THE COURSE
This course features the construction, maintenance, and repair of locomotive objects of prose and/or poetry. Using a variety of gadgets, gizmos, and gears, such as muscle, meter, and other meanderings, we will discuss engine fertility, motility, and volatility. Other possibilities include instructions on how to tender, mend, and heal wounds inflicted by our material and immaterial matters.
Brick by Brick, Four Wheels
Any two hearts can reflect or
refract. The difference lies
within the lens, complicated by the mechanics of the mind.
Compounded by the ego.
Build a bridge between the head
and the heart to see what travels between them. Pave the way.
The thrill of it all depends not
upon a red wheel barrow (perhaps used to carry to and fro the bricks needed to
complete the structure), but upon the process of the building. Complicated by
the pull of the ego.
Compounded by the strength of the
heart.
It’s true that to and fro
constitutes most of the required motion for bridge-building, but it need not be
cumbersome.
Think of it as dam letting, from
the top down.
One who completes a bridge may
wish to carry their vessel to its grand opening, ribbon cutting, inauguration, celebration.
It’s likely that Ghandi will be
there in the crowd of on-lookers sharing the anticipation of the final snip.
The great thing about the opening
day is that everyone can stand at the bridge’s center, shouting greetings to
the world and listening to them echo over esophageal-like canyon, ecstatic and
rebounding off the outer canyon edges, seeking the next solid object from which
to refract again and return.
Echoes can be like boomerangs
when wielded properly.
Beware the resonance into
infinity; it’s important to be mindful of what goes on forever from the source,
if you control it.
Chug-a-chug.
Hush, hush.
All hot air rises. Moving air
means cellular respiration, telepathic phones.
It’s funny how it didn’t seem
like a bridge was being built from the beginning. It could have been anything, a table, grandfather clock,
nesting dolls.
You won’t find this bridge in an
entry for combustion or engine, but rather “under” the listing for byway.
Ironically, bridges are typically
used to go “over” things.
Remind the ego of the need for grease. A rich engine is all that
can be contained and will be combusted.
It’s amazing to think that
internal combustion refers to something which is constantly being set afire,
over and over and over again at speeds too fast to see with the naked eye.
The same is true of the heart.
The heart can never be seen but only felt, firing, firing and firing again,
sparked by something appearing to be outside of itself but subject to the mechanics
of the inner workings.
Pumping, electrified, open to the
guzzle of blood like an engine running rich and smelling of exhaust heavy with
fuel.
Where the heart can travel, along
the bridge, is the only road ever taken.
Everything that echoes must not
converge, roads intertwining and intersecting like the complicated byways of
synapse and nerve impulse.
Nothing that echoes will
intersect, invisible, and subject to invisible directionals, invisible road
rules and absent stripes.
All that
can be burned, roasted, sparked and set aflame can return to the hearth, return
to the earth, return to the heart.
Brick by brick, barrow by barrow,
w-ego and build and pave and clear and forge and extract and drive, four
wheels, one heart, one mind, two hands, two feet.
10 = 1 + 0 = 1
Microcosm, Vessel
I
Sometimes what appears to be less than
whole is not.
Anything that can be broken can be fixed.
In some ways, what is fixed can be broken;
however, what is broken usually contains the microcosm of that which is whole.
Consider a small vessel, carved and
ornate. Once cracked, the outer design may change, but the vessel is still a
vessel, whether whole or in pieces.
II
Everything that can be broken can be
mended.
Wooden, chain link, cement.
It’s here that we find that which keeps
things out, also keeps things in.
III
Eventually it will be known that all
things broken are being put back together, made whole.
The same is true with heart.
Ego is a bit different; it lends itself to
fragmentation, solitary in its quest and unflinchingly accurate with regard to its
vision. The vision always contains
seeds of heart, seeds of whole.
IV
Every seed that is planted may not sprout,
but every seed that is planted has the potential.
This is like love, perhaps.
Perhaps not.
Either way, there is still an element of
mystery, left to sprout over time.
V
To duplicate that which is broken would be
to waste precious energy, gasoline, torque, fuel to fire, fire to fuel.
To duplicate that which is whole would be
the ultimate tree.
VI
When birds sing, all is whole, fire, fuel,
seeded and seedling, sