! yeah!

if the dead god resists resurrection, try a
mathematical formula or a
magician’s trick: Here is
a
rope. . .
It looks like there is no knot. . .
suddenly you discover there is a knot
The real wonder is that there is no magician. . .
The rope itself performs the trick

twisting reality
. . .
bending reality

indeed Miss Reality seems always ready to bend over for Mister God to visit her

“Anyway I don’t need any god.” somebody thought
Well, we neither. . .
But god or gods keep coming back
Maybe they need us?
Us, the cruel kiwi birds!

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Dead One Alive by reading_is_dangerous]

TRUTH PELTS FROM THE FOREST

I am now selling truth pelts from the forest
good quality
best prices
c’mon take a look

. . .but please don’t look in there
that’s where I keep the skinned truths
it’s not a pretty sight, believe me
the poor things, you see? They are still alive
and holding on to their golden crowns

if only I could snatch a few of those from them
old
skinned
truths

::: ::: :::

[Picture: A skinned truth by reading_is_dangerous] (April 10, 2007)

THE EMPTY ARM

he, returning from thought-hunt
The arm is empty
The fist is closed
Maybe he catches an ant? Ha! ha! ha!
Open the hand!

he, saying: “A thought is a thing alive in the head.”
Thing alive
In the head, in the forest
Many things alive in the forest
Monkey the clever
Boar the courageous
Flangunferryck the shadow (it takes you away)

he the great hunter, going to the forest, into the head
He kills the monkey-thought
He kills the boar-thought
He kills the flangunferryck-thought. We eat them!

he, saying: “The forest is empty. Think outside the head!”
The bird swimming like the fish
The fish flying like the bird
The dead man hungry like the living man

he, looking at the tree. He thinks of thinking
In the head, a forest
In the forest, a head

he, opening the fist. Ha! ha!
A treetop butterfly, flying away from the hand
The empty hand
The empty mind
The empty belly

::: ::: :::

[Picture: The butterfly by reading_is_dangerous] (May 26th, 2007)

INTERIOR

once you have successfully identified your self with
everything else there is
nothing left
outside of you

nothing left
except
some
emptiness in a
lovely dress, fascinating

. . .running away

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Interior by reading_is_dangerous]

HOW TO GET ACROSS IMAGINARY DOORS

real doors can translate into imaginary doorsthat leaves you stuck either inside or outside yourself
so what to do when that happens?

okay first no panic

try pushing the imaginary door open
but if it's locked
then try searching for the imaginary copy of the key

otherwise
try ringing an imaginary bell on the imaginary door
somebody might open it
huh, could be scary

anyway if that doesn't work
try using your imaginary mobile phone to call for imaginary help
perhaps get your imaginary wallet ready

you can also
conjure an imaginary tornado to blow the door away

or simply turn away
forget the door and whatever's on its other side

my favorite method for opening an imaginary door
is to use my imaginary axe

that’s what I did today
on the other side there was a funny me

::: ::: ::: 

Picture: Okay first no panic 

Picture created & posted on August 25, 2012 in replacement for the original one that disappeared.

I also edited the poem quite a bit.

STRONG YELLOW SPRING FLOWER

there is something I am afraid I don't have, and
that's the field and the magic to keep that
strong yellow spring flower forever smiling

I promise to work on everything else
That is my only good present for you, tonight, this morning

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Strong Yellow Spring Flower by reading_is_dangerous]

FIVE MILLION YEARS AND FIVE

is it the distant past I saw or was it hope for the future (or was it both?)
But whose future? Yours or mine or that of humanity (or all those?)
Are you five years old or five million and five?

“Will you take my picture?” a little girl asked me today
Oh! An easy question to answer

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Shahane of Aparan by reading_is_dangerous]

EVERYBODY WAS WEARING RED

everybody was wearing red, but I saw you.

“What does that mean?” the poppy flower asked me. “What? what? what? Flowers can talk?” I said aloud. Then a heard a laughter. A flangunferryck kind of laughter. Now what’s a flangunferryck?

then I fell asleep

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Coquelicot by reading_is_dangerous] (May 14th, 2007)

CAULIMONK

They developed a way to keep alive the brain of a monkey without any need for the rest of the monkey.

That brain was connected to a computer and it was taught how to read and write. Next it was surfing the Web, and blogging, and you could have never guessed it.

Later they connected that one brain to another. There was born the two monkey power brain or computer. Then came the 16 monkey power brain, quickly followed by the 64 monk pb. As it became harder and harder to hook up more brains together, they got the help of the already connected brains. They managed to create a 232-monk power brain and called that the “cauliflower” or Caulimonk.

“Build a space station for me,” Caulimonk said. So they made one with solar panels and everything needed for Caulimonk to grow its own synthetic organic healthy banana flavored liquid food. Caulimonk became Space Caulimonk. From up there it was controlling planes and boats and trains and all. Its brain kept on growing. . . One day Caulimonk landed on the Moon where it dug itself a hole. There it had more room, and it felt safer away from humanity.

