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How do I explain such a page of notes? How do I tell you, beloved readers, that, the more I write, the more feverish my pace, the greater the pull of my graphomania upon my wrist, the more words flow through me period? Words that are my own. Words that are nonsense. Words that are, yes, the words of others. It yanks and tugs on my wrist, its other hand — paw? — lingering so sweetly on my neck, drawing lazy fingers across as though to bleed me dry of ink, and from out of me spills my words and also the words that have ever made me what I am.
Here, then, are the references as I remember them. I will apologize no further.
Do you see now the connection?
Cf. Rilke:
Weißt du's noch nicht? Wirf aus den Armen die Leere
zu den Räumen hinzu, die wir atmen; vielleicht daß die Vögel
die erweiterte Luft fühlen mit innigerm Flug.
Do you not understand yet? Fling from your arms the emptiness
into the spaces we breathe. It may be that the birds
will feel the expanded air in more spirited flight.
And yet I had also in mind the cadence of Nabokov: "Give me now your full attention." A plea that one be understood.
I am no poet, but I will not deny the utility in verse when it comes to scratching the itch of words:
{{% verse %}}I can't tell you how I knew - but I did know that I had crossed The border. Everything I loved was lost But no aorta could report regret. A sun of rubber was convulsed and set; And blood-black nothingness began to spin A system of cells interlinked within Cells interlinked within cells interlinked Within one stem. And dreadfully distinct Against the dark, a tall white fountain played.{{% /verse %}}
And here am I within a System of selves interlinked within selves interlinked within selves interlinked within one dream.
Not yet, though. Not this year, I suspect not this decade, and I hope not even this century.
I speak, of course, of functional immortality and the balm it provides against the fears artists of old faced. Keats has it:
{{% verse %}}When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think, Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.{{% /verse %}}