TEXT: LSPA Experimentation with Narration

This is the rest of it.

He hadn't eaten what she had put on the table for him. He had retained no sense about eating or self-preservation. All he knew was that he had not been taking the Pill. The absence of effect of the Pill. Looking deep into the absence he knew nothing. He would let himself discover eventually that an absence had no implications. It was the thing uncovered that had implications.

There was a smell in the house. It was the smell one finds on the first breath after a sneeze. Was that smell always there or was the sneeze a reset button for the senses, allowing you to peer through the build up of files that remained on your mental desktop? Thousands of files with names names like DCN000977651298-997 (the smell of your own shit) turned transparent to the nose for a moment, making it able to differentiate and navigate and smell directly through stacks of tacky aroma files that had been clumping to constitute eau du everyday and smell the something that was as plain as itself on its own face. Either that, or it was the smell of cells sloughed from the bronchial tubes, back of the throat and sinuses during a hundred mile per hour exfoliation. That was the smell of the house. It was always there. Or, considering, it might be that the house enabled him to peer through those clumping files. There was indeed something about this house that he noted, but didn't dwell on. Something.

But let's be reasonable. There weren't a lot of things going on in this man's head that would make for good reading at this precise moment. One would have to dig deeply and quickly with sharp tools that allow the wielder to pinpoint, grasp and pluck in one smooth motion. And then what would you have? Once outside the head, the things would require sorting into piles subsequently requiring arcane explanations that soon would bore dear reader. This man had been lost to himself for years. A mind of interesting potential in his youth, but at the moment I labor to describe, the mind had long since gone to waste in a sopa de nuez of guilt and unchecked introspection. Well, in fact, the soup hadn't been so bad, but the attempted cure, as is so often true, fucked him up soundly.

His consciousness upon arriving at the old woman's house was that of a child during the first few months of perception, or of a very old dog. The old dog may be an exaggeration. The medication he took was simply referred to, without titters, as The Pill.

His consciousness upon arriving at the old woman's house was that of a child during the first few months of Rohrshak blotch perception, or that of a very old dog. The old dog may be an exaggeration. The medication he took was simply referred to, without titters, as The Pill.

The medication was designed to blot out depression, but blotted out far more. The connections of one image to another, one memory to another. One smell or taste to a word or sound. It cut connections, leaving the significances dangling like wind chimes and turning his experience into a pleasant pool of intangible deja vu. He had been taking the medication for three weeks in a hotel room under the supervision of the Spook.

Somehow he had traded away his withdrawal symptoms. He had quit before, whatever had been easy to find and to use--sometimes exotic, sometimes stupid, sometimes rot. He had quit before and sought relief immediately. Once he had taken heroin and Pop Rocks. Once he had used mezcal to ween himself off chewing coca leaves, once he had become deeply accustomed to betel nut juice and nitrous and had given himself up to a month-long temescal vision of peyote and self-starvation. He had never come out of his costumbres any cleaner. To The Pill had been the easiest transition.

The woman didn't believe in The Pill, but she followed the letter of the Spook's instructions.

He had certainly needed help when the Spook found him in DF, el Distrito Federal, the Ciudad. Mexico City.

Pah-ley-taaaaaas.
Poe-pey-yey.

What can one find beneath a park bench in Mexico City? A wet bag of popcorn, remnants of a burst eight foot tubular Scooby Do balloon, two nearly empty water bottles (one with its lid, one accordianed unevenly holding coffee ground brown liquid and matches), a flattened deep blue Jumex box (sabor: jugo de piña), a disintegrated condom mass melted and open like the Sun's areoli encircling a kernel of corn, dark tar brown mud ramped up against the rear base of the bench by the perfect trowel of running water and time, broken glass (green and brown), seven tamale corn husks, a paper cup lined with globuled yellow mayonnaise and red chile flakes, the bones of a small chicken coated with ants, and agitated adult earwigs curving and rolling in sublime asphyxiation. The earwigs had found dried salty blood in the creases of the cold neck of the only other thing that lay beneath the park bench: the man known as LSPA. If he had been able to open his eyes, he would have said he had seen worse than this.

A heavy mist spat down from the DF sky and collected in the gritty leaves above the bench. As the moisture gathered, the mist became a rain and the sloppy overflow from the leaves beat down on the man's exposed pants. The rain kept the ants from finding him.

Paletas Popeye.

