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http://nworb.stumbleupon.com/review/35612934/

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 04:43:36 -0700

Later, in the slats of sunlight that graced the floor, we read the guy's words again. It was written down (even memorized?) that "no one feels like they belong", similar to dummy boats, hollowed pine shells in deserts or with flat rocks under them, waterless and fretting. There it is again, two worlds. One on fire and one smoking, in the way you talk about fire crawling down slopes, we know that what's real is not flamable. Plump red fingers slide into streams down your smoking back. The point is, is that though a phantom, it is still ripping through the blinds behind his head. Just the same, I am just saying, he didn't flinch. You know, don't you respond in a fluttering eyes way. Sit there with ears open and wait. Behind him and his burning face, out in the garden covered with jumbo trees and whining sounds, lotus leaves float secretly past the window. Just so, he raises his double phoenix and you shy away, your collarbone cracked in spite of expensive armor and turquoise spells. Anyhow, when the smoke cleared he was still there, and the whole house was silent.

http://nworb.stumbleupon.com/review/22983451/

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:43:43 -0700

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rebirth,
awake now so
starting feels good
puckered for kisses, as
you may end later, still
lasting, tiny time machines in
you may feel that many clouds
are in the sky, yes you may,
you certainly may have
a hell of a body, then vanish.
under the silence,
clouds talk in the strands
of your hair, before the night
comes, all the days in
youth feeling and older,
you will, then you wont
have it, it is this
way on and off you'll
go, not recalling
a thing, popping lathered
up in a criminals
pants or conning
a ski resort
victim, seems not
connected.. hmmm?
not even another waking up
or down in your body's path
can change what looks
permanent to what isn't
though fragrant claims
are flowering
on your tongue.

2008 Robert Brown

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http://nworb.stumbleupon.com/review/21860153/

Tue, 27 May 2008 10:01:05 -0700

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stepping
into the
roadway of
the sun, we
see it rotating
around us. The
particles are empty
space right? And
though this is not the way
I thought it would feel,
hard as a water balloon,
frozen in the icebox,
solidity is a vain description
of something that is coming apart.

Gravity can't be silent when
this surface tension is heard.
That being the case, both the insect
and the Pachyderm meet at your
elbow, kneeling before the images
made. Matter is a fiction, a useful
fiction none the less. Your binding
the rails of your hopscotch patterns
are a wave and not a stuff, particles
clotting at the edge of identity. Smell
in color, or die blinded by the nature
of windows. What is odd is that the
contrast between what we see and what
we think we see occurs at the same instant
that we assemble the backup for this, the somewhat obvious
event horizon that flies beneath your feet and seems like
a day in June, the rain patters at the tarmac and steams up
around hot shoes...I, we, stand on the curb; patterns being what
they are, still tend to take us into the sameness we think is so different.

Robert Brown, 2008

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http://nworb.stumbleupon.com/review/21200620/

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:15:39 -0700

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Barthelme is the "Jump" writer who makes apparent relationship invisible, dependantly arising from itself and other. Only truth remains after your thinking stops.

"The change of emphasis from the what to the how seems to me to be the
major impulse in art since Flaubert, and it's not merely formalism, it's not at all superficial,it's an attempt to reach truth, and a very
rigorous one."

Donald Barthelme

go here to see, taste, smell and touch some of his writings:

http://www.eskimo.com/~jessamyn/barth/

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http://nworb.stumbleupon.com/review/19184053/

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:00:31 -0700

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William Faulkner was once asked, "Some people say they can't understand your writing, even after they read it two or three times. What approach would you suggest for them?" His answer: "Read it four times."

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http://nworb.stumbleupon.com/review/19177819/

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:53:54 -0700

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This is a great example of "Jump writing" where I mentioned standing on the corner with a cardboard "eat me" sign. The following is what Mr. E wrote back to me as he used that image to "Jump" into the act of writing...it really is an act.

I stood there with a sign. On the corner of Bemsha and Bloodstaff is where I stood. The sign said "Eat Me." People kept giving me money. I didn't want money. I didn't want anything else. I had a hot pink mansion in the hills of Kentucky Concerto and a dark black african woman named Poopee who kept her distance except for sometimes. My car was parked near where I stood with the cardboard sign. It was a luxury model of great importance in the eyes of those lesser than I but I didn't mind. So many days and so many nights since last week. All those moons in the sky and all that dirt between Poopee's toes. Why was she so filthy between the toes and yet still smelled like flowers and had the curves of every man's lustful nightmare. Observing the latitude of the crab on the zenith of the sky's inner thingy it was obvious that it was nighttime now. I double checked just to make sure. Yep, it was dark too. Back to Poopee and the hot pink mansion in the hills of Kentucky Concerto.

