Koreatown Bok Choy: Excerpt

(1) Abstract (unmetered): In 387 BC, around the age of 40, the renowned Hellenist philosopher Plato (428-348 BC) founded his Academy in the then flourishing city of Athens, only a dozen or so years following the execution of his mentor Socrates, whose purported last words were, “Crito, please remember we owe a cock to Asclepius.” By contrast, around 390 AD, on nearly equal opposite sides of the so-called Christ event, the Neoplatonic philosopher Plutarch of Athens (350-430 AD) would re-establish the Platonic Academy in Athens, at age 40, where the last of the great Late Antique philosophers—Syrianus and Proclus and Damascius—would work in the shadow of Constantinople. The last of the Academies were shut down by the Imperial decree of Justinian in 529 AD. Yet the birth of Parmenides, one of the great mentors of Socrates (and, via osmosis, of Plato), is believed to have taken place somewhere between 540 and 520 BC, on the equal opposite side of the so-called Christ event as Justinian’s decree.

Canto 1.1 (.769) 

Araqi told Jo Yu-ri

as they sat in the small hallway wide Udon Lab on West Thirty Second

right next to the Martinique

how he had no recollection of re-reading Rings of Saturn whatsoever—in fact the only reason Araqi even realized he’d started re-reading Rings of Saturn at all was a sole blue pen underline strike under the word Rumelia

right on top of page ninety nine that

now re-reading it yet again

Araqi knew all too well he would have never made when he initially read Rings of Saturn

because at that time Araqi barely knew what Rumelia referenced

but upon a second reading

assuming said second reading took place when Araqi believed it did

he was totally balls deep in Rumelia lore. For all of these reasons Araqi believed he’d only began his second reading of Rings of Saturn when he picked up the book again just the other afternoon

but in actuality

according to this particular blue underline on the ninety-ninth page of the novel

it seemed like he’d actually

in fact

recently started a third reading

not a second

but wasn’t it a bit befuddling

a tad disconcerting perhaps that a person could have absolutely no recollection of reading a whole fucking hundred pages of a novel less than five years prior

Araqi thought

a sentiment he expressed to Jo Yu-ri

and she agreed that it did seem egregious

but also perplexing and maybe even

not to be hyperbolic

but a bit ominous? But all this

the entirety of the pair’s specific stream of dialogue was abruptly interrupted when Jo Yu-ri noted Araqi’s visibly concatenating frustration as they were suddenly

violently upstreamed at the bar by some greasy fuck in a cobalt blue soccer jersey—the fact of the matter was the two friends only popped in the spot to begin with to take a quick listen to a particular "xylophone jazz trio" Araqi and Jo Yu-Ri heard playing from the foyer as they walked past on West Thirty Second

Araqi being intrigued by a trio led by xylophone

but once in line at the bar they both slowly realized how loquacious this bartender was with each customer

Araqi’s frustration concatenating with each second he continued to wait for a beer

and now

this customer in a cobalt blue soccer jersey

popped up out of seemingly thin air to upstream them

this customer

who

for his part

had apparently been repeatedly scorned in his quest to get a second beer himself

by none other than this loquacious bartender

who kept continuing on about checking the pipes in the basement

and now this customer in the cobalt blue soccer shirt audaciously cut them both in line to ruthlessly expedite his subsequent beverage. Araqi was abutting an audible complaint but remained unwilling to abandon his just-discovered excitement for this "xylophone jazz" as Jo Yu-ri noted that there was a Vietnamese food truck outside

right on the corner of Sixth and Thirty Second

that she could go get a few egg rolls if they wanted? Araqi wasn’t really in the mood

but this didn’t deter Jo Yu-Ri from ambling outside to see “what was up with their dumplings”

right as the bartender finally attended to Araqi’s pending request for an overpriced quote-unquote Italian style beer

which didn’t taste like Peroni at all

and by the time the two got to a seat the jazz trio finished its first set and began its break

lighting cigarettes and walking back to the bar for their respective

Araqi assumed

free refills.