A skinny out of place tourist stuck out his hand to the man with the cart and asked for a coconut popsicle. The young vendor smiled toward the exposed pants as he handed the tourist his change.

"Yes, quite a mess, huh?"

"Mes-sy."

Then, he kicked the shoe gently trying to determine the right adjective for the body.

"Ah, careful now, amigo. Cuidado. Precioso."

The vendor pushed on with a small laugh. Not the same as his adjective.

Narration

Narration is its own language. What is it? How does it work? Is narration the equivalent of storytelling? Perhaps, but the focus of the existence of narration--an instance of narration--is its purpose. The narrator is not a camera, the narrator has something to say and a vantage from which to say it.

I indeed have something to say--how to say it is not clear. I have a purpose. State it. Argh. Is it superstition for me to want to withhold this ultimate purpose? Or is it laziness? Lack of rigor? A fear that if I succeed in writing the work I would fail?

Let's try it--though I fear making the work trite because of the act.

I started to approach this in my discussion with Bruce Tomb.

The Spy. This book is about his arc. So what are the Boy and el Cliquero doing? Good question.

The process of writing an outline is truly a literal approach to creating the plot, but it affords the narration little. Perhaps the outline should be sparer to begin.

The Boy and el Cliquero are ends of the balancing pole for LSPA's tight rope walking.

In the Spy we see the spine of the work. A man who had not lost it all, he's given it away. He has made a tremendous mistake that has become his self-definition. Auto-definition.

How does he define the mistake? At what point did his actions--intentions--inventions--cross the boundaries into mistake?

It may be that my knowledge of the details of the plot is simply too spotty. The drawback of including every last phenomenon in the script. Or a kick in the pants to my energy in writing this thing. Take the impulse to a higher plane.

As we first see LSPA is he coherent? Does he have an awareness of his situation and his circumstances? No.

His process is this: he will be processed by his relationship to the Boy. Remember? They switch positions.

How far gone can the Spy be and still support narration that readers can read? Rather, how much contrast between the narrator and the Spy would a reader require to enjoy the narration? A reasonable description of an unreasonable state.

STAGES OF A CHARACTER'S AWARENESS IN NARRATION

• Continuity from one concept or perception to the next.


• Duration of narrative thoughts or ideas.


• Awareness of the present.


• Awareness of the past.


• Awareness of implications.


• Ability to plan and plot.

PERSONAL POSITION STATEMENTS

• We cannot accept one reality. Some realities are more conducive to progress than others, but no reality is less real.


• There is a network of actions and implications. It is important to develop foresight into implications, especially as one becomes more active.


• Ignorance of implications--actual or implied--is not the same as innocence.


• A fantasy world is someone's reality if they can make it operate. Predict the implications of actions.


• Synchronize third person narration with the real of the character. Remove moralizing characteristics of third person narration. Remove hyperbole.

As of yesterday, it had been four days without working. The xmas holidays and a lovely chance to spend time with the kids.

I have been thinking through the earlier points about narration. It is the topic that occupies me, even as I'm not working.

I feel hamstrung by my concerns about narration and finding synchronicity with the characters' self-awareness as I write it.

I would like to try several vantage points for narration--I want to feel more free to write what I need to write. Tonight will be an experiment in narration. It may help me write the lost context--STOP DESCRIBING and start do-ing. Text to follow...

The Pill

Tuesday was a breakthrough day. Invention of The Pill. I had been thinking that the Spy would have a drug problem, and like David Lynch in Blue Velvet I was having a problem with the realities of drug problems. I didn't want to write a book about narcotics dependencies. I wanted a tool. The drug needed to be a narrative tool, not a realistic element. The Pill is an enigma.

Like every other enigma in the novel, The Pill requires a shallow depth of focus. The supporting details must be hazy but believable and cannot contradict the elements in fine grain relief.

Perhaps a bigger breakthrough was that I can now envision the handoff of the Spy to La Fuente. She is told how to take care of the Spy with the drug. The rest is up to her--the Spook leaves the rest up to her because he knows that the Pill will manage the Spy best.

Laabuelita, of course, turns the machine off. This leads to the session at the church with the shaman and elejecutibo, and to the Spy's liberation.

I like the idea that La Fuente calls the dispenser--or the Pill--the Number. Oh gracious linguistic synchronistics!

How long has the Spy been living with La Fuente?
- His arrival and the start of his treatment
- His liberation starts with La Fuente Pressing Pause on the Pill (PPP)

When we open on the Spy he has turned back to the Pill. He has returned to his shackles to seek comfort and definition.