“There is a monkey living in the Moon.” people would say. Somebody asked Caulimonk how much brain power it had by now. “About a hundred billion monkey brains and growing.” Caulimonk said. But what was it doing?

Watching television! A sort of improved television that was, but it had no antenna, and it was black and white, and soundless, and its tiny screen had only one million pixels. “That’s enough for me to see a lot of things,” explained Caulimonk. Indeed, it was examining every possible drawing composed of one million black or white pixels. That amounted to a lot of pictures, an extraordinary big number of pictures, but the brain of Caulimonk was still growing, and it had found a way to live forever or almost.

For seven thousand years it kept on watching its silly looking TV screen. Among the pictures there was one that helped the monkey to send information backward in time (thus you and I are reading this.) But Caulimonk kept on searching and searching until it found what it was really hoping for: the plan for a simple device, a sort of switch, a button.

Now when Caulimonk is done building that button and his monkey brain grows itself a finger to push on it, the Universe will shut down.

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Eye of Caulimonk by reading_is_dangerous]

HAPPY MOTHER

is it today the day when I
am supposed to think of mother?

what to think?
About mother one does think

happy mothers
happy mothers
happy mothers sitting by the telephone

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Strange Choco Arrows Of Love by reading_is_dangerous]

(now mother has got a cell phone)

THE ERRATIC MOUNTAIN

the Erratic Mountain, sometimes it comes right to your feet
Suddenly you stand at fifteen thousand feet above sea level
The view is nice but the temperature is low
You find it hard to breathe

I used to always keep a few chocoxygon cookies in my pockets
just for that, just in case, but now I am getting better and better at breathing less
Anyway!

soon you pray for the erratic mountain to go away . . .although

::: ::: :::

[Picture: The Erratic Mountain by reading_is_dangerous]

LOOKING FOR TIBIA

one of the flangunferrycks saw me
“What to do? What to do?” I asked myself

“Gimme a shinbone.” said the flangunferryck who saw me

“He can hear me thinking!” I thought to myself

“I can hear you thinking.” the flangunferryck said

“What shinbone?” I asked myself

“One of your never born twin’s, damn it!” the flangunferryck said

“But where to find it?” I asked myself, and the flangunferryck

“Behind you.” the flangunferryck said

I looked behind me of
course there was
nothing then
the flangunferrycks were gone

perhaps they will come back?

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Looking for tibia by reading_is_dangerous]

QUEEN HAMMER AND FLOWER MAN

one day far far from here here in time
There will be a world for you for you to come to
I will be there there I will be there to listen to your heart your heart

you know you know the heart has a a memory distinct
distinct from the memory of the brain or that of the toes the toes
Who is in your heart shall survive
Who is in your heart shall survive

when that day comes when comes that day when you will come to me
I will listen to your heart beats you heart beats a song
I will listen to that song that secret song that song of love

Queen Hammer I am Queen Hammer
ready to beat (breathing less)
ready to beat (breathing more)
ready to beat (breathing less)
ready to beat (breathing more)
. . .and if he is a Flower Man who lives in your heart a Flower Man he will be
standing by your side he will he will be
A thing
A thing breathing
A breathing thing
A breathing

::: ::: :::

[Picture: A Breathing by reading_is_dangerous]

IMAGINARY LANDSCAPES

when he struggles to
remember a word or a name or an
important date or the directions to a place or what a
certain thing is for or how to use it or
where he put it, each time that happens he paints an imaginary landscape

“The more I forget, the more that imaginary world of mine grows ready for the
day when I’ll be too old to remember anything about the real world,” he says

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Drakkar by reading_is_dangerous]

THE POOL OF TO ERASE

in Esfode
inside of Solipold Feliwin
there is a pool
there is also a lake
a few rivers
a full size ocean called the Sea of Saints

the name of the pool is To Erase
“I
should take a dive into the Pool of To Erase,” I
told myself

that was a while ago. I
took a
dive. The
first thing I
saw were eggs of me

since then I
have been practicing the art of Breathing Less. I
believe I
am now ready to go back and try and swim deeper deeper deeper. Goodbye

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Eggs of me by reading_is_dangerous]

THE MAYORS OF ESFODE

In the Esfodi city of ogn* there is one officer they call the prototalemelier, whose job it is to keep count of how many times the mayor will shake hands. When that count reaches a thousand the mayor is replaced.

In merichochylium when the prototalemelier has counted to five hundred and one, they cut off the mayor’s hand with a sword. After that the mayor can resign or get a second term. In gambacivit, they elect a new mayor once every nine years. On the ninth day of the victorious candidate’s term they cut off one of his feet: the left one, if the new mayor has indicated a preference for a conservative type of leadership; the right one, if he promised a lot of changes (people take bets.)

In patich only a mute can become their mayor.

___

*the name of an Esfodi city or town is traditionally written in italics, without a capital letter.