Chris Conklin at Rite Aid

from Mechanism and Dialogue (An American Epic Poem)

“This nostalgia,” Ingo began, “ugh, it’s fundamentally an act of terrorism isn’t it? I mean in the sense that it’s working, in some sense, against the potential production 

of newer childhood memories from more recent childhoods, themselves of course fundamentally as false as our’s, but don’t they.” “Have as much of a right to exist as our own?” 

a female floor fan in Moscow named Tifa cut off, “Our own memories which we find.” “Serendipity in doubting as an act of faith?” Ingo finished, 

“What is nostalgia fundamentally? It’s fucking like ASMR or some shit. It’s just another church and, fundamentally, as Kierkegaard himself said, the Church cannot be distinguished from the State. 

Every prophet allegedly sent down to us, let’s just face it, results in an unintelligible truth and the subsequent post-mortem construction of a State that posits intelligibility 

as the crux of its tyranny.” “We shun unintelligibility,” Tifa said, “all the while remaining willfully ignorant to the fact intelligibility has no other function but to annihilate.” 

“There’s nothing lower than intelligibility really, at least as it relates to first causes, to Being itself,” Ingo retorted, “when you actually take a second to think about it, you know?” 

“Greed is the fulcrum of intelligibility.” “Why is it then that we seem to believe that it, intelligibility, is an encasing worthy of divinity?”

“Bring four witnesses to each infidelity,” Tifa said, “otherwise it’s you that spreads corruption in the land. Is that a commentary on intelligibility, to some extent?” 

“Shouldn’t the divine emerge sans encasing?” Ingo noted. “How could it not emerge exactly like that?” “Nostalgia: it’s basically terrorism to me.” 

“It’s only walking in solitude yet in densely populated areas that I actually feel anywhere close to at ease, like I can actually think a little bit?” “But the people we grew up with,” 

Ingo said, “these actual co-conspirators of our nostalgia, we can’t make ourselves known to them, can we?” “To them we remain eternally unintelligible,” Tifa concluded. 

“We’re like a local news story to them, but I for one wouldn’t necessarily take a ton of offense if they just closed the browser for good?”

I saw Chris Conklin

in line at Rite Aid; he looked 

twenty years older,

and I thought eventually 

the two of us will be dead.

“Leaving aside the alcohol and its potential benefits,” Ingo continued to Tifa, “weighed against the indubitable drawbacks, there are essentially only two choices in front of us: 

the one being to untether yourself completely from everything, and view the world and all human interaction as essentially things that require annihilation, primarily because  

there’s a next something that we should instead be turning our gaze toward. Or to basically sum it up quite simply the other option is: Everything reverts to Him. 

That, in fact, rather than untethering from everything, you should instead immerse yourself so fully in these infinite extensions that the net result is that you’re inevitably 

annihilated in turn, and the only thing that remains is His face.” “Go on, Ingo,” Tifa said. “‘Every moment my heart tugs me to the tavern - how can I remain here with these pious hermits?’” 

Ingo quoted, then said, “There’s an importance, philosophically speaking, of not making eye contact with anyone, of avoiding all eye contact if possible, 

especially in densely populated public places. The wisest of people have always understood this, Tifa. Conversely, the egregious alcoholic in some not immaterial sense 

is actually placed higher in spiritual knowledge than even the practiced monk, because the practiced monk - practicing the former approach of untethering from everything - 

has attempted to find his solace in nothingness, but true nothingness is quite elusive. True nothingness will, sure, eventually lead you to everything all at once, but via 

true nothingness you’ll encounter everything all at once from the opposite end. Whereas, the egregious alcoholic - yes, he’s taken of course essentially the opposite approach

of the practiced monk, and of course he’s landed in the same place essentially, yet viewing everything all at once from the opposite side! He’ll eventually approach everything

all at once but from the opposite end than the practiced monk. The practiced monk arrives at everything all at once from one end, while the egregious alcoholic arrives 

at everything all at once from the opposite end. You make yourself more objectionable when you drink by yourself, which is preferable when it comes to matters like these, Tifa.” 