By Erik Blagsvedt 2008

http://nworb.stumbleupon.com/review/19084468/

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:57:56 -0700

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B, A, E, Revolution, Jump Writing exercise, working title: "Madison Wishbone"

I have often used the interaction with other writers and writings, even others words overheard in restaurants and so on, as a stepping off place for making up more words, stories, poems and etc. This is a piece of writing that I have done with two other writers named Andrew and Erik. We go around and around or revolve, take turns then we initial and date, at the end of each section we've "authored". It is done in the context of what I have come to call "Jump Writing". It is just a name for what occurs when we use another person's creation to "jump" into new expressions of language. You can try this by taking any writing whether it is seen as "art" or not and use it as a starting point, an inspiration for writing your own words. It is far from plagiarism, as you will see. This is somewhat based on or inspired by the content and form of that other person's work. It is a transformative or even catalytic writing.

Doing this exercise can at once be frustrating and exhilarating because it puts us on the spot and requires that we dare to "jump" into the open dimension of being, the inherent formlessness of the discursive mind, its apparent source. Producing a coherent work of "art" so to speak is secondary. You can work on that later if you wish. This exercise seems to cut through the hesitation and prejudging activity (is this any good?) we so often encounter when we try something new. Writers write, they don't sit around and think about writing. If they do that very much then they are not writers but thinkers.

The goal of Jump Writing if there is only one, is to totally enjoy and participate in the texture, lushness and other qualities of language imbedded in sound, images and ideas. It can be a kind of dreaming while awake though this is not the automatic or stream of consciousness writing you may have heard about. These are what we have, the stories in our world as we move from the motive of "producing art" to the one that "participates" regardless of the outcome. Everything is mutual. We always focus on the Beginning or foundation, though we witness outcomes or results. This is just another opportunity to begin.

As the great Buddhist teacher from Japan, Suzuki Roshi once said, (since I don't have the exact quote, I paraphrase him here) "In the experts mind the possibilities are few, whereas in the beginners mind, they are endless".

B 3-23-2008

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http://nworb.stumbleupon.com/review/19084204/

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:47:44 -0700

Chapter Four.

Finally, it was spring in Wisconsin. The greenery was laying itself so boldly across last year's pile of dead leaves and stem barks, corpses of vanished autumn when we saw things differently. Wayne and I stood in the round doorway of the gray-blue building that the Hoveners used to keep their livestock in, a few cows and some guessing horses. A dozen burros in cargo pants romped around the paddock as we talked.
"What is the next step Leady, do you have a plan that includes all the risks you'll need to take?" Wayne asked. He was the caretaker they'd hired to spiff up the diner's pants that were lined up like blow downs in a shooting gallery, dingy with a "wash me" look like you see written in the dirt of and old wagon every two or three weeks, authored by an eight year old with a spare finger in the parking lot.
"'Course I do Wayne, you ever see me scare easy or ignore the obvious?" I looked at him closely as he gazed at the sky, fiddling absent -mindedly with a tie knot between his thumbs. The sun was setting; his puffy cheeks were full of beard hairs and shadows called character lines. He turned his head toward me, his lips thin and long, opened, he sniffed..
"Naw, I guess not, except for the time you got electric hair over those people drowning at the beach tribunal."
"Well yeah, they, the guys, that was a disaster boy...no time for the plaster casts I was makin'. Still it would be good story material, lets go, I need to get cleaned up before dinner".
We walked along the fence line, while Wayne made his hands widen, scuffing the edge of the bootlaces he'd wrapped his scarf around. He had been a farmer for all Mexicans who lined the area with their children, hoping for a freedom and that wreath shape dreams can have. The reds and greens flag covered the bandaged hand and had held its bones still for several days. I knew he would keep all of this to himself even though he was quite a talker. The thing about Wayne was that he wanted to be shown respect. The way his eyes lit up when you said something positive about his tie knots or even his coach paintings, it was so obvious. He had a hobby that involved making little pictures on the backs of old paperback books; the Elves Shirt at the Spoons was the latest one. That was the novel on whose cover he had painted a row of coaches, stagecoaches. They wrapped around to the back cover and stopped there where the lead horses were still missing their heads... an enviable position to be in these days. Colorful stuff it was and easy to remark favorably on too. "Hey, great shit" or "Soo eat main" folks would say when they saw the painted books in his broad-beams table at OOBEs. One was sticking part way out of his backpack as we made our way under the trees, crow filled and noisy. "Those darn paintings Wayne, why, you're really coming into your own, man."
"You, like?" Wayne said, his voice rising in pitch splitting the two words apart.
"You bet Wayne, it's been awhile since I've seen such a display of creative talent, man. You are really getting the shapes and lines perfect in that one, there..."I pointed to the first coach in a line of four with white stained horses, hooves' lamp blacked and cramped, into the small book cover where once the needle had been. Now, its pages were starting to yellow and come unbound. It was painted on an old copy of Costigan's Needle by, I forget his name and the one about Elves Shirt at the Spoons had fallen deeper onto the pack with many more old painted books and squeezed out tubes of meat.
" Aw come on Leady, " he said, straining to look around to see which of his coaches I was talking about. "Why, you're, you are the creative one, with that writin', makin' us all read things, that story tellin' you do..." he said, smiling and adjusting his scarf's wrapped boot as we came up to the long house.
"Look at all those diner pants will ya, I got my things cutting out on me right now don't cha know?" Wayne said as he stepped on to the porch just ahead of me.
"Well, at least you have your Mexicans and the Enchilada part had always been the envy of Ms Greeley -Hattenborn, till she died of course."
"Did they even try to find out the papas or mamas?" Wayne said shrugging and holding his arms up for the sweater to come off. It fell to the floor in an "s" shape, black and wadded like it was another thing we don't know about, have not named. Imelda immediately scooped it up as she patted his butt with her spatula and pushed it into an old tammy-bin she'd been using for a soiled clothes hamper.

