The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not laguage but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.

-- Jack Gilbert

Notes of a Weekend: February 26, 2006

I have never received a letter from anyone living in Tanzania.
There's a man on TV reading a letter from someone living in Tanzania.
The letter from someone in Tanzania is a little out of sync.
The letter, a little out of sync, sounds distinguished.

The tone of the letter from someone in Tanzania being read by a man on TV sounds like a doctor wearing dirty boots or a witch painted with lipstick.

All my life you've been America's favorite hamburger
and now you want to be my dad?!

INTERABANG
was the name of a bookstore in Milwaukee.

Damon Wayans is extremely hot! five nights a week.

Today for a while longer for me is but probably by the time you read this was February 26, 2006: event-wise, mostly it rained and I took five or six cat naps.

All the men in the Ulti-meat commercial look like gay woodsmen: big overexposed boy-men who more likely than not have sold their souls to the devil to prevent aging in the wrong spots.

I don't want him awake. He'll wake up fifty years in the future. I am experiencing certain recent memories while I am watching the man on TV reading the letter from a man in Tanzania.

February 24th was a few days ago and like a rose petal has recently floated down the river (of time)-- but you knew that, like Of Time and The River --

Once upon a time February 24th was a warm day. It's a sentence but it's also itis: Today. it surrounded by four lines is itisit or ItsIt a cookie with ice cream.
and it had to be you. or Baby It's You

most of the Tractatus is a tough cookie or
tough nut or a little
girl with a button nose that kicks butt
confident & extraordinary
not limited to propositions of natural science
or even saying what can be said --
but does say something metaphysical

heavy storms threatened
the Fat Tuesday events

Following a thought
going after a thought
so soon
too soon
so soon before I'm
too soon

mystery writers follow things: Pica or Elite

When we ordinarily follow : with closed eyes
theater, taboo, she it is, it is he, he am I.

I thought of Anthony this weekend and spent a lot of time
tracking Bakelite pencil sharpeners on eBay -- Yow! expensive.



She
over there sleeps
mattress mate
drums
sun light
sunlight window
opening

The Way: a series of colorful designs with Caran d/Ache wax crayons: two shades of gray, olive green touch of black and lots of pencil work: Mechanical Pencil
Sanford SPIKE 1.1mm lead. rare.

beyond immediate
deeper motivation
Wittgenstein, no charge, hey baby what's shaken
holds theories that
makes subject or experience
primary
are all
nonsense

can you imagine
yourself
falling asleep and
waking up
fifty years in the future?

painful isn't it.
or exciting.

I spent the weekend misfiring attempts to say something
where nothing can be said

I dreamed of making love with Frank Ramsey, and I emphasized.

I can feel the pain, the innocence; this could be a trap
you've got to get out of here. that makes me sane.
you've got to stop fighting it. you've got to accept that.

+

you ask me why nitrogen nodules cling to roots
and say why love, love
you would

most of the propositions
like coffee shops serve scones
and 7th Heaven starts at Eight
and Pumpkin, I'd rather not carry the extra weight
and look closely at your hand to see the future
and nobody teaches the future like we do
and extend the moment into the night at Cache Creek
and fill your pockets with next Sunday
and for god's sake accept the fact New Orleans is a Dead City
and actors don't talk with their face but speak through their mouths
and avoid answering the phone when it rings
and we experience our sensation but speak of objects
and the world does not alter
but comes to an end
culminate in a simple state:

I've been there but like
being unable to remember when I
(precisely)
played my last game of Tic Tac Toe
only know now:

Secondary events:
1983
phones still rang
we ate popcorn at Thrillers
such & stuff & this & that
& skin and shoes
Norwegian loafers

path
gate
open
run
run
run



I plan a series of
grids with simple statements of dots and
X forms and pencil etches

make a few test drawings and work up to
a world that does
not alter
but comes
to an end --

a series of Xs and Os
while the phone rings

I also spend much of the weekend
thinking about picturing
or at best envisioning
the proper F in February
the more stylized F like a cactus
or finding rhymes that sound
natural and exciting for knucklehead

it's language itself that casts doubt

the world we live in is the world
of sense-data
but the world we
talk about is the
world of
physical objects

I wish I didn't know
about time,
can't be said.



PROPOSITIONS:
1. statements about direct observation
2. an ensemble cast
3. join some newcomers.
4. learn to forgive but not enough to trust others
5. whenever you come around family you can find love
6. people will believe anything if it sounds right even if it's wrong.
7. you've got to remember death is an event we don't live through

mutemath
is a perfect name
for a rock and roll band
because it's graphically pure

observation propositions to
two-dimensional sections through a hypothetical
three-dimensional body
is a certain way to express emotional tension

Build then Release:
draw water, boil water pour water over tea leaves

what a beautiful building that is on TV
alive with the flavor of nature

ANZU
Tansu
shake

bamboo leaf.
cherry blossoms in sake
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
for goodness sake

In 1920 the sky had a new story to tell
a clear statement is the best question.
Chess: going quietly mad
levels of

They're all over 2 meters
with Flat Stomachs
rowers from a British University.

a note of his construal

nonsense: to believe in anything not given in experience.

The Smartones
semitone psychopaths
Benny & the Jets
how big a mug I am
exactly
make sense.
must.
primary
phenomenal world of experience
Secondary: physical world of material objects

hustle or electric slide
penny loafers or bell bottoms

articulate the structure of the primary world:
articulate the structure of Experience
articulate the structure of
Primary World
articulate the structure of experience
Structure of Experience
what a joy
what happened
what a joy: the attempted: what happened
attempt

I was lost I was found
I was a Japanese floral arrangement
Structure: Invisible

set out to articulate the
structure of the Primary World (Experience)

a paradoxical place
where our ordinary concepts
of Objects
Causality
Self & Temporality
no longer apply

make your expectation of what happens
later
with the structural model: Now

make your expectations of what happens
with structural model of now
Now.

the Structure of Now. what is invisibly holding
events together

Immediate Experience & physical propositions we produce
e.g. marks on a page, vibrations in the air

"I don't know my way about."

our language has an underlying
structure; philosophy elucidates that structure

there's no debating truth
as a matter of fact.


Part Two


I never met
I feel I just
Feel complete
feel completely
flat

red tape
reduce
rein
rain

don't use
the word:
always

arrangements

what you hear of
what you know of

Bakelite Scotty Dog
Pencil Sharpener
hypnotic plastic

Swiss Hermes Streaming Video
Online new AT&T delivered
Hi How ya doin
Called down to the #5
I've got to take this other call
Vintage Green Scotty Dog Figural
Pencil Sharpener -- Bakelite
Red Yellow Orange Butterscotch
Learn the Secret of Making Millions
Stop Dreaming Start Doing Call Now
Double Your Refund or a Million Other Prizes
Emphasize Prices Emphasize Prizes Emphasize Emphasize
What's a matter you seem a little down
Well maybe not down -- reflective



Two months ago: Christmas day
Sanford 1.1mm lead SPIKE drawings on white paper

What a Face!
Ace hat

Why did you ----
I couldn't wake you ----
Meet the Deedles ---
Paul Walker's new movies
you can't keep facing your demons
you have to run away eventually

Pierre Cardin mechanical pencil.
Huge hugs
I got this drip

Tom Welling what is
ordinary I'd never imagine him there
of all people
I knew you'd understand
If I were anyone else's son
there's more to opera than singing
I don't want you making a hasty instinctual move
good to have you back, son
it's not the place
it's the face

purgatory mansion

I made my way into one of the broken wings

you certainly have arranged the sky well

I was confused

you weren't yourself

I chose to let that part of my self out

I wanted this so much

I'm not -- this will never stay put

Conversational Incense

Chat cat I is a pronoun
ego's a subject

we fail to be struck by what once
seen is most striking and powerful

a couple of storms coming in from the artic
and from the sub-tropics

rain producer: hot and cold

Winter's Returning

New Orleans on the news.
someone tell them: the city's
broken, the flesh of the body of the city's been destroyed
it's covered in mold the structures demolished
full of worms and rotting dogs and cats
roses have been ripped up the humidity's chewing
what's left into decay; the city's food for Mother Nature

when that happens to a body it's called a dead body

the vegetation which took four hundred years to grow
is gone
tangled mold dissolution storms and clouds and wind coming in

hanging on to Indigo.

the music diaspora has begun

you can rebuild but you can't revive what was
what was is no longer there and
fabricating what was is called
not the same thing not the same at all not at all
the city has passed into a thousand thousand thousand dispersed memories
no one wants to say so they just say
we can have it back
they can't have it back in this life time
in the next life time or the next or the next.
the clouds and the wind are indigo.


Part Three



50 foot Calvin Klein
underwear ad

problem: sadistic, bitter, empty
hide your money in a teapot
what is it gonna take

what if they
Peter Gray
be fearless and call today
I lost him in the sun
our pride gets us talking
favorite bartenders I have known

there's no "J" in Hebrew
no J sound

who took the photo

do you know what the word
manifests

means

he's a sensation
a real reconciliation

I'll buy you a cashmere coat.

they want to do:

Variance
Emulations
Revellings

Longsuffering
temperance
affections &
Lusts

levels of bingo
levels of being

Ananda, don't eat the blanket, ok?
don't eat the bulls and bears
ok?
don't eat the dollar sign, ok?
don't eat Sunday Morning,
ok?

everybody's watching

she's been after me.
weeknights at 6
it's not a music video
lives that breed anger
ranked #2 in the country

making them forget the badness
with fatal consequences
ok. safe. overwhelming -- concentration

Matthew 8

they'll make me laugh. harmfully
they'll accept me. sometimes.
don't worry about things. so much.

I still have the rest of my life
ahead
of me

sheep in the midst of wolves

let the dead bury their dead

Beams & Motes
he felt a warm trickle

doeth

Where Did Tonight Begin

-- Jeff Wietor

February 25, 2006

it came and went.
what came and went
came and went.
what melancholy frown came and went
what came and went
went woe
went gone gloom
what came and went
went hard went
away what came went
what inklings went came
went glistening
came and went came
and went again
and went and
came again once
more once more again
quivering
and went wonderful
went and
came floating
easy
swept away
stolen with
mirthful coming and
going
went and
went
and came devoted
devoting an enormous
amount of
time and
energy to
considering
alternative
arrangements:

I have written down all these thoughts as remarks, short paragraphs, of which there is sometimes a fairly long chain about the same subject, while I sometimes make a sudden change, jumping from one topic to another. --It is my intention to bring all this together in a book whose form I picture differently at different times. But the essential thing is that the thoughts should proceed from one subject to another in a natural order and without breaks. My thoughts are crippled if I try to force them in any single direction against their natural inclination.

it came and went.
what came and went
came and went.
what melancholy frown came and went
what came and went
went woe
went gone gloom
what came and went
went hard went
away what came went
what inklings went came
went glistening
came and went came
and went again
and went and
came again once
more once more again
quivering
and went wonderful
went and
came floating
easy
swept away
stolen with
mirthful coming and
going
went and
went
and came devoted
devoting an enormous
amount of
time and
energy to
considering
alternative
arrangements:

whispering attendants


-- Jeff Wietor

Mardi Gras New Orleans

(CNN) -- Chiquita Simms lived in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina destroyed her home. She and her son evacuated and are now living in Atlanta, Georgia. She explains why she believes the devastated Louisiana seaport should hold off on Mardi Gras events this year. Below are excerpts from a telephone conversation:

I'm not opposed to Mardi Gras -- I love it, I'm born and bred in it. What I am opposed to is my city prioritizing Mardi Gras over its people.

Everywhere you look there are blue roofs -- people are still without proper roofs. The downtown areas are nice, or I should say, they're better. Canal Street is OK; Bourbon Street is functioning; St. Charles Avenue is OK, but that's about it.

When you go into the neighborhoods, there's no housing for people. There is inadequate food, and they couldn't get sponsors because they can't afford the cleanup and the police, and you know, if you can't afford the party, you certainly shouldn't have one.

The mayor's made a comment. ... [Ray Nagin has] said that we can take these two weeks of Mardi Gras as a break from Katrina and take our minds off of it. As an evacuee, I don't ever have the luxury of taking my mind off Katrina until I have my life a little bit more stable.

I think having Mardi Gras sends the false message that our city is OK and that our people are OK, and that's it really going to contribute to our economy. I don't believe that it will.

People are going to probably get mad at me for saying this, but we've been doing Mardi Gras for 149 years prior to this year. This is the 150th anniversary. Our city is the poorest; the education system is horrible; our roads are full of potholes; we have the worst blighted property going.

In 149 years, this event has not benefited the communities that need it, so why would this year benefit them? Is that money going to go to the 9th Ward? You have to tell me how much, you have to show me a plan -- you're going to have to show me how it's going to benefit them this year unlike the last 149 years.

