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: Canto VII

 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: Canto I

 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 

Falling in Love is Such a Bore

Blowing a shit on a city street outside a JWU dorm and then benignly driving up a big hill to buy a bean burrito at Baja’s I fucked up my brand new white vans stepping in a big puddle on New Year’s Eve 

I wish we’d known one another at another time unfortunately now you’re just a memory I’ve recalled like a thousand rewritten rough drafts 

Sometimes the people who fight for just causes are complete pieces of shit possibly because linearity has always been a pipedream for us collectively 

Inscrutable Myths: Prelude + 1st Canto

(Prelude) With a fair amount of ambivalence, knowing as well as anyone that Nikos typically spends the hours of 3PM through 7PM, Monday through Friday, verifying the European origin of his dietary tract, I approached Mr Kazantzakis at 6:59 PM, ambling toward the screened-in patio of his modest row house located spitting distance from Garden City, and began as such:

01 (.748)

Well Mr Kazantzakis

if I’m being honest with you

completely honest with you

if I’m holding back next to no honesty whatsoever

I should note that

yes

it’s indubitably true 

that of late 

I’ve found myself gluttonously chewing 

four to seven slices of gum in simultaneity

for a variety of reasons—in fact

it was just yesterday afternoon

prior to leaving our apartment to go grab a coffee 

that I indiscriminately 

shoved an entire pack of gum 

into my mouth 

and exuberantly chewed this large ball of gum

wondered if chewing gum was actually good for your teeth

when the thought occurred to me: 

Is emo the highest form of classical music America 

is historically responsible for? 

When discussing American music

I thought while chewing an entire pack of gum

a litany of genres

from post-bop jazz

to experimental rock

to avant-metal to the so-called 

classically trained composers of American descent

are discussed as ‘the truly classical music of America.’ 

‘But what if emo is the truly classical American music?’ 

I thought to myself

chewing an entire pack of gum

preparing myself to pay full-price for a coffee out somewhere

despite the fact I had an entire pot of coffee at my apartment

waiting to be imbibed for free. 

The primary conceit of emo music 

is that its creators are young and white and male

and that they originate from neighborhoods 

that are safe if not opulent and utterly hate their lives. Nothing

it should be noted

is ever proceeding well for the emo band

as the slightest deviation 

from the emo band’s best case scenario is always apocalyptic

despite the fact that

sociopolitically at least

they have everything going for them. 

The emo participant exists at the apex of the American totem pole

and despite this fact 

everything remains essentially objectionable to them. 

Nothing is going well! The emo song is

in practice

the antithesis of the virtue signal. And it occurred to me

as I left my apartment to pay four dollars for a coffee 

that would inevitably be co-opted by an art school professor

with no regard to socially acceptable decibel levels 

pontificating about people as brands to a foreign exchange student

that this type of wide-eyed narcissism

that this unironic ignorance of sociopolitical totem poles

this obsession with direct

lived experience at the expense of everything conceptual 

is perhaps the apex of what should comprise American classical music? 

And I nodded my head at this notion 

as we entered the Honda 

asking Tina if she’d be willing to play 

‘One-Eighty by Summer’ on our way to the coffee shop. 

My Oil Paintings

You said something deep and no one gave a shit my oil paintings looked like cunt fucked up at the Greek fest who said buying a subsequent bottle of Retsina is ill-advised? 

I’m ninety nine percent Pine Sol this is ritualistic writing erotic poems for Russian whores and signing my name χριστός ανέστη you can drown in a glass of water 

Philosophy still can’t save us people no longer chew wrapped pieces of gum no the industry has transitioned to free floating mini buckets of gumballs

How can I possibly concentrate on nuclear holocausts with all these big bad booty bitches around the mountain has better ears for bullshit I’ve never been a fan of camping

I’ve always found things somewhat preposterous I suppose two hookahs twist the little knob there you go I apologize for forgetting the meaning of cuando

Put some clothes on for Christ sake before you ball your eyes out I never lied about wanting to kill myself if anything the opposite! mountains have better ears for bullshit

Trees - some of them are old as fuck that’s why we built cities our fictions play better surrounded by buildings a Burmese python ate a forty four year old woman alive

It’s just like a snug little sleeping bag who doesn’t like to take a little nap four or five milligrams of melatonin why would you lie about wanting to drive yourself into a tree?

Thinking About Architecture

Thinking about architecture about the necessity of chance on a Nickanee’s patio with a group of people adjacent

Adjacent and discussing Chinese food in a manner that strikes you as the talk of pure imbeciles that like if chance is necessary? 