“I suppose there’s really nothing a priori inappropriate about pouring yourself a stiff cocktail after a hard day’s work,” Tifa replied. “’Hmm, I’m just curious here,’ I thought,” Ingo continued, 

“sitting in a comfy red chair having a sip of some fairly high class Mezcal - by myself of course! - ‘yeah, I wonder how long it specifically takes for alcohol to truly leave your system?’ 

I thought, having successfully avoided alcohol entirely for a full week, for seven whole days. And on the seventh day I began to feel somewhat like a completely different person, 

as if all of my previous urges, during - I don’t know, the last two decades or so? - had shifted in some not statistically insignificant way. But it’s difficult if not impossible 

to truly map out these tiny shifts in the caprice you experience with regard to yourself, to map them to one thing at the exclusion of others, although, in a sense, 

at the time, I felt like a child again. At the time, Tifa, I was also intensely reflecting on the three plums I’d bought on sale earlier that day, and how one of them, the only one I’d consumed to date, 

had, I don’t know, a bit of a bitter taste to it? Almost like it wasn’t good at all? In turn, in addition to thinking about how long alcohol stays in your system, while drinking by myself,

I also found myself considering if purchasing produce that was marked ‘on sale’ was itself always necessarily an ill-advised idea in concept, that the only reason fruit 

would be on sale is if it was out of season, or if it was a member of a bad batch of produce, that basically some sequence of events must have occurred to this fruit 

that made it unappealing enough to the grocery store for the store to place it on sale. I finished my drink and figured I might as well leave my apartment and, I don’t know, 

fucking buy a book or something? But on my way to buy a book I ended getting a massive urge to pee, Tifa, so I ducked into the only dive bar that I knew for a fact 

wouldn’t frown upon me using their bathroom as a non-customer, because I knew for a fact all sorts of bums were using their bathroom on the regular, so why couldn’t I? 

I made literal nanosecond-duration eye contact with the girl behind the bar as I walked to the men’s room and recalled that it’d been literal months since I’d been to this bar, 

yet I distinctly recalled, the last time I was at this bar, being pushed mercilessly over the edge of sobriety by taking the bartender up on a second Mezcal, yet as I continued to reflect 

I concluded that that was actually the case every time I’d ever been to the fucking place. After I peed, I asked the girl behind the bar to get me a Mezcal and water, 

quite aware that the entire reason I went to this bar - to pee without purchasing - was now rendered completely pointless, and she asked for a clarification of my order 

via uttering the words: ‘Like with water? On top of it?’  Yeah and close my tab. I suppose it would be fair to say that I didn’t give a particular fuck about this girl behind the bar, Tifa, 

although, to be fair, it’s quite possible that at a previous point in my life I would have felt some urge to give some modicum of a fuck about her, to note some nanosecond-level 

eye contact as somehow imbued with meaning in some way. In my younger years I very well may have taken note of this bartender, now arduously tasked with constructing 

my Mezcal and water, and imagined a pretext of some sort to subsequently give a fuck about her as a person, but now, at that particular moment, sitting at the bar waiting for 

my Mezcal and water, it would be disingenuous to suggest that I gave a fuck about her in any way. Yet of course I obviously didn’t know her at all! At a minimal glance, 

it looked like she she’d hit a bit of a rough patch over the last few months - only because I distinctly recalled her from a few months prior, precisely because she was 

a physically attractive bartender at this bar, where generally speaking you’ll rarely if ever encounter anyone physically attractive. I closed the tab upon the execution of the order 

of the Mezcal and water. Like with water on top of it? Yes, that’s correct. With the water. And ice too if you have it.” “Ingo,” Tifa interjected, “you remember what I used to do for a living, right?” 