I don't think the city is getting back on its feet. When I went through the city on January 24, I went to the 17th Street levee, the one that breached. There's no one working on it. But when I drive down St. Charles, everybody is making Mardi Gras plans.

You can't tell me that you're rebuilding the city. You don't see any mass efforts or gutting out of houses, and I'm talking about the neighborhoods where people can't afford to do it, like the 9th Ward, which has mass devastation.

Mardi Gras is the tradition that it is, but I think we can live without it this year, [especially] with as much devastation as we've been through and knowing that 70 percent of the city still cannot return to live. I think we can do without it. To hell with tradition, I think we need to deal with what's real.

Instead of holding Mardi Gras, they need to organize. First, get some cohesion with the leadership. They're not even getting along with each other. I think they need to sit down and say, "Hey, everybody messed up from the top to the bottom, now let's look at how we can heal."

They need to show Americans that they are moving forward as leaders instead of being party planners. We need to sit down and stop arguing our private agendas and deal with Washington and get the type of aid that we need.

If we can build a democracy or stay in Iraq until we rebuild that country, then we can rebuild New Orleans. We need to focus on the solution and getting it done, not having a party. It's taken the focus off of what's really wrong with New Orleans.

Wild Gardens Overlooked by Night Lights

Wild gardens overlooked by night lights. Parking
lot trucks overlooked by night lights. Buildings
with their escapes overlooked by lights


They urge me to seek here on the heights
amid the electrical lighting that self who exists,
who witnesses light and fears its expunging,


I take from my wall the landscape with its water
of blue color, its gentle expression of rose,
pink, the sunset reaches outward in strokes as the west wind
rises, the sun sinks and color flees into the delicate
skies it inherited,
I place there a scene from "The Tale of the Genji."


An episode where Genji recognizes his son.
Each turns his face away from so much emotion,
so that the picture is one of profiles floating
elsewhere from their permanence,
a line of green displaces these relatives,
black also intervenes at correct distances,
the shapes of the hair are black.


Black describes the feeling,
is recognized as remorse, sadness,


black is a headdress while lines slant swiftly,
the space is slanted vertically with its graduating
need for movement,

Thus the grip of realism has found
a picture chosen to cover the space
occupied by another picture
establishing a flexibility so we are not immobile
like a car that spends its night
outside a window, but mobile like a spirit.


I float over this dwelling, and when I choose
enter it. I have an ethnological interest
in this building, because I inhabit it
and upon me has been bestowed the decision of changing
an abstract picture of light into a ghost-like story
of a prince whose principality I now share,
into whose confidence I have wandered.


Screens were selected to prevent this intrusion
of exacting light and add a chiaroscuro,
so that Genji may turn his face from his son,
from recognition which here is painful,
and he allows himself to be positioned on a screen,
this prince as noble as ever,
songs from the haunted distance
presenting themselves in silks.


The light of fiction and light of surface
sink into vision whose illumination
exacts its shades,


The Genji when they arose
strolled outside reality
their screen dismantled,
upon that modern wondering space
flash lights from the wild gardens.

-- Barbara Guest

February 15, 2006

she stands in a cup of water and insists on
washing her atheistic trends with soapy
heretofore

unlike him
she is wearing a blue sarong
his green leaf
legging has yet
to be tied

henceforth three
powerhouse dancers
bruise jungle flowers
worn over their
stealthy incompetence

slick. he's big
on robust fantasy
as a gaggle of ex-possible
lovers and hanger-ons
cavort greenly

exhausted after
too much too soon
he sits on the floor
holding his head
moaning about it

together they drink from
the cup of human kindness
but prefer feeding
walnuts to pigeons
alighting

she's very big
looming over
his prone
position

nestled now
together spent
prone backs to the ground
wet drying

are those
magnolia
in bloom
sure enough and more
a ginkgo sprouting

much to be happy about
especially
in warm weather
with a slight
cool
breeze

-- Jeff Wietor

February 14, 2006

Valentine Pillow Fight: San Francisco

Monkey Molecules

holding on to the showing
hanging on to the showy
glimpse the brief
glide the skate
holding extreme globe winks
glowing glib window
glistening star moon circular
globe noble dayglow fabulous
planet opalescence glint beaker
goblet evident bold polish
scintillate motionless candy
clear gorgeous shine iridescence
holding briefly perception
smoothly glissade look quickly
hold on let go hold on glide

-- Jeff Wietor

February 11, 2006

names reduced
did you this
did you that

you think so
you say so
you do so

shine. warm so you say.
warm. shine so you say.
say. warm so you think.