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Things by reading_is_dangerous]

COMMA GARDEN

“There is snow in the garden. There is an invisible path one has to follow otherwise a kitten will attack you. Here is a green man. He knows the way. Those are his tomatoes. There are two sorts of tomatoes: round tomatoes and comma tomatoes. The round ones are good to eat like this; the comma tomatoes are good for sauces and for homemade ketchup. My favorite ketchup is green, but those comma tomatoes are red. My father’s grandma on his dad’s side used to prepare green ketchup. I thought that was great. “You guys want to try my green ketchup?” she would ask. Beside green comma tomatoes there were one million other things in her green ketchup: onions, garlic, and other things I forgot what they were.”

“Why is there snow? Is this winter?”

“No, it is not winter. Actually, there is no snow. This is the snow you remember in the summer when it is too hot. It is not summer either. Now it is spring. Those are the tomatoes soon to be.

Those here are bees. See, the bees are beezzzing around. One, two, three; there are four bees and they are beezzzing around.

This is the cat. It is pink. Pink like a rose. A rose is for love. Thanks to love everything always lives. When something dies, it comes back. The cat’s name is Chloe. It means: Green Shoot. It is a name for spring, but that cat’s name is always Chloe. She comes from Vietnam to bring back the rain. She does it like this: Those are the famous blue birds that live high up in the sky. The blue birds are made of water. When they die they fall in that pool. When the pool is full it rains down on Earth. When the pool does not fill quick enough, Chloe the cat goes up there and catch the blue birds. She drops them in the pool, until the pool is full. Then it rains in the garden. The tomatoes can grow. The green man is happy. When the cat gets sick, the green man heals it. The green man comes from the sea.”

“What are those yellow things here, here, and here?”

“This one here is the sun. It is a comma sun, and it is great for the comma tomatoes. Those down here are extras. That other green thing here is an extra green man in case the first one goes back to the sea.”

“Why is the cat’s head white and not pink?”

“Because it is very smart. Its mind is clear. It can read yours.”

“Chloe the cat can read my mind?”

“Yes.”

“So what am I thinking about?”

“You are thinking that maybe you should be making a drawing, and tell me about it.”

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Comma Garden by reading_is_dangerous]

YOU CAN'T SEE THEM

imaginary creatures inside my heart
It is made of glass, my heart

now the imaginary creatures want to come out, but
the windows will not open

I am afraid. Out of desperation, the imaginary creatures might try and
break through the glass, you see?

all the glass of my heart
It is frightening for the rest of me. The concrete, the dirt, the other stuff

::: ::: :::

[Picture: You can’t see them by reading_is_dangerous]

THE P-PERCENT-ASTERISKS CREATURES

“What is more interesting?” asked me Professor Tokossyan from the University of Yerevan. “What exists? or what doesn’t?”

“How do we know what exists and what doesn’t?” I asked the Professor.

“Exactly.” said my friend. “Firstly, we should agree on what is the best definition for the condition we call existence. We should consider what existed, what exists now and what doesn’t, what might exist, what never existed, and what could never exist.”

“That would take us back to your initial question.” I said. “What is more interesting: What exists? or what doesn’t?”

“Yes. I suppose it is a matter of taste.” said the Professor. “The other night, I dreamt of creatures composed of a capital letter ‘P’ attached to a percent sign and three asterisks. They lived in a synchronized universe where Time was a Walking Man. Each time (ha! ha!), each time that Man took a Step, there was a Tremor, so that every one of the p-percent-asterisks creatures would grow a little (fed by the Sound Wave) or split in two (also thanks to the energy of the Sound Wave) or go POP! in a little explosion that could communicate itself as a chain reaction to the surrounding individuals, making a lot of POPs! Do you follow me?”

“Yes. No. Yes!” I said. “So the bigger creatures were fewer than the small ones?”

“Exactly.” nodded the Professor. “And the smaller creatures shunned the much bigger ones because they thought there were more chances for those to go POP! every time the Walking Man took a Step.”

“But that was untrue.” I thought.

“You are right.” said the Professor. “But the mind of those interesting creatures was not based entirely on logics. A civilization based purely on logics would be exciting, of course, but with only logic there isn’t anxiety, and without anxiety there isn’t art.”

“Is that your definition of art, professor? The child of Anxiety?”

“Not exactly.” said the professor.

“Not exactly?”

“Not exactly.”

I asked Tokossyan if he’d let me do his portrait, and he was kind enough to accept. I’m getting quick with the digiart thing ; a bit bold or fearless, maybe.

“So the big p-percent creatures lead a solitary life?” I asked the Professor.

“Yes.” he answered. “Except for the very wealthy ones, and a few gurus.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “So those inexistent creatures you saw in your dream, they resembled a mix between bacteria and human beings, kind of.”

“Yes.” said the Professor. “That is a characteristic of the non-existent : It resembles existence as it is experienced by the creative mind.”

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Portrait of Pr. Tokossyan by reading_is__dangerous]