http://nworb.stumbleupon.com/review/19084168/

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:46:39 -0700

"Not hardly Wayne, those property-tsarinas, those pen swipes that stood in the bailiffs office the day you were there were just hazing time. I waited and waited for the shit to get away from the candle but the fangs of the clergy were deeper than a man's pine in a marrow canyon, in the dry season." I paused to let the whole thing set in him. "You can't put out a fire that never stops Wayne, I know I am full of the desperation that only accumulates in famous men., ha ha, without the fame of course" We both laughed at that and went over to the table where Imelda was putting the round trays of rind bastings on the hamper cloth. The colorful treads that covered the back of the porned pies were only out done by the Goose shapes cut into a flurry of red spade hummers with prune garnish. She was the best cook Wayne had ever married and he had married quite a few, mostly from restaurants in Questa, Espanola and other small towns in New Mexico.
After I washed my fists and neck we sat down at the table, and Wayne's kids came in and sat down too along with Thumbs, the miniature hound who stood by the door and waved his tongue around counterclockwise. There were three children, all girls, named Kind, Smart and Deadly. We all ate like the time frame normally set for such activities was not dependable and Deadly said "left ye not the gravy spot" as they had said in the old days. The saying was still said around dinner tables in those days too right after the prayer bobber. Kind started to clear the tableau of the grease that had spun several homes across the crumb bare boards. Smart sat on her dad's knee and looked at me like a hand puppet had a few years back in Madison. Wary and prom conscious she waited, but no way to deliver the goods appeared to her, her name fit her well. We were all stuffed. I knew it, and now you know it, we were all lucky to have that time totem, a meal for the mind, food for thoughts and so on, to look back on since what came next was not on the evening news, nor would it ever be.
I excused myself and went to my room on the third floor. It almost felt like time itself was going in reverse, except the clocks looked ok, tock following tick as usual. They were not joining into the faulty perception part of the experience. It was hard and it wasn't, I decided to sit in the center of the flannel bed and count my breaths for a few minutes. There were too many to count, thoughts too were fairly squandered, given up in great number on the rocks of interdependence. If the teacher is always in the present then there must be an answer to this. I fell asleep in the room with the banging of the stovepipes making a slow jitter as they lost their sameness with the oaken timbers. Giving in to the way things were at that moment. I thought about the times when I had a family like Wayne did and I slowly drifted off.

b, 3-17-2008

http://nworb.stumbleupon.com/review/17164796/

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:45:32 -0800

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In the morning I felt the bed again, and my body. Back to being aware of this interdependent organism. The air came in through my nose and I felt its coolness and noticed the familiar points of tension in my body. The sun, low in the sky, its orange light entering through my eyes, turned a switch in my belly and gave the urge to get up. Once out of the covers I felt the coolness over my whole body and the chill felt good. It gave the feeling to go make coffee and breakfast. The floorboards made a creeking sound as I crept down the steps to the kitchen, thinking about the smell of coffee. Looking out the window again for a moment, I felt the familiar feeling of the beginning of a new day, mourning the last one because time just keeps moving, and anxious for what's to come. I don't know how we all got on this thing and I don't know what any of it's for. Why should we perceive a being called a self? Why do we want to be liberated from this thing called a self? Why should there be consciousness and is there anything besides consciousness? Is there anything that doesn't have a name? Does the name separate us from what it actually is? Does language only strengthen the delusion? Should we just stop talking? We evolved to suffer like no other being, but like no other being, we have the opportunity to not suffer. Wayne and I used to talk about things like this at his house. I'd come up for a long weekend and that's how it'd be, just talking and not really needing an answer to a question.
I wandered around the empty house, remembering how it was when Wayne owned it, so many sounds and sights to remember. When his kids were young and his wife was still alive, we would build bonfires to burn the wood scrap he'd collected over the summer. It was usually a big event and we'd spend all day chatting and drinking cheap beer. His wife always used to call me the "last bachelor on earth", and what a painful thing to recall, knowing that Wayne lost everything he had. Now it was my job to turn his house and everything in it into some cash- I told him I'd take care of it, and he said he doesn't care what happens to any of it.

a 3/18/08