The boy arrives just before La Fuente returns to the house to find the Spy has backslid. The Spy must account for himself to the boy, but cannot. La Fuente picks up the pieces in her own way.

First Comment on Blogging My First Novel

Thank you, Silvia Alencar, blogger at http://meunomesilvia.blogspot.com/ (there is an automated English translation that isn't half bad) for being the first to comment on this blog. Maybe people are reading it and running away in terror, I don't know. And at this point, that may be okay. This is a raw look at something people rarely see. It's exhibitionist and crude. It's in some cases bad. Unedited. Unthought. Screw it. This is what happens during the process of writing my first novel, and I'll imagine it's what happens for others as well.

So, thank you, Silvia, for letting me know that you're out there and reading this. It meant a lot to me.

Now, back to the show.

LSPA Narrative Voice Notes

There are stages in the narration related to the Spy.

fried, but in withdrawal
just fried
drugged remembrance images
standard past narrative recounting (narrative voice)
memory stories

---
simple present
present continuous
---

Here is the way it progresses:

Opening: he has started to wean himself from the Pill.
La Fuente is pushing this effort.
This implies that he had a history with the Pill, a course that he is trying to change.

Opening: not so much setting information because he is deep within himself.
How is La Fuente bringing him outside?
She has a plan. Does he buy into it?

Opening: there is a shifting of the narration from fried withdrawal to drugged remembrance to just fried (the effect of the Pill on him).
What has La Fuente shared with him about the Pill? Her doubts?
Does he have guilt over his relapse or does he disagree with her approach?
Does he have a choice? Probably not.

The first pages I wrote on this subject are exploratory. So many things to get into the reader's head. THERE IS MUCH TIME! So much.

I think of the beginning of The Sound and the Fury. I was swirling in Space for the longest time. Most of it was unsettling the setting. Taking the reader into the mind of the simple minded. Calling two different things the same thing. How long it takes to loosen reliance upon normal narrative function and conventions!

Consistency is the key to the reader's belief in the narration. Skipping from one experiment to another will only produce doubt and call attention to the shifts and the novice state of the shifter. Choose a direction and live with it. Remember the Opening is creating a setting for the reader. Cracking the coating before it has dried will only cause frustration.

See what a chat with Bruce Tomb can do

Chatted with Bruce Tomb at friend Peter McCandless birthday party.

I'm honing the Lucky Dog chit chat version. AKA Elevator speech, pitch, etc. It's going better than it used to. A spy. A boy. A figment. I told the Spy's story at 100,000 feet. Two sentences on the Boy and left the figment (el Cliquero) to the end. Bruce's question came later.

What motivated you to choose this subject matter?

The more I talk the more I realize and affirm the Spy is my representative in narrative space. And the kick comes at this point--the Spy makes it through life by relying on his ignorance and believing that his ignorance makes him innocent.

In the symbolic fact that even when he makes the codes up himself--rather, the coded messages--and is certain that they mean nothing, he is communicating death and malevolence.

Ignorance does not make innocence.

It's a strong statement and apt, so apt, to today's US.

Time [Chronos-sic, not cronos], Duration, Past, Memory

What is the Spy's trabajo for the Spook at this point? What can he do?

Why does the Spook provide this treatment?

Capability
This answer comes down to the issue of the treatment's effect on the Spy.

How long treated?
How long same drug?
How strong the dose?
The specific effects--immediate and long term
The Spy's awareness of the effects--immediate and long term
The Spy's ability to piece together moments of clarity (how clear?)

The Spook picked up the pieces of the shattered Spy in DF. Treatment consisted of 4 elements:
personal - friendship
collegial - the war crimes lie
medical - the Pill
retreat - La Fuente (retreatment)

Ultimately all these will be used to control the Spy. but the retreat to La Fuente will act as the canopener to the truth.

How long has the treatment been in practice?

Retreatment

La Fuente space
Reservoir walks
The dogs
Laabuelita and rules
The Pill

Is the Pill on pause? Yes. La Fuente has pressed pause on the dispenser. The Pill is the Number. She is trying to bring him back from numb.

The Spy's relapses are his returns to this Pill.