“The fact of the matter was,” Ingo continued, “that I’d crossed the bridge that afternoon in a completely capricious way! To be honest, Tifa, I was being just slightly dishonest 

when I said I decided to buy a book. Initially my thought was to just take a walk in my neighborhood. I was initially planning to take a quick walk, but I was intent on making sure 

that the walk remained exclusive to my particular neighborhood, which was on the one side of the bridge, and I was specifically attempting to avoid crossing the bridge 

and meandering into the downtown on the other side of the bridge, primarily because I’d been avoiding our downtown of late, of late our downtown perhaps even distressed me 

to some extent. This downtown contains metaphysical danger for me, I thought. I didn’t really have an urge to have anything to do with downtown at the time. Yet when I gave

some modicum of thought to trying to find an alternate translation of a book I’ve been reading - immediately as this thought occurred to me, Tifa, I took an aleatory sharp right turn,

now walking toward the bridge instead of further into my neighborhood! - now walking into downtown instead of walking further into my particular neighborhood, walking directly into downtown. 

Later on, urine officially dispensed, drinking a Mezcal and water while sitting at this bar - downtown! - I began staring into what could only be identified as pure blank space, 

right as the girl behind the bar moseyed to my end of the bar and engaged in a deep sip of her mixed drink. I continued to stare into pure blank space as this bartender, 

now finished with her deep sip, now clearly satiated by the depth of this sip, turned her back to me and sat her ass on the ice box and also started to stare into what I could only assume 

to be a form of pure blank space. She pulled up on her blue jeans repeatedly. At a glance a tattoo on her lower hip, partially obscured by the very blue jeans she pulled up on, 

seemed to depict a man flipping off the world. A drunk man approached the bar and redeemed a Keno ticket that won him one single dollar, but he only submitted the ticket 

after prefacing the submission by apologizing for even turning in the admittedly meager ticket. Yet he subsequently turned in the ticket and ambled back to the other end of the bar 

with a single dollar bill in hand. The girl turned around again and returned her ass to the ice box, her blue jeans displayed more or less right in front of my face. She pulled up on the jeans again. 

You know what my problem is, I thought to myself, Tifa, staring into this pure blank space and remaining only benignly aware of the blue jean adorned buttocks motionless in space 

more or less right in front of my face: My problem is that I actually lack a necessary derisive fervor when it comes to things - that I’ve somehow mistakenly come to believe 

I’m too derisive of things, when in fact it’s actually the case that I’m lacking in the requisite derision appropriate for things. For years I’ve considered myself too derisive 

when in reality I haven’t been nearly derisive enough! You cannot allow yourself to make eye contact, Tifa - this is the first philosophical principle. Yet, at the same time, 

all philosophical thought of any worth has emerged from densely populated areas. You must accept everything all at once, in one instant as 

an aesthetic beauty, where now and next collapse upon each other instantaneously, but in a way where it’s approached from a very specific side.” 

The Madness of a Cloud: 7th Canto

 Canto VII

New Co-Op Cashier False Doppelganger Arguments

1227:1739 .706

Cloud just at that moment had begun to recapitulate

this time to the two of them—Aerith and Tifa—how it wasn’t actually the case that he’d seen the being

no

there wasn’t in fact an actual physical being in that sense of the phrase—it wasn’t like the men in the black cloaks they’d be following in Rebirth (were either of them familiar with that plotline yet?). He’d just began to explain this to the both of them

and Cloud didn’t feel any different about it necessarily—the fact that he was telling the both of them—Tifa was behind the bar and Aerith just happened to be there. It was fine. Were they familiar with Rebirth yet? Probably not

right? But no

in this case Cloud had been fucking

you know

just sitting on this carpet in Wutai at the time—he sat on the carpet cross-legged

and then he suddenly intuited a "purely divine being" emanating in the triangle head encapsulated in the perfectly square design that repeated endlessly throughout the entire carpet. This triangle head was what Cloud could only describe as a "laughing Allah"

that’s how it struck him—there wasn’t really a question about it in Cloud’s mind

and it was actually beautiful. Yes

a "laughing Allah" was the only way he could describe the divine being

which certainly "communicated with him" as he sat cross-legged in Wutai in a somewhat mystical manner

albeit not quite verbally

but the being certainly communicated in a way that caused Cloud to smile. Cloud—smile?! The two women found that totally hilarious! Tifa nearly fucked up the beer she was pouring she was so surprised to hear Cloud of all people talking about himself "smiling"

but neither Tifa nor Aerith found this anecdote of Cloud’s to be disingenuous in any way—in fact they both fully supported Cloud’s confessions and more often than not even found them legitimately intriguing (but there were

of course

some exceptions!)