And it has to be necessary otherwise everything would become irreparably fixed but if it’s in fact necessary then it’s also in a sense fixed essentially being a necessity?-puzzling 

There’s a little triangle tattooed on a pinky finger there’s no individual ecstasy in architecture only during periods of intense collectivism at any given time it’s difficult

It’s challenging to quantify the amount of conversing occurring on the planet that’s architecture in a sense guy with a hook nose intensely biting his fingernails as upper middle class whites watch in awe

As other upper middle class whites recreate a modal jazz that was cutting edge in nineteen sixty five on Elmwood Avenue you recall images

Which informs your decision making in material ways recollected images are animated and in turn falsified solely in your mind

Which exists in a location that you can’t quite place at the time as you cross a windy Washington Street bridge a figure of this or that proportion is constructed in your memory

What we call your memory currently we’ll call it your memory to move out of the realm of seminal attraction into one of pure representation

An Aborted Anime Opera, Pt. 3

Two midgets eating delicious looking rice bowls at Xaco Taco. 

Repeating the phrases 

“There is no image.” 

“There is no memory.” 

There’s no image and there’s no memory. 

Sans image and memory we can start to approach the fundamental nature of the universe as such. 

Triple egg omelet 

with the kalamata olives. 

A chest crevice stained 

in a permanent ink of sorts. 

Cuddly beavers eat vegetables from the hands of well intentioned human beings. 

The small bottles of soju were only eight bucks a piece. 

On Poetry

Subtitled: Set Meter or Category Meter?

Categories are aesthetically imperative. Distinguishing one thing from another thing is a typical endeavor of conscious entities, and I sometimes think this is why Robert Ashley was so adamant about his work being referred to as opera, even though it didn’t strike all that many people as that on first glance. You could argue we’ve become a little too complacent when it comes to categories, that we don’t rigorously define categories in aesthetics as much as we used to. To Ashley, for example, his work was a fusion of text and music, in long form, so it was opera. In his words, there was nothing else you could call it. I’ve similarly struggled with category, because you’re always tempted to re-categorize things, usually in ways that are critically or commercially advantageous to your work. No one wants to write poems anymore just like, for a time, no one in American wanted anything to do with opera. You can’t pitch a poem to a literary agent. It’s a genre with basically no commercial value left in it whatsoever.

As a side note, categorically, it seems like poetry should be: a text that adheres to some fixed sequence of sound patterns? Otherwise, what would poetry be? Is it just line breaks? No, that’s absurd, because if poetry is defined by having line breaks, then its qualitatively indistinguishable from prose. An enter key can’t define a literary genre. When poetry exits its natural metrical iterations it perhaps loses sight of its proper definition. If we agree that an enter key can’t define a literary genre, then poetry, if defined by line breaks and not metrical structure - or by feeling or other nebulous attributes that could very easily also be attributable to prose - isn’t a literary genre. It seems obvious that what primarily distinguishes prose from poetry is the former is not measured temporally, while the latter, by some method or another, is. Sans this measurement it becomes a nonsensical category, and I’d offer the possibility that the “serious poet” has continued to decline in relevance in Western culture in congruence with this unfortunate categorical restructuring of poetry. Poetry used to be the highest form of literature, held in the same royal esteem as philosophy. Philosophy was even at times chiefly expressed through poetry. Do people not yearn for poetry anymore? The popularity of rap music could suggest otherwise. 

In fact it was on pocket notepads in retail parking lots that I first started developing a new meter - I was listening to my cherished CDs of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2 and Supreme Clientele, intensely studying the intricacies of Raekwon and Ghostface’s language, how at times they would use the absolute bare minimum micro-repetitions to vault their narrative lines forward. It struck me as a genius use of language - a pushing forward of rhyme schemes, to the point where at times they were no longer strictly rhyming at all, where they weren’t defining themselves by line length or end-rhymes, but by a machine-gun like dispersion of very small symmetries. Big Pun used a more ostentatious but similarly subterranean style on Capital Punishment. Those three really put the bug in my head about developing forward-looking meters, about measuring the tiniest possible symmetries in a line - not Ashbery or Pound or Eliot or Tate or WCW or Whitman or Ginsberg or Stein. And then it was studying Ashley’s operas that moved me to formalize that type of structure more mathematically, to make it categorical in a sense.

So then a movement toward making poetry metrical again doesn’t have to ipso facto reintroduce iambic pentameter. Poetry doesn’t need to go back to classical meters to adhere to a meter. A fixed sequence can be an extensive quantification, but it can also be intensive. You could count syllables. You could established fixed patterns. But you could develop quotients as well. You could establish a fixed range for these quotients. The sequence would then be variable in a way, but fixed as well. Wouldn’t that be metrical as well? Wouldn’t that be a text adhering to some fixed sequence of sound patterns?

The idea that came to me further in stages, usually while I was sleeping or in a waking state, was developing what I now call an echo quotient. A quantification of the aggregate symmetry in a line or a poem. An echo being an instance of symmetry. Symmetry being an instrument of acceleration. Acceleration being a key to breaking through things. 

