The Anomaly

He could still smell the chalk dust. He could still hear the echoes of the logarithms, and the grammar rules. He was still being put in position. Always the semblance of order.

Schooling never taught him anything. The teachers didn’t instruct, inform, communicate, or educate. They rarely said anything that hadn’t been said to them. It was simply hearsay, redundancy, and the passing of orders. With orders, they tried to create order. They tried to put him in position in kind.

It was never so much what was said, but what was not said - like the silences of history. Each utterance from the mentors, by omission, put him in a place, in a position as a subject, all the while compelling obedience to an order, as a position in an order.

It was as if they wanted him to become a set of coordinates, settled at a particular longitude and latitude. He became a nomad instead, and wandered through the halls of mirrors, seeking lines of escape.

- Y0FoolIO

- photo of Gilles Deleuze - photo artist unknown

Building a Bridge

- for Fanny

bridges are seldom

built or burned

alone

being a species

of bridge builders

we build bridges

because we

must

because there is

no other

way

by beam

or

arch

by truss

or

suspension

by clay

or

paper

by word

or

touch

by desire

or

necessity

by-

passing

ob-

stacles

in order

to

connect

understand

overcome

cross-over

transcend

and

become

- The Fool

- photo artist unknown

In the Corner

Each step to the corner
was taken grudgingly,
but taken all the same,
time and time again.

The judgment’s decree,
the ostracisms in time,
time and time again -
until there you stayed.

- The Fool
- photo by Misha Gordon

The Complaint Department

The customer addled up to the counter before the obligatory call for “Next.” He wore a pretense of authority, obviously unable to admit his predetermined disadvantaged state. The clerk scanned for the tell-tale signs of betrayal: skin pigment tone changes, muscles tensing, or the slightest of a quiver in the lips.

The customer pulled a receipt out of his pocket. This one knew the rules; no receipt, no return or exchange. He laid the receipt on the counter, followed by a bag imprinted with the store's logo. The clerk didn't show any signs of noticing. A finger tapped the receipt, followed by the preliminary attention-getting clearing of the throat, “A-hem. I would like to make a return.”

The clerk’s eyes narrowed, and captured the customer in the pinpoint crossfire of a pair of steel blue eyes. The customer braced himself and continued. “I would like to return this brain, and either get my money back, or exchange it for another.”

The clerk gauged the nerve of the customer. No flush in the cheeks, no tensing of the face muscles, no quiver in the lips. A peculiar staunchness stood before him, someone with spine. The clerk took greater notice. This customer was prepared, determined, and parried before the first thrust was even presented. “And what is wrong with this brain?” the clerk sneered through gritted teeth.

“It doesn’t work right,” the customer asserted. “Its thinking isn’t correct. I believe it to be a faulty product. It is certainly one of poor craftsmanship.”

The clerk weighed the words carefully, and retorted, “And just what makes you believe that the thinking isn’t correct?”

“I have thought about it,” the customer responded coolly. “I've thought about it a lot, and I find it to be presumptuous, and rather maladaptive in its adaptations. I surely want something that works better than this contraption, and if that isn't an option, then I would like a full refund. Believe me, I can do without one of these, thank you.”

There was a short silence. “This determination of bad thinking," the clerk continued with a procedural tone, "by way of the process of thinking about thinking, presents a situation that I am not prepared to address. Please, allow me to call the manager.”

The clerk's hand paused ever so slightly as he reached for the phone.

- Y0Fool
- photo artist unknown

In Poetry & Relationships

there is meaning 

in scission, 

in the break 

 in the spaces 

  (__________), 

   in---between… 

...and punctuation 

 is of great import - 

the connections, 

and the tethers -

 with the comma 

being kinder

,

 than a period

. 

 - Y0

Pollyanna (the glad game)

the first thing i learned is to always draw a sun in the sky above

- Y0Fool

- photo by Stanko Abadzic

Migrants All

standing at the border 

of Always and in Everything 

Alone 

seeking transcendence 

 a way to cross the barrens 

to a Land of Understanding 

 but the mind is its own prison 

and there is no common ground

 in the realms of Experience 

 - The Fool - photo by Theo Georgiades

Winter Sonnet: A Childhood Memory

Some things
You had to do, like the cold lineup out
On Chestnut Hill - with mother's apron strings
Left at home. Just the neighborhood turnout
and the Flexi-Flyers. You had to go.
It wasn't a rule that was written down
At school, or made up by the parents, no,
Nothing to do with Authority's frown.
You held to your sled tight and went for it,
With all the courage you could muster, all
Of it bound and gathered into a fit -
All in answer to a different call.
And with the wind's sharp edges tracking tears
In your eyes - you ran from, and with your fears.

- The Fool
- This posting first appeared @ "Shouting in the Dark" 2006

Pattern Recognition

An unkindness of ravens greeted me yesterday morning. Three of them were in the spruce in the back yard. I noticed right away that there was something different in their chatter. They were not engaged in the casual and conventional caw-cawing or kack-kacking. This was not the back and forth banter of conversation. No, this was different. There were no pauses between the calls, any echolalia, or variation in returns. This was unison. Three voices calling as one, a choir for the day. I noted it. One should pay attention to changes in pattern 

Despite the forecast for scattered thundershowers in the area, it was the typical blue-sky-with-the touch-of-white-puff-cloud-type morning. Crisp. Warm and dry. There was a light wind heard in the trees. I noticed the seed puffs from the cottonwoods in the air. Like miniature dandelion clusters…one…two…four…eight…sixteen…thirty-two…sixty-four…an exponential swirl of cottonwood puffs puff-puffing along. It was barely perceptible against the bright sky above. I caught the motion out of the corner of my eye, on the peripheral, where the dark shade of pine created a darker ground. Only there did it stand out for what it was, and only there could the flurry be seen. It was then that I noticed that the cloud puffs in the sky were copying the seed puffs. Or perhaps it was the other way around. Whatever. The sky was full of small cumulus clouds that were blown wispy at the edges. They looked like cotton balls stretched finely, like cottonwood seeds, like dandelion puffs. I was standing in the midst of a cosmic fractal rendering of micro and macro. I wondered where I fit within it all; where my form was repeated. 

Late afternoon. The sky darkened. Dark shades of gray - almost black. A storm was brewing, and thunder played in the distance. The wind picked up. It loosened the cottonwood’s grip, and an enraged storm of cottonwood was in the air. With the darkened sky as a backdrop, the cottonwood puffs could be seen everywhere. Thousands upon thousands of them. They were no longer a trickled sensing on the outskirts of my senses, the sky now provided a proper backdrop for total clarity. I was in a snowstorm of sorts; a snowstorm of cottonwood seeds. A snowstorm in summer. They were everywhere, swirling, and it was ever so beautiful. It was surreal, but it was also so real. It was another shift in patterns brought to the fore, the third that day. I wondered what it all meant. Then the lightning entered into the valley. 

 - The Fool

Emily Before the Mirror

Emily assessed her image in the mirror as she tried to establish a relation with the woman in the frame before her. Her gaze sought an identification, something to use as a point of departure, something to carry her through the day.

Each morning Emily fixed her hair and she made herself prim. She preened until there was a bondage established with the presentation being constructed. The image attained became the facsimile she would carry forth and return to in moments of self reflection through the day. The composition created was always a fiction though, a false identification.

The image in the mirror was just a trace made in passing. Beyond the mirrored moment, beyond the configuration in the frame, came change. Over the course of the day, her hair would slowly fall out of place, and her make up would become disarrayed. Her sense of being, the image she carried forth, was always lost in her own becoming - always caught up in the movement of her own erasure.

Emily brought her face close to the mirror, and she stared into her own eyes. She saw the image of her face reflected in her pupils. She tried to peer deeper, but found that the closer she looked, the further she retreated.

Emily blinked, returned to the moment, and adjusted her collar. Everything was in place. She was ready to begin her day.

- The Fool

They No Longer Believe

They no longer believe
in the aggregate, in unity -
everything is disparate,
shattered, and partial.

They no longer believe
in moments before and after -
nothing primordial
or promised to come.

They no longer believe
in maps demarcated with colors -
just dull grayed contrasts
of chiaroscuro shadows.

They no longer believe
in connective certainties -
only continual detachments
and gaps of disjunction.

They no longer believe
in anything but disbelief –
the voices echoed in the rifts,
in the spaces in between.

- The Fool
- photo by Mishra Gordon

catching up with my Self

always a step or two behind, 

always trying to keep pace - 

 trying to keep up, 

or at least not fall any further behind - 

 sometimes, there’s a glimpse of a form, 

one more substantial than this - 

 and it helps me to carry on, 

on my way to becoming.