albeit they generally found the anecdotes intriguing in a one-on-one setting

as opposed to this FFM arrangement. But that was clearly fine! It just so happened Aerith was around and she popped in the bar. No big deal at all! Yet

while contemplating whether or not another Moscow Mule was advisable or not

Cloud expressed quite vigorously that he wanted to relay a subsequent anecdote that he viewed apropos of the carpet encounter

if that was okay? Of course! Well

specifically it was that when he popped into his local co-op grocery store that morning

for just a few minor items

a couple hand fruits really

and the new cashier asked him—right as he shifted his headphones up off of his ears to start the formalized sales transaction—if his "brother or something" went there sometimes?—to the grocery store? Did Cloud "have a brother" by any chance? Because she

the new cashier

felt like she’d seen him before? Well

Cloud said to the cashier

thinking about it for a second

he found it quite possible that this alleged doppelganger was actually fucking just him!—Cloud himself!—that the cashier was in that particular instance confusing Cloud "for his actual self"

that this cashier "only believed she’d seen" someone who looked "just like Cloud" before because she’d

in fact

seen Cloud before. He walked away just momentarily

he told Tifa and Aerith

just to toss his basket back into the stack of baskets behind the automatic doors. Yeah

he’d take one more Mule

please Tifa? The new cashier was chuckling when Cloud arrived back at the checkout counter ready to pay for his shit—she was in the process of entering the item number for his red quinoa

chuckling alone—"it could’ve been you" she repeated

chuckling

but then

Cloud relayed to Tifa and Aerith

she actually came around to Cloud’s particular hypothesis. The new cashier

after thinking about it

came to agree with Cloud

that she actually probably had seen him in the grocery store before

and that she’d just now erroneously figured he had a brother

when in fact this hypothetical brother was "actually just Cloud himself". Tifa considered

after she’d ingested the full anecdote and served Cloud his refreshed Moscow Mule

that it was somewhat likely that the cashier wanted to quote-unquote suck his cock

and Cloud didn’t necessarily disagree with the notion!—he certainly considered it possible

that this cashier may have been amenable to something like that

but that wasn’t quite the point! There was a type of wisdom latent in the exchange

wasn’t there?—regardless of whether or not the cashier wanted to "perform fellatio" on Cloud? Aerith

by contrast

took a more philosophical angle to her analysis of the encounter

because she agreed with Cloud that the cashier exhibited a certain spiritual insight

even if it was inadvertent. Aerith

for her part

didn’t put much of any stock into the cashier’s intentions

whether or not they were sordid

benign

or simply indifferent. Upon acknowledging this Tifa noted that she recognized Aerith’s point of view as valid

that it was probably the "right way to take it in"

even if she

Tifa

wasn’t personally at the point of participating in quite that level of objectivity (if they could

in fact

call it that). Cloud noted that

at the end of the day

he couldn’t help it if a "certain person felt an urge" to suck his cock—that whether or not someone wanted to suck anyone’s cock is something ultimately unknowable

that he couldn’t simply toss potential spiritual encounters to the wayside purely because of a purported sordid subtext or intention. Both women agreed with this

yet perhaps Aerith just a tad more than Tifa?—not to say Tifa was somehow beside herself with jealousy in any material way—no

this distinction between Tifa and Aerith was probably rooted more so in Aerith’s basically absurd ability to remain philosophically undeterred about other women while steeped in an obvious love triangle. Did she even like Cloud

really? Because it was really quite evident that Cloud

Tifa

and Aerith were "collectively entwined in a sort of love triangle"

but Aerith

for her part

maintained quite the unique ability to remain essentially philosophical about it all—she didn’t seem to allow feelings of jealousy to overcome her in the least when Cloud relayed anecdotes about cashiers that

if the three were being honest

clearly wanted to whip the guy’s cock out and suck on it for an extended interval of time. Did she even really like Cloud? His individual feelings on the situation were a little ambiguous

even when he was all alone—Cloud was of course incapable of assessing his own feelings for somewhat obvious reasons.