There’s a binary of stressed and unstressed, but there’s also a binary of the symmetric and the asymmetric. 

There’s Set Theory where each mathematical object is defined by its interior (stressed-unstressed, stress-unstressed). There’s Category Theory where each mathematical object is defined by how its overall value relates to surrounding objects (the first line is 72.4% symmetrical (echoes/syllables), while the second line is 69.3%, and the third is 70.4%: all three lines fall within a range of .667-1.00). 

You could reasonably argue that not everything has to be strictly about counting. 

 

Ex:

 

Line 1: ()(--) ()(--) ()(--) ()(--) ()(--) - unstressed/stressed - iambic pentameter
Line 2: (-) (-) (--)(--) ()(-) (-)() (--)() - symmetric/asymmetric - macrotonal 
() = syllable
-- = stressed/symmetric 
- = partially symmetric

 

The two lines are iambically divergent but macrotonally equal
i.e. A line in iambic pentameter has a stress quotient of 0.50. The macrotonal line above has an equal echo quotient of 0.50

But the above are only preliminary examples. Really, what this meter is - is a macrotonal meter, and by that I mean it’s focused on the two things: (a) the extension of the line, and (b) the line’s relation with itself. 

An extended line that’s measured in relation to itself - then that measurement relates to the other lines of the poem. 

The line must be severely extended! In The Madness of a Cloud, the initial poem has a mean line length of 375 syllables, while the epilogue has a MLL of 144 syllables. The lines are even longer in Metropolis + Isosceles. You extend the line so it has more of an opportunity to relate with itself, to loop back and thrust itself forward - the line relates to itself via a scattered symmetry of sound - it’s basically, in rap terms, a long internal rhyme scheme in the service of a narrative thrust, but the scheme, rather than A-B-A-B-C-B-C is denoted by a quotient. How many instances of echoes are in the line in relation to its total syllable count. 

Echoes divided by syllables equals echo quotient equals macrotonal value. That’s how the line is defined, and that’s how it relates to the other lines in the poem. The echo quotient.

The meter, strictly speaking, is then this shared range. In the case of (a) Adam Metropolis, (b) Larry Isosceles, and (c) The Madness of a Cloud, to take three examples, the meter is >.667. So each line’s symmetrical relationship with itself is greater than two-thirds - or: there are 67 or more echoes (internal “rhymes”) for every 100 syllables. The symmetrical relationship each line has with itself is in the final third of the number One. 

Symmetry accelerates. Another tenet of Ashley’s work in opera was his assertion that the English language needed to be accelerated, that due to the higher concentration of consonants, due to the wider array of discrete phonetic sounds, that English couldn’t be slowed down to the same degree as the Romantic languages.  

Ex:

 

Eros is a Gateway

 

Line 01 (Initial Edit)
Cloud was [f][i]ne [w]ith [w]h[a]tever Ti[f]a [w][a]nted to [s][a]y to him (“I al[w][a]ys [w][a]nt you to [s]peak your m[i]nd!”), [b]ut he just [w][a]sn’t going to [b]ack off his [w]ell-[d]eveloped (in his m[i]nd) [i][d]ea [th]at [th]e [i]n[s][t]itution [i]t[s]elf (as a [c]on[c]ept) was fundamentally [r]e[s]t[r][i][c]t[i]ve, [th]at [th]ey shouldn’t ne[c]e[s]s[ar]ily [c][ar]e what’s in the [c]ontainer (“[C]atego[r][y] theo[r][y]!”), but al[s][o] that e[r][o][s] [w]as a g[a]te[w][a]y. Ti[f]a just wasn’t sure th[a]t doing [th][a]t in the bar, [a][f]ter hours - she [d]i[d]n’t kn[o]w, was that ap[p][r][o][p][r]iate, Cloud?
Echoes: 76
Cloud was fine with whatever Tifa wanted to say to him (“I always want you to speak your mind!”), but he just wasn’t going to back off his well-developed (in his mind) idea that the institution itself (as a concept) was fundamentally restrictive, that they shouldn’t necessarily care what’s in the container (“Category theory!”), but also that eros was a gateway. Tifa just wasn’t sure that doing that in the bar, after hours - she didn’t know, was that appropriate, Cloud?
Syllables: 124
Quotient: .612903

 