 - The Fool - photo by Micah Rainer Pali

song at the terminus

at the glacier’s terminus,

the cool cerulean ice

cedes to the summer sun

ages of frigid indifference

thaw, and the runoff

heralds a rapprochement

it’s a deliquescence of sorts,

a decomposition, a taking apart

of years of laborious arrangement

as each molecule of ice becomes water,

there is a yielding, and an unraveling

of the sordid bitterness of winters past

drops become trickle, and trickles

become roar, until a trill of arias conjoin

in a cascading watersong of assorted falls

and the only sound that fills the air

is this crescendo of water against rock,

this anthem of transformation and change

- The Fool

backyard rituals

- for Kathleen

They were the same rituals every night. The neighborhood pack would gather together as the evening meals were finished. One of the older kids would assert themselves, and take the lead. Everyone put a foot forward to make the circle. No one wore shoes. The Lead’s finger would light on the person’s foot next to them, and pause - while they considered what to cast in their attempt to manipulate Destiny. The rhyme had to have class, especially the first one of the evening; no eenie-meenie-miny-mo, or engine-engine-number-nine. When a chant was settled on, the ritual began - Three-six-nine, the goose drank wine, the monkey was dancing on the streetcar line… The finger flitted from foot to foot around the circle, moving with syllabic syncopation from toe to toe. Each word was musical, each word carried its own mojo, and each word became heavier and heavier as the rhyme progressed - The line broke, the monkey got choked, and they all went to heaven in a little…row…boat. The finger stopped with the final utterance. The weight of the decision bore down on the big toe of the person to be eliminated. A foot reluctantly removed itself from the circle. They were Out. They would not be It. Then, the lead passed. The next person became the chosen one, and the process began anew. As demanded by the audience, a different incantation was chosen and cast - Early in the morning, late at night, two dead boys got up to fight… Round and round and round. We laughed as One. We were madcap accomplices in a deconstruction of Logic. We were the founders of our own Theater of Nonsense - …back to back they faced each other, drew their swords, and shot each other. A deaf policeman heard the noise, and came and shot the two...dead...boys. Another foot withdrawn. The lead passed. The next player considered their repertoire of choices. Icka bicka soda cracker…Icka bicka boo… My mother and your mother were hanging out the clothes… They were the same rituals every night. - Y0Fool - photo by Doris Power

Birds of a Feather

At first, he didn't notice them. The flock congregated slowly.

It was only in increments, little by little, that he became hypnotized by the strut and peck, the calls for conformity, the beckoning to join formation, and the lure of sanctuary and a place to forget.

With a feeling of oneness, from out of need and necessity, he became a number in the swell, an affirmation, a justification, and a container. Bound by the shared belief, he mistook his newfound conviction for flying.

- The Fool
- photo by Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison

spring's promise...

"...the key to happiness,"
she indicated, "is hidden
among the sprigs -
within the grasp
of each of us -

happiness is found
in tending to this moment
which will turn to snow."

- Y0

2/20/2011
- photo artist unknown

Sonnet "Oz Revisited"

1962 Windsor
Never Kansas or the little people –
always the shrill falsetto wingthrum
of the descending ebon marauders,
deadpan eyes and honed incisors,
maquillage of celluloid phantasms –
always the monkeys; from out of
the nightmare’s thin aired pith,
a fear so complete, so forever.

1987 Fairbanks
The child’s cry from the other room
plummets through the loess of sleep,
stirs me to action; moves me through
twenty five years of disturbed dust
to rouse the bearing and certitude
of my father – then off stumbling,
through the darkness of the night,
to comfort a shaken form returned.

- The Fool/Y0
- This posting first appeared @ "Shouting in the Dark" 2006

The Pathology of History

The chapters expunged
and the pages rewritten –

the text of the unconscious
beneath the spectacle of truth -

can still be read elsewhere:
in the symptoms of the body,

in the stock of memories,
in the heroic retellings,

in the mannerisms, crude wit,
and paper-thin traditions,

in the deft distortions made
by the edits and revisions,

in the words that are chosen,
and in the silences in between,

over amber waves of grain;
under my country tis of thee.

- The Fool
- photo artist unknown 2008

first published Feb, 3. 2008