Language

Wyrd

Fate, event

Modern English “weird”

Language is a playful thing. Words are decorated with connotations hanging from their branches, each one arranged differently by each speaker, who covers their Christmas tree, or Yggdrassil of language, with the pepperings of what they know and have seen and to which they have borne witness.

Words are historically rich: they have their own intricate histories, etymologies, which also express a variety of diverse and complex – and often interpenetrating – meanings.

Words are phonetically beautiful: they make sounds that weave into each other, which create songs and rhymes and alliteration and a music particular to themselves which creates a world.

Words are imaginative and brimming with imagery: the worlds they create through connotation and history and sound form a tapestry – a so often abused metaphor; perhaps even a cliché – which is made up of these parts and which also mixes them together, creates a blend of colour and sound and language, fundamental and primal and beautiful, which roars and smokes and steams red and bright like fire, like humanity’s first tool: for of all our tools, of all our customs and cultures and symbols, words are the finest. They shape our lives, animated and vigorous and deeply emotional, and breathe into us, with the care and sensibility of a stern creator, the breath of life.

Envelope Patterns #1 & #2

Envelope Pattern #1

"So ran the wild beast to the clearing, muscled legs bending and stretching, over rugged hills, about grey leaning pines, reaching the unclouded sky, and solemn silver birches, atop the sharp crags, the beast's feet carrying it with speed, the animal sprinting forth out into the light."

Envelope Pattern #2

"Dark caves opened up, moss clinging to the cold rock, moisture collecting along the uneven floor, the coalescing drops of life which dripped from the jagged ceiling, from the sparse half-living vegetation, that held tight in the lightless winding tunnels."

Lost

          I am so lost and I am so goddamn lost. Why oh why am I so lost? I have no clue. I have no goddamn clue, not even a fucking hint of a shred of a fucking scrap of an IDEA – a fucking idea, what a notion – of what is what. What is what? Who the fuck knows, not me that’s for sure. Lost. How am I lost? There’s supposed to be a trail, with a nice long picket fence and friendly people standing there to point the way, to say, “You need to keep going down the fence, silly!” and then I say “thank you very much” and I go but instead it’s one fucking pole in the ground. Just one pole. That’s where you start. That’s where you’re born, at the stupid fucking pole. It sits there and it’s old – it’s ancient really – and it’s sitting in the ground and there’s a sign. And there’s no words on the sign because the pole is so old that it comes from before words. The sign just has a drawing, which is ↓. That’s all, just an arrow. And you figure it out. Where do you go? There’s just a pole and you’re alone. And that pole is your birth. When you come out into the universe, when you achieve thought. That’s the start of your brain, and that’s what the pole is here to commemorate. And everyone starts at the old fucking pole, and goes off into the desert. And they come across one another and sometimes they say “hello” and other times it’s “fuck you” and then they don’t see each other anymore because they are dead. And the pole’s still there and it looks the same with the same fucking arrow.

          But there is a trick, so I’m told. The trick is to just go somewhere. Have a purpose and just go there. Leave the pole and head in the direction you want to follow. And when you are far enough and you get there, then you’re done.

          But other people say “fuck that” and that the trick is not about going somewhere but about being someone. And to be someone you go from place to place and then you plant a pole and you can measure the distance like it’s your fucking erection and compare to the national average. Some people do very well, and they have big lives with big shit, and other people don’t like to bring it up because they’re embarrassed that they haven’t done jack shit and they were better off at the pole at the start.

          But other people have another trick and that is pretending the pole’s not there, and that’s what I like. Pretend it’s not there. There is no pole. And you close your eyes and you grope in the dark. And it’s scary because you could find a monster and you will die and such but who gives a shit. And eventually you will die and it won’t really matter that you were just groping in the dark because maybe one time you found a quarter on the ground, and another time you put your hand in shit, and another time you touched someone else and they touched you back. And that won’t matter but none of it really mattered so might as well explore a little.