Line 01 (Revised Edit)
Cloud was [f]or sure [f][i]ne [w]ith [w]h[a]tever Ti[f]a [w][a]nted to [s][a]y to him (“I al[w][a]ys [w][a]nt you to [s]peak your m[i]nd!”), [b]ut he just [w][a]sn’t going to [b]ack off his [w]ell-[d]eveloped (in his m[i]nd) [i][d]ea [th]at [th]e [i]n[s][t]itution [i]t[s]elf (as a [c]on[c]ept) was ba[s]i[c]ally [r]e[s]t[r][i][c]t[i]ve, [th]at [th]ey shouldn’t ne[c]e[s]s[ar]ily [c][ar]e what’s th[e][r]e in the [c]ontainer (“[C]atego[r][y] theo[r][y]!”), but al[s][o] that e[r][o][s] [w]as a g[a]te[w][a]y. Ti[f]a ju[s]t wasn’t [c]ertain th[a]t e[n]gaging i[n] [th][a]t in the bar, [a][f]ter hours - she [d]i[d]n’t kn[o]w, was th[a]t [a][c]tual[l]y ap[p][r][o][p][r]iate, [C][l]oud?
Echoes: 91
Cloud was for sure fine with whatever Tifa wanted to say to him (“I always want you to speak your mind!”), but he just wasn’t going to back off his well-developed (in his mind) idea that the institution itself (as a concept) was basically restrictive, that they shouldn’t necessarily care what’s there in the container (“Category theory!”), but also that eros was a gateway. Tifa just wasn’t certain that engaging in that in the bar, after hours - she didn’t know, was that actually appropriate, Cloud?
Syllables: 133
Quotient: .684211

 

Line 02 (Initial Edit)
[E]ven if sh[e] wan[t]ed [t]o [d]o [i]t! [I]n the [b]ar?! Sure, C[l]oud total[l]y un[d]er[s]tood, [b]ut, again - ju[s]t to [r]eite[r][a]te - e[r]os was a g[a]tew[a]y. [I]t [d][i][d]n’t have to [b]e a[b]out, you know, purely that. [W]hat? - [w]as [T]ifa now going to a[l]low herself to [b][e] [t]y[r]annical[l][y] [r]e[s]t[r]ained [b]y the [i]n[s]t[i]tutio[n]al [n]orms of Shin[r]a, et al? That’s how she was going to [l]ive her [l]ife? - by the [r]ules of [Sh]in[r]a? [Sh]e could [p]op that [p]ussy [w]ide o[p]en [w]henever she [w]an[t]ed [t]o! - if sh[e] r[e]all[y] [w]an[t]ed [t]o, ev[e]n [i]f [i]t was ju[s]t [s]u[p]er [q]u[i][c]kly! ([W]hat [w]as the tem[p]e[r]ature in the [r]oom?)
Echoes: 80
Even if she wanted to do it! In the bar?! Sure, Cloud totally understood, but, again - just to reiterate - eros was a gateway. It didn’t have to be about, you know, purely that. What? - was Tifa now going to allow herself to be tyrannically restrained by the institutional norms of Shinra, et al? That’s how she was going to live her life? - by the rules of Shinra? She could pop that pussy wide open whenever she wanted to! - if she really wanted to, even if it was just super quickly! (What was the temperature in the room?)
Syllables: 141
Quotient: .567376

Line 02 (Revised Edit)
[E]v[e]n [i]f sh[e] wan[t]ed [t]o [d]o [i]t! [I]n the [b]ar?! Of [c]our[s]e, [C][l]oud total[l]y un[d]er[s]tood, [b]ut, again - ju[s]t to [r]eite[r][a]te - e[r]os was a g[a]tew[a]y. [I]t [d][i][d]n’t have to [b]e a[b]out, you know, purely that. [W]hat? - [w]as [T]i[f]a [n]ow gon[n][a] [a][l]low her[s]el[f] to [b][e] [t]y[r]an[n]ical[l][y] [r]e[s]t[r]ained [b]y the [i]n[s]t[i]tutio[n]al [n]orms of Shin[r]a, et al? [W]as that [n][ow] h[ow] she [w]as go[n]na [l]ive her [l]ife? - by the [c]ontem[p]uous [r]ules of [Sh]in[r]a? [Sh]e [c]ould [p]op that [p]ussy [w]ide o[p]en [w]henever she [w]an[t]ed [t]o! - if sh[e] r[e]all[y] [w]an[t]ed [t]o, ev[e]n [i]f [i]t was ju[s]t [s]u[p]er [q]u[i][c]k[l][y]! ([W]hat exa[c]t[l][y] [w]as the tem[p]e[r]ature in the [r]oom?)
Echoes: 107
Even if she wanted to do it! In the bar?! Of course, Cloud totally understood, but, again - just to reiterate - eros was a gateway. It didn’t have to be about, you know, purely that. What? - was Tifa now gonna allow herself to be tyrannically restrained by the institutional norms of Shinra, et al? Was that now how she was gonna live her life? - by the contemptuous rules of Shinra? She could pop that pussy wide open whenever she wanted to! - if she really wanted to, even if it was just super quickly! (What exactly was the temperature in the room?)
Syllables: 149
Quotient: .718121