The Madness of a Cloud: 1st Canto

 Canto I

“The Nice Man with his Wife’s Last Name’s Form of Annihilation”

1859:2546 

.730

(3rd edition: block-as-line macrotonal)

Cloud was sitting at Seventh Heaven drinking a Fernet on the rocks engaging in light conversation with a cocksucker he’d never even met about a Queen’s Blood play-in game that he’d—this particular cocksucker—requested to be put on the TV at the bar. Well

actually Cloud corrected

for the record

that he’d actually been reading a few pages of Timaeus prior to all this

making a few disparate notes

finding himself puzzled at the sensory information that continued to be relayed into his brain. Cloud basically alleged he was flummoxed about the sensory information that became

in some way

relayed to what he guessed was his brain?—how any of that was corroborated

but more so Cloud contemplated the static nature of said images—that’s what he was specifically contemplating when a guy with a round-ass face leaned onto the bar

seeking to close his tab

obviously excited to tell the bartender that he may need to show her his ID

just because he took his wife’s last name and hadn’t had a chance to change his license yet? The patron with the round-ass face noted how nice the bartender was (Tifa!)

but what was her name again? He could definitely display his ID if she really needed

just because

again

his last name was different now—taking his wife’s name and all! Of course

Cloud noted

that it was clear that no one gave a fuck about the printed name on a credit card in that bar

and Tifa

for her part

didn’t exactly seem like she was ramping up to suck this dude off just because he was a radical feminist. For Cloud’s part he was still

you know

attempting to get behind the blunt sensations being smuggled relentlessly into his so-called conscious existence. Everything was an image to some extent

right Aerith? Touch itself was a fucking sensory image. It was a quaint Spring evening where Cloud felt more or less destined to philosophize

having started drinking wine in preparation for a Friday night dinner

only to have Tifa bail last minute

because she needed to pick up a bar shift—leaving him completely free to continue this wine drinking in a ritualistic way that would be conducive to philosophical ideas. Yes

Cloud continued to Aerith

it was basically only via drinking alone

but in a ritualistic fashion

that he’d achieved any sort of philosophical inquiry. You couldn’t just sit at a desk and "become philosophical"

at least not for Cloud! Maybe some people could! But

no

not Cloud. He’d imagine that there were probably a litany of possible ways of becoming philosophical—like

for instance

for the round-faced albino chap

perhaps telling Tifa that he’d taken his wife’s last name

maybe that could be seen as possibly ritualistic in a way

a gateway to some sort of becoming philosophical. This was "actually science"

Cloud told her he thought at the bar

successfully avoiding making any eye contact with the round-faced man. Was it necessarily strange at all that once the Greeks went extinct philosophy went more or less completely and utterly downhill and never looked back in the least

that the last group to really reach much of any philosophical success made a sincere effort to conjoin getting fucked up with contemplating intelligible phenomena?—that these Greeks attempted to marry inebriation and rigorous dialectic? That all thought since—to paraphrase North Whitehead—had been a minor footnote to Plato or whatever? The thing was

according to Cloud

you just couldn’t willy nilly "delve into metaphysics" completely sober! But that wasn’t to say a person should necessarily become some degenerate alcoholic either

because a degenerate drunk would in no way make a great meta-physicist either—that was basically impossible

because

like Cloud said

the solo mode of inebriation should be done ritualistically

in spurts

at certain times. You couldn’t just be like hitting the bottle as soon as you woke from a slumber!—after said inebriation sessions you’d require sobriety to parse through whatever it was that came to you via said contemplation

no? In fact

the actual science was nothing beyond this parsing through of inebriation sessions of rigorous contemplation! That was it—what laid behind logic and metaphysics

in Cloud’s mind at least! But inebriation could be anything really—Cloud could enter a state of inebriation in a car alone on a Tuesday AM