          But that trick is a hard trick. I don’t know if I can master that trick. I can try it, but you’re lost if you try that trick. And you don’t know if you’re going to get absolutely fucked, or if you’re going to pull it together. And it may not really matter because you’ll still die but while you’re alive you’d like it to be pleasant since you prefer it that way most of the time. And it feels like a bit of a waste, and you can see a lot of circumstances where it would have been a better call to follow something or be someone but that doesn’t account for the end. That doesn’t account for what happens after you follow the thing or be the person. Why does it need to be pleasant? Why does it matter if you die? I don’t know.

          I don’t know why it’s scary, but it is and that makes it scarier. I don’t know why I get to start at the pole but I do and that’s scary too. And I don’t know if I’ll ever find solace or if I should even try and that’s scariest of all.

          But I can’t just be scared because then I’m just curled up at the old pole looking like a dumbass, and you find out that the arrow just points you out to other people. And then you’re embarrassed because you didn’t reach as far as they, you didn’t try as hard as they, and you didn’t live as well as they. All that you’ve accomplished is you can abstain: you can give up. That’s easy because everyone does that. Everyone dies. So you need to explore the inertia. What is the inertia? Is it ever good to not being going somewhere or becoming someone or groping something? Loneliness is that moment of inertia coming and inhabiting you. Fogging up your glasses, asking you politely to slow down please and thank you. Stay still. And then you realize that while you had stopped the pole was creeping up on you and now you’re back at the start and you run away.

You run far, far to the hills and mountains and streams and valleys and all that sappy shit and you cry to the wind and the trees that you don’t know, that you’re lost and they don’t give a shit they’re just THE WIND AND THE TREES. Get back on your knees, boy. Grope in the dark some more.

Association String #2

North fear fire eats kind in kind the kind in kind so joy goes far and wide and far voluptuous joy in her evening dress the petals the flowers the roses all scattered and joy in the dress without the dress in a heap north of here of the mark. In the dark is joy and joy is the dark. Rest birds wait weights yearn going to take under to undertake the sound the song the flight of the lark. Break little ponies little stallions of Helios little shoulders of Pelops little boasts of Antinous time comes you all come little late little soon, with the call of the moon. Naked white in northern lights aurora tundra quite the night drenched in sweat in rain in firelight. Out in the cool blue air; shadow gloom shadows room the illicit tomb the royal share, Tutankhamen on his golden chair, and the dogs’ bark.

Association String #1

Juice Krakatoa fire fire blood rain oh no Jupiter’s hammer the sky touch sex white so white pale frosted white edge of oh edge cry cry cry and unto sky remake retreat reassign ghost goat golden. Fire flames bright teeth tools wood smoke and thunder thunder and smoke. Vermin, filthy grey hairs white vermin foul red god in the black in the the night Oh lo the shepherd calls she yearn fortune ache. Sound oppressive pretention oh oppressive pretention come. Dread cold hard knife of dread dread red reeds of black dread curling tendrils dread dread dread dread dread DREAD why oh why god dread screaming ache the night the dread the night the space the empty void the hollow hollow hollow dread it’s gone it’s gone you’re safe it’s gone. No more it’s out the light is out the night is gone the gone the gone. Go on, go on; flare flight vermin venom calyx dread has worm greed takes chill the ice the beat the fawn. The guilt is gone the guild is gone the gone the gone.

He Spoke

Or "I spoke." Either is an appropriate translation of the Old English verb.

After a long period of building up his dragon-hoard of written content, the author has decided to share some musings. This space is entirely made for the sharing, treasure-giving, of the aforementioned hoard.

To get the curious reader in the mood, the author shall start with some unoriginal content: a bit of heroic ethos from Beowulf:

I vow it to you: never will he escape into safety,

Not into the embrace of the earth, nor into the mountain-wood,

Nor into the bottom of the sea – go where he wish!

Beo.1392-4

More to come. Perhaps some "poetry."