after a sumptuous meal of food he struggled to pronounce and ate with chopsticks

    he earned a cookie

                              slightly tanned slightly open  as inviting as a vanilla woman

laid beside the bill

begging his hand

he picked it up

inhaled its scent

                     the passionate scent of a vanilla woman

gently pried it  gently

brittle

       it snaps open

then savoring before eating

he read the freed fortune

                             finally 

words he doesnt struggle to pronounce

                                           You have the reputation . . .  Nuts yet again his reputation getting picked on

his date asked What’s your fortune?

                                        if quick he would have said You are 

My fortune

she purses her lips theyre fetching 

I  I have the reputation for being . . .

                                          he dangles it deliciously

sips his green tea swishes the warm vanilla body part he nibbled  its tucked to his cheek   and swallows

Yes. Your reputation for being . . .  she inquires smiling   dimples

Straight forward and honest

    Hmmm.  Is that true?

he smiles sips more tea the vanilla cookie gone

                                                   Sure

Woudya care to catch a movie at my place

                                              the right Chinese Fortune shouldnt be wasted

he carries that fortune in his wallet

                                      right beside

one

     of several free yellow-coloured Banana slug rubbers he stuffed in his jacket pocket when he picked his daughter up from UC Santa Cruz health center where she worked

830PM-ish,  Saturday,  2  12. 06

1927,  Sunday,  24  11. 24

    the Fates asked Clotho The Spinner  Lachesis The Measurer Apportioner   Atropos The Unbending Inflexible One

they asked  Doncha wish you could talk to Gawd?

he tilted his head forwardbrought his hand to his chin hid his humourchuckle

                                                                                    he appreciated they used his lingo however complimentsflattery fell flat on their face when attempted on him

they werent foolinpersuadin him

                                     Nah  Too much talkinyappin gets in the way of doin

Chandogya Upanishad  You know itof course you do  Tat twam asi

                                                                         which he understood to mean Use your Death  Use your Life  William James translated it as  That Thou Art  “. . . that capacity to conceive the immersion of all thought in the ‘blooming, buzzing confusion’ of ‘pure experience’”

Taedium vitae state of extreme ennui weariness loathing of life  James said “My words are to deal only with the metaphysical which is peculiar to reflecting men.”

Chaplin “Life isn’t a meaning, but a desire.”

hed skip jump rope hold hands with any of them

                                                      Nah so there was no mistake Ive no interest in yakkin

You’re very certain?

                      between them they were spinninghandling someones life  were their words a threat

he didnt think so

apparently they understood

they implored him again Doncha wish?

he couldnt staunch his laugh 

                                  I apologise   No  I do not wish

for a moment they quit their workspied each other  turned their gaze on him

he didnt drop his eyes from theirs  his spine stiffened

                                                          there was no submission in him

    We understand. they uttered

Wha do ya understand

others may have been horrified

We  Understand

                   their expressionssneers veered towards Gorgon quality  another trio of godly sisters  Stheno Euryale Medusa

           but he did not turn to stone

Wednesday,  3  1. 06

1823,  Sunday,  24  11. 24

the will of black sleep

                        demands catatonic Sleep

he deniesunveils it

                     emits queer images defies physics liberates senses sensibilities morals  keenly unbinds unmoors pairs  drafts currents  revolutions counterclockwise akimbo bloodless bloody  humid arid monochromatic coloured

he defiles Sleep

                 drives a stake through its vampires heart gleefully stomps it like a puddle of mercury  broken thermometers

                    then patiently waits for the concave floor to reassemble its will to assault it again

he doesnt quibbleconfesses

                              Sleeps not inviolate  My spirit is strong

   his spirit incensesviolates black sleeps will

Tuesday,  15  5. 07

1210,  Sunday,  24  11. 24

William Empson in a review by Paul Alpers is quoted  “The feeling that life is essentially inadequate to the human spirit (because the spirit is tethered, anchored, in the stasis of living – its single form – “of standing?”), and yet that a good life must avoid saying so, is naturally at home with most versions of pastoral.”

“of standing”  position status reputation

pastoral  literature portraying an idealised version of country life

                                                                       triggered him to write didnt grapple with it  let it flow

human spirit

                 human spit human squirt humanid emission humidhuman emission

    I am, therefore I cum.

Tolstoi  “Art . . . is the one sphere in which human beings can assert their freedom from history.”  which means one doesnt have to look back over their shoulder    

Tuesday,  15  5. 07

0943,  Sunday,  24  11. 24

Tolstoi  What is Art?  https://home.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361r14.html