without consuming a damn thing. Aerith more or less agreed

adding that on the one hand a philosophical mind should be able to analyze

interpret

extrapolate

all of that scientific stuff—but

on the other

if you fail to place yourself in a position to receive anything to analyze

interpret

or extrapolate then you were basically screwed! Cloud more or less agreed but added that—sans this type of “inspiration ” so to speak—they’d be stuck sitting at a table just noodling around nonsensically

vacillating back and forth between two types of nothingness

and then just probably knocking off someone else’s work by accident. But none of this was new! It wasn’t like Cloud was breaking news in any way. At this point Aerith asked—you know

was this albino douche bag

he was an element of this analysis? No

not really—according to Cloud—maybe the guy was trying a tad too hard?—to present himself as a specific archetype to the general public

as a guy who decided to spit in the face of his own chromosome count

which was something Cloud "personally endorsed!" Granted Cloud probably wouldn’t do it by taking his wife’s last name

because Cloud personally was obviously more prone to a type of isolated and overly dramatic self-annihilation than a subservient and disingenuously muted feminist annihilation

but he wasn’t ipso facto opposed to either! Aerith agreed one hundred percent! But Cloud still would go a little further

noting that in the intelligible sphere

as someone like

say

Proclus would note

that so-called forms were somehow able to participate in one another without mixing

whereas within the sensible realm they participated in things and subsequently got dirty. But Cloud thought that it was worth going one step further—since they were discussing annihilation and stuff anyway

that the perceived mixing between forms that took place in the sensible arena was itself just a projection of mixture but not actual mixture. The intelligible sphere

being purely emanated

participated within itself without mixing itself

while in the sensible sphere it didn’t seem like that was possible

that by participating within sensible things they became essentially mixed with them

assuming they were categorically sensible. Essentially nature was tainted

which of course Cloud and Aerith knew all too well! Way too well! Hence their shared acquiescence toward occasional annihilation! But even this sensible filth

so to speak

Cloud thought

this perceived mixing up in the participation of sensible things

wasn’t it also a projection?—an emanation

just as the participation of the intelligible sphere was also an emanation of the primary unity of all things? Which

yeah

brought Cloud back to that albino round-faced fuck at the bar

taking his wife’s last name—because ultimately the albino’s vantage point wasn’t remarkably divergent from Cloud’s or Aerith’s

Cloud thought. This albino was promoting a certain type of annihilation of their cultural-sensible realm

thinking that the patriarchal lineage of their society was basically something objectionable

something essentially tainted

that should be annihilated in the service of something more pure. Okay

well

Cloud thought that made a modicum of sense! Maybe taking his wife’s last name was in a sense a greater form of purity than locking a woman in a kitchen and expecting a blowjob every other evening

Cloud thought. Just as Proclus and Socrates sensed that the intelligible sphere participated with itself yet not in a way where it mixed with itself

that this was distinct from our further descended

sensible sphere where things participated with one another but got mixed up in the process—well

maybe this albino man was noting that the patriarchy was a participatory mixing that left unseemly cum stains—"for lack of a better phrase!"—on human experience. Patriarchy

in the albino man’s mind

should be annihilated because of this sensible mixing up

this putrid tainting of what would be better off pure. And taking your nice wife’s name was a proper mode of annihilation in response. Aerith remarked that she knew Cloud would inevitably bring the discourse back to this poor chap closing his tab

but

just to be clear

what Cloud was saying was that this mixing that occurred in the sensible realm was itself just a separate projection—just a lesser mode of projecting! So while the material world may have disgusted them

perhaps moving the two toward some sort of all-encompassing conceptual annihilation

and as much as the patriarchy might have seemed putrid to the albino husband at the bar who looked to annihilate himself by taking his nice wife’s last name

it could be wise to consider that these disgusting aggregates were themselves simply derivative projections

that they weren’t actual mixtures

that they were just derivative emanations as opposed to tattoos of what they thought they despised. Aerith was aware—she wasn’t distressed about it

but she knew this poor albino guy would in time take the brunt of it from Cloud. Cloud questioned whether he didn’t deserve it? Plus like they’d already implied—they must to proceed from the immanent to the transcendent

no?

Poetry on Pearl: 7/26

 Sponsored by Blue Velvet Review + Too Gyroz

Katreena Dayacap

Nicholas Syrianus Katsafanas

Self-Similarity in the Extended Line

There’s measurement and division; there’s self-similarity and syllabic interval.

There are two crucial elements that, at this point, it’s imperative for us to define if we’re going to continue to write poems. The first is the syllable, which is a simple unit; the syllable is unitary, a simple mathematical unit. But the second element is the echo. The echo is relational, something that exists only as a derivative of the unitary syllable. The echo is a mist, a notable participation in Likeness across two or more of these units, separated by a reasonable spatial distance, connected temporally via speech.

The echoes, in aggregate, become a measurement of self-similarity.

The line or block of text is composed of syllables and the echoes are the measurements of likeness between these fundamental elements. This will be the case for either in an individual line or a block of text that’s then either left as a block or then diced up into set intervals after the fact. 

The canto itself is a self-similar line, and the (epic) poem is a self-similar wave, both of which come into being via measurement.

These blocks of text could be called macrotones in a sense, and by that I mean they have a measured quotient of self-similarity (which expresses itself via sound) that defines the unit, that can’t be divided without changing essentially. A macrotone of .754 even if divided equally into two will change essentially, it will no longer be .754. Whereas a microtone takes a tone and divides it - a macrotone is an aggregation of sound. 

Echoes don’t tether the poet to ideas like end-rhymes, or stress patterns, or syllabic exactness. One of the best examples of self-similarity won’t be found in Ashbery or Whitman or Ginsberg or Pound. It’s the last line of the first verse of Big Pun’s “Twinz.”

Dead in the middle of Little Italy little did we know

that we riddled some middleman who didn't do diddily

[D]ead [i]n the [m][i][d]dle of [L][i]ttle [I]t[a][l][y] [l][i]ttle [d][i]d we know

that we r[i][d]dled some [m][i][d]dle[m]an who [d][i][d]n't [d]o [d][i][d]d[i][l][y]

31:31 1.00

The macrotone 1.00: peak lyricism. There are no fixed syllables per line here, and there’s no fixed pattern of stressed syllables, and there’s no end-rhyme, because although “Italy” and “diddily” might technically rhyme, in the incessant referencing back upon itself of the line, this outright rhyme is diluted by various the D’s, soft I’s, and L’s that ricochet violently across the line, engaging in fraction portions of alliteration and assonance, the echoing. 

But this is an extreme example, as you probably wouldn’t write an extended poem with this type of extremity sustaining itself, because the language itself would be so limited the content would become insipid. Split the tone into two and it changes essentially.

Line 1

[D]ead [i]n the m[i][d]dle of [L][i]ttle [I]t[a][l][y] [l][i]ttle [d][i]d we know

14:16 .875

 

Line 2

that we r[i][d]dled some [m][i][d]dle[m]an who [d][i][d]n't [d]o [d][i][d]d[i][l][y]

15:15 1.00

Even in this excessively lyrical example, if we split Pun’s macrotone equally into two, the value changes essentially, from 1.00 into .875 and 1.00. This concludes this section on self-similarity in the extended line.

Tapas is Actually Enjoyable

In absolutely no way shape or form do I regret expressing my vicious disgust with modern photography among young mothers who dedicate their Instagrams to infants 

It’s essential in my mind that we question the intrinsic value of the frozen image in fact of anything we note to be quote-unquote frozen in time 

Laotian hookah bar on Douglas Avenue abandoned basketball court on Douglas Avenue recalling my own decade old imagined images also on Douglas Avenue 

Have you been by any chance to that new Tapas place off Wickendon ‘suck my penis’ I said I haven’t had exceptional sushi since Tokyo closed 

Apparently Parmenides believed a divine being of some sort informed him of a certain indivisible oneness which moved him to write a poem