-- Jeff Wietor

The Euphrates at Babylon

old
gods nor symbols
margin
the next age was to plunge her
mysteriously
decapitated bodies

here
relics of life
beneath
thighs in the abandon of thought
two heads found near them
compact coherence

planes
a builder-prince
rough grain
covered with palm trees and date trees
cross one another
Chaldean theocracy

born
her brilliant nights
it was
instruments of geometry
astronomy was
on the upper terraces

sky
observe the need
bodies
nothing discovers everything
very skeleton
mathematical map

hard
study the stars
tower
of those cuneiform inscriptions
bas-relief king fight
statues with muscle

-- Jeff Wietor

Chapter III

between two
old rivers

the sand
covered up
everything

is human soul is:
the face
Chaldean palaces
ruins of Tello
light of an undying hearth

-- Jeff Wietor

Hoochy-Koochy

they sang
a song
suggestively

near them
two heads
with energy

reposing on
their thighs
in the

abandon of
thought

-- Jeff Wietor

February 7, 2006

Every day I nourish illusion
I live in San Francisco
I take the bus
I board the bus
I ride the bus
I travel by bus
I see the hapless, the
hopeless, the haveless
the bored, the bald, the
fat, the faces covered with
dermatological
horrors --
the skinny, the tattoos, the
cursed, the students
plugged-in, the
aged
whose next stop is
Death
Oblivion
or
Apotheosis

-- Jeff Wietor

February 6, 2006

on TV's
a man who looks
just like

Charles Steiner
(from my past
you don't know him)

except he's blond and wears
wire rim glasses but
everything he says

is said in earnest
and with dreadful
certainty:

he claims to know
all about
the Uncommon Cures

for Everyday Ailments
(everyday ailments?)
(uncommon cures?)

yup
that's
Charles Steiner

only younger
much younger
but just as earnest

I miss him
he had large hands
large feelings

his hands magically
could reach through
your jeans

and all of a sudden
you were swimming with him
in a frothy rawdy surf

coming with him
was like
riding a skateboard

through traffic
at midday
in the Financial District

on a Wednesday
in summer
holding a secret

in one hand
while scraping
with the other

accretions
of memory
from the self

-- Jeff Wietor

February 5, 2006

you probably believe that seeing the
word,

or the fatalistic number:

7 Miles Out
2006

has meaning
or is meaning
or carries meaning

Focus:
how many will that be?

you don't know
the kids
with microphones

standing on
the
freeway

talking
about
The End

I never thought this
would happen while
I'm on vacation

that's what
it will be
that's what it will be

yes

that is
what it

is

-- Jeff Wietor

February 4, 2006

my god!
can you say that --
OMG

it's massive
it's hitting
it's big

it's a big
why
it's why

I can't sleep
I can't wake
I'm telling you

I am tremendous
but I can't tell you
I can't tell you

it's horrible
it's over night
it's over tonight

I can't tell you
I can't see why
I want to go live

OMG
the sunlight
is eting me alilve

expect the end
to be
as soon as possible

what grows
outward
from you

will destroy
those
closest.

forecasters!
however
intelligent you are

are you ready to use all situations?
where are you right now?
give us a sense of where you are.

we're expecting to tell you
now
what will be later

that's the
joke
: start planning

-- Jeff Wietor

February 3, 2006

I'm guessing
there's a
lot of people

but then I wonder what
"Lot Of People
means

to a nurse's touch.
a touch of the nurse
"have you ever felt anything like it?

can you expect
anything like it?
so many people right now

are at home --

-- Jeff Wietor

February 2, 2006

We see it
on TV
But

we don't
Believe it

we live in this area
or
that area

it's
always
missed us

what that
is
that missed us

is
what

we're thinking
about
tonight

we're thinking this is our
greatest
event ever

We're
born.

that
this
is --

is
the
natural
question

-- Jeff Wietor

Conversations in February

here we are in February
at
last

here we are
at the keys of the piano

here we are
ain't we
remember ain't we

remember you must
to walk them through
memory

as if Memory
is a Garden of Walking Through:

if, when you remember to remember
you

you acknowledge
you know
you undersay

no, you understate,
no you understand--

-- Jeff Wietor