TEXT: More LSPA intro

He was trying to blink. No, he was blinking. He was blinking away some accumulation of dust that had caked in his eye since he had not been blinking for the past... for a certain, indeterminate duration of time. He was succeeding in blinking, but it wasn't having the effect he had desired. Wait, there. Yes. Back to normal sight. Although there remained a haze around his seeing. Like a constant mist. Was it from the heat or was it a faint sheen that had been applied to his cornea by the dust? The sheen seemed to exert a force on his eyeball, drawing it downward, forcing a squint to maintain straightforward seeing.

This interference was producing something else. No, it wasn't the interference. Interference never created anything, it only broke down what was already there. This something had come from a creative force. Through the haze there appeared to be a little boy looking in at the front window. And this time it was a little Anglo boy.

---
How many days and nights had he spent here? Where was the din of nighttime construction, traffic and the squeal of repressed longing relieved nightly on the streets beneath the laureles trees? This wasn't DF. This wasn't the ciudad of lopped off templos, capped with cathedrals before the crude of espiritus indios could spray madly into the prophecy-streaked sky and catch fire. This wasn't his city at all. Wasn't a city at all.

A table sat in the middle of the room where the little woman passed each morning. There was his corner where he needed to be by time for food after having done the work of the morning. He could not remember food or the work of this particular morning. Was he hungry? Why not try to tell the time from the regularity of hunger and feedings? The little woman was regular like a clock. Perhaps she was his clock. He felt that it would be some duration before the little woman appeared. An hour at least before feeding, reverse implication being that he had eaten already this morning and that he was not hungry and therefore was approaching the noon feeding--best guess: 1109 AM. Reverse implication in retrograde, he needed to do the things that the little woman required before she would allow him to eat when she came back in less than an hour with the food. The table had reminded him of the food, the food the time, but what would remind him of the work yet to be done?

A small knock happened on the thick wooden door. The knock reminded him to look again at the dispenser. He had found it in the drawer where the little woman had put it and had turned it on again. It had produced another pill. The dispenser had birthed another child to be swallowed by Chronos. How long ago had it arrived? Was his current clarity the result of diminished levels of number? Numbing him with sharp chops along his memory. A day or so in the past he had begun an experiment. It was time to continue it. He had made notes and placed them in a file. Where was the file? He had made notes and placed them in a fire. Where were the notes?

He pinched out the pill, static and ripe in the dispensary wheel, and swallowed it with a drink of jamaica.

Reeds rise like spines from a sandy berm. A slope leads to a fat creek haunted by barking: a tremendous beaver. Water swells clear and pours over the damed creek and spreads forward through a cave of trees toward white reflected sunlight and slow langorous limbs.

A stag drinks, half hidden in the grasses. Its forelegs are sunk over the hoof in marsh. A sudden, hollow crack startles the stag and, slow as in sleep, it inclines its preternatural rack away from the current and throws its weight aside testing the suction of the black muck.

Downstream, two spruces ribbon upward to the clouds. The wind crosses their tips, bending them away from the dream. A poplar tree torques its lowest leaves to drag the water below. There is little time to focus. The flow is furious and blind.

The water grows narrow and taller, drawing itself up like a tongue. The flow quits its low conduit and falls, flattening hard, to meet bare, smooth bedrock. It is drawn toward deeper and wider waters, to pass over the falls, and from this spot to bow out of sight before the majesty of the River.

There was a soft touch on the back of his head. It was like a mother holding up the lazy head of her baby. Lazy, heavy head. Grasshopper fingers like warmed themselves on his cheek. Water chortled from the back of his throat back into the glass she held in front of him. And from his nose. Warm salty feeling like blood on the roof of his mouth. Mucus covered his face and strung itself across the barbed stubble.

"You went back to it, didn't you?"

"Yes, mami."

"You can rest with me here. You can listen to me talk."

"A boy is waiting."

"You can rest with me here. Don't worry about the boy."

She took a rough, wet cloth and wiped away the mess. She wiped her hands on her red checked apron.

I almost gave up.

It turns out I'm riding a sharper rail than I had imagined. Usually, I'm pretty calm. Objective. Able to focus in a single bound. Lately, things have been eating away at me. The layoff. The economy. Working in the basement--not finding a cafe that suits me. I started digging deeper and with bared claws in arguments with my family. Particularly with Tracy. I signed up for career counseling (the service offered by Western Union to executives) that night, the night I realized I was losing it.

I had looked into something called "sleep at home writers camp". No, that was Low Residency MFA, that's right. Dave Yetter, a writer and friend of mine mentioned it to me at The Albatross one night. It made me blink for a day or two. Maybe I'm still blinking. I don't know. I mean, What the hell do I really know? Oh, and then Malcom Fucking Gladwell comes out with Outliers (souliers) and I think, yeah, where was my mentor, really? Jesus, I've been my own mentor since I could remember. ISO:mentor. Not really, just a person I can engage. Okay, so I'm not doing the MFA thing (again).

Just for a fraction of a... well it was a fraction of a day at least...I thought that it was over. I was ready to stop. To start the job search. To start earning money again. To jump back into the work force (where is it again?). To sell myself short. To forget it. To forget it. [small laugh] Oh! That was a bad day. I think this was late November. Happy Birthday, shithead. And I never give up. My last film is a testament to that. Holy.

Although she doesn't know it, Tracy was both foment-er and reliever. By being lead spokesperson for the financial needs and interests of the family she is our voice of reality and reason. She naturally balks at my willingness to roll the dice or even if I have a facial expression that appears like I'm pondering rolling the dice. I can't blame her for that--she's wanting to go back to school and that will be three in school at the same time. Two of those in private elementary school (4x the cost of my college). And one salary based on a severance pkg. Healthcare that runs out earlier than the pkg.

Am I writing this book to sell it? Yes. Do I have any idea if it is salable? No. The more I write, the more I leave to fix in the mix. Editing is going to require some heavy lifting. Do I intend to become a writer full time? Can I? I feel very far from that opportunity, but not in my heart. Right. So the momentary decision to quit was a stab to that heart. It hurt me. No, I hurt me. I was sacrificing myself to something. Something bleak.

As I mentioned above, Tracy was also my reliever. I don't think she knew how close I was to quitting, but she knew I was losing it. It. I can't recall what she said, except it went something like this: "It's going to work out. I'll get a loan if necessary. It will work out. Geesh, I thought I was going overboard." etc. Not exactly like an adoring Victorian mother to Baby, but hey, I heard it. I heard it.

There are things I need to do.
Lighten the dungeon.
More bookshelf space in my arena.
Put up the duvateen? Cover the clutter.
Make it easier to put things away.

Oh, and write more. More often.

TEXT: LSPA (el espia)

O! Virilis, One-Clawed-King, no one who comes later will know precisely the pleasure you derived from the rolling movements of the sloth or the snapping sounds of dry reeds on wind-driven days.

What time was it? He tried to keep his eye on the clock. But there was no clock.

The sun rose up over the hill and shown into the valley and produced a sudden heat that was shocking. Still shocking to this day. What time would that make it? He felt a chill in the house, but in the valley this seemed to happen even during summer. Eleven? What was the angle the sun had to achieve to pour into the house over the top of the hills? 30 degrees? The difference between achieving 30 degrees in the winter versus 30 degrees in the summer was stark. 30 degrees was hot. But most summers were hot anywhere. Now he was sweating. It was getting hotter. What time would that make it? When did it begin to get hot?

There was that sunlight. It was yellow orange. In a moment or two the beam built up like a laser to burn whatever lazed in its divine course. The yellow orange light was diffuse and smoky. How did it muster its intensity?

How often did the dispenser dispense? He had counted just one time up to 1280 before giving up. The arrival had not come. The sweet sweet little package had not been delivered. It must have been two or three times longer than that before dropping the perfect payload. Why didn't the dispenser show the time? What time was it?

For that matter, how long ago had the dispenser dispensed the former package? All this focus on time and what he really wanted to pay attention to was duration! Shift, shift to duration. How long had it been? How long was it always? Was it always the same duration? What was the rhythm?

An oblong, opaque white pill appeared on the miniature merry-go-round dispenser [more description of the dispenser] riding fat and obvious in the top seat. How long had it been there? Even if you stare at the merry-go-round wheel (no, Ferris Wheel! that's what it's called) at one moment there is nothing there and the next there is something there. There is no gradual movement there is no subtle turning like the turning of the clock's hands, especially the Minute Hand--the second hand is soo obvious and nearly annoying. No, this dispenser had what he thought were four separate seats for dispensing his medicine. --Fewer and when the Ferris Wheel seat with the pill jumped to the top it would launch it across the room. --More than four and you would probably need a larger wheel for the presentation of this sized pill. Yes, four.

Now, that it had arrived he thought he should determine the perfect way to wash it down. He'd been told not to swallow it without fluid--its coating wasn't resilient enough to make it all the way to his stomach. [more about the coating's inadequacy] How long had it been waiting? Was the level of medicine in his system going to droop lower than what was required to sustain life? But there was nothing with which to drink it down. Perhaps if he saved up enough spit. How much spit would it take to make up the swallow of a drink, enough to protect his throat from the lack of coating? How long would it take to save that much? Would he dehydrate before that point? He knew he should hurry. Not long from now another pill would rotate in the dispenser and he might lose this one. Would it eject and roll down the table onto the floor and find a too deep crack or be carried away by a little mouse-cito? Or would it disappear back into the crazy ride, too late, too slow, so sorry? Pinch it out now, but don't let your sweat drip onto it. Best to keep it in the seat until he had the spit saved up. If he weakened the coating, he might need more spit. Can one milk oneself for spit or is it always a naturally occurring process? Are you able to rush perfection?

The beauty--he thought--of inner dialogue is that no one can see you thinking it to yourself. If you are cool enough, you simply look like you are posing for a portrait or contemplating the meaning of terrible consequences. Some can do both at once. The whole time he spent in horrible, immobilizing reflection, the entire duration, he simply appeared to be considering whether or not to take the damn thing that had been ruling his days and nights for the past many many years since he had been saved by the Spook.

Flashback: ramping up to writing Lucky Dog the screenplay

I've been remaking my studio and turned up this little note from before Lucky Dog was a concept for the script I was going to write in Oaxaca.

---

What will this script tell us?
This future script?

Why do I write or want to make films?

To tell the story.

The story of horror
of injustice
of the sorts of things people need to hear, but don't listen to
of heroic fools
unpunished liars.
of my loves and hated enemies
of the death of the earth
and a flicker of momentary truth
of the power to crush an atom between a finger and a thumb
and the humility to bow before the Natural Order.

Listen. What are the sounds behind the sounds?
What lattice of connected moments support
the events that brought me to
the dark?

When they are close he never speaks.

TEXT: O! Virilis, One-Clawed-King

O! Virilis, One-Clawed-King, no one who comes later will know precisely the pleasure you derived from the rolling movements of the sloth or the snapping sounds of dry reeds on wind driven days.

Which chimney, among the hundreds, is yours? Craning your pumping thorax, lengthening with each generation, you pause to see what lies above. Kicking backwards, sluice and shape another block to form the turret. Is it a scope for those who hang their heads to gaze into the earth's crust, to understand the machine that provides for us all? Gentle Crawdad, do not retreat into your warm mud; consent!

Above, the creased grasses wave and slice in their breezes. Above, a rosy pink sky grows darker. Above, the clouds degenerate toward the horizon of trees. You say no bird can find you in your shivering tower, but tell me: Where has your claw gone? Seek it above!

Are the sad earth and its components responsible for the acts of creatures? Can we separate their purposes from the muck that bore them?

O. Virilis, (frail crustacean), Consent! to the beauty of this sad earth, to the idea of the beauty of this sad earth! Pause before your familiar colony of clay chimneys in the valley you have drained of salamanders, of toads, of the frogs.


PAA.
Reeds rise like spines from a sandy berm. A slope leads to a fat creek haunted by a tremendous barking beaver. Water swells clear and pours over the creek's dam. and spreads forward through a cave of trees toward white reflected sunlight, groomed by slow langorous limbs.

A stag drinks, half hidden in the framing grasses. Its forelegs are sunk over the hoof in marsh. A sudden hollow crack startles the stag and, slow as in sleep, it inclines its preternatural rack away from the current and throws its weight aside to test the suction of the black muck and its own chances for escape.

Downstream, two spruces ribbon upward to the clouds. The wind crosses their tips, bending them away from the dream. A poplar tree torques its lowest leaves to drag the water below. There is little time to focus. The flow is furious and blind.

The water grows narrow and taller, drawing itself up like a tongue. The flow quits its low conduit as the bottom drops from the creekbed and the water falls, flattening hard, to meet bare, smooth bedrock. Now it is drawn along toward the deeper and wider waters, to pass over the falls, and from this spot to bow out of sight before the majesty of the River.

---
At points the river opens up like a closely cropped grazing meadow. Brown-green the flow ripples low, and the short bank, also green, barely rises above the water level. Weary trees lie across the banks and attract drifting wood and a small body.

A stale little bird with yellowing feathers is fishing for a mate. It flies a corkscrew pattern up, crested head twittering as it rises to a tree branch bowed by cones. It stuffs its gullet with bright orange pollen-laden pods. Later, it casts up its accounts on the nearby sandy shoal for its desired mate. Over again and again, retching from the oily smooth curve of its abdomen, as if the stomach's contents were dancing up. The female will not copulate.

Crying out, "You're done up, your calves are gone to graze," the light-headed white bird brushes off and returns to its pile of thin sticks with a heavy heart. One pull: it finds a long stick and backs away, wishing to keep the pile trim. Another pull: he sets his feet, but there is little give. The bird pulls smaller sticks off the top. Then it begins to swipe at the loose pile. A scratch of down flutters in the breeze and releases. The bird kicks away the final layer to reveal a shimmering bed of milkweed.

"Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck," comes the bird's call again.

The glacier is quite a machine. It moves across the earth on its ooze of ice, milky water and rock. It plows at the front and turns the earth, clipping hillocks and filling gorges. But what will happen when it reaches the river?


LEY.
The glacier decomposes. Faces drop from blue verticals and fall intact, hanging until they reach the earth and disintegrate.

Cycles past the autumnal equinox and the faces keep falling one after the next. The bottom buckles as it pounds the puckered earth.

A herd of lean buffalo, shaggy overgrown water buffalo, tramps toward the edge of the wall and peers down. Skittish they start at a rising cloud of insects and then they halt. Below they see the plains and hills of their youth. Grasses and mind and still water smells. Near the cliffs the hooves of the leaders sink into the draining ice. Calmly in reservation they nod upward and pull back.

Though thirsty they shy away from the cold, thick water that runs over the side further than they can see. A face taller than trees sheers off from the front of the ice and drops. Another slice falls and the busk breaks. The collected lake above rushes through the new made gorge and over the edge. The crevasse grows sharper and wider and the ice spreads its legs. A black joke is played upon the humorless and limp earth.

The ice picks up its pace, and a tail, part frozen flesh, part bone, uncurls in the cavern. The ice loosens and a great ornithischian hip flows with the blue lake water down to the foot of the wall.

A paper-white sapling's roots have clawed into a thin crust of ejaculate collected in a hollow, dirty bower, part way up the wall of ice. Where did it come from? Most fauna here was born after the ice appeared on the horizon, though a few deer sense that, as fawns themselves, they had been able to run in all directions.

A spray of snow loops and whips into the air. In the silent, melting, winter twilight, the ice wall resonates a guttural tone. A roll of sodden peat and rock pushes over the embankment and swirls away in the midst of the calm waters of the old river.


(THE BATTLE)

The river, this river, is a god. And the god has no worshippers, no cult is based upon the turns of this river. The titanic glacier is slaying the river, choking it. The fill keeps coming and the god tries to flush it away. It swallows hilltops and gorge walls and yet begins to panic; the 3 million year old god can still summon panic.

A tremendous tree is revealed as its conveyance breaks loose. It falls and is consumed by the white water. The god's strength renews with rest and focuses its force upon the earth dam. The fill reaches a worn switchback downstream and catches hold. The hum of the ice reigns over the shrieking rapids. The ice blade is jagged and dirty as it cuts heaving chunks from the remnants of the river bank.


TAS.
Groaning ice. A god-like finger rims the melting ice until it hums higher pitched. Mottled, embubbled, refrozen, and now re-melting, it fades into a shallow snowy blue pool. The surface stretches in regular tight millipede-shaped ripples rotating to the hum.

Imperturbable you.
Crane-ee-umm site
Para-mee-seeum sweet
So set and so swaddled
Molly-Mc-Coddled
In the arcing pods.

Ship to shore
Sunset sheen
Said of a blistered beauty queen
I'm peppered poo parade
and slack-jawed
jack-dawed
on the plane.

Time is kept by the laughter of water's coursing hands syrupy and relentless; tickling, then numbing, then shaving, then carving, then hollowing, then smearing, then patting smooth.

The tree has fur.

Several birds land on a stout limb and blink from side to side. The limb moves. Slowly. One bird flaps twice and stops. The others lean gently as the limb reaches higher, connecting to a wooden limb and sinking its slow talons into the spongey bark. Round grey birds on the furry stump pipe out as it rises, too, think, mossy hair parting as the mouth closes on a plump green branch. The dirty fur plays a trick on the birds--now you see the leaves, now you don't--as it slides to the tip of the branch. The branch drips long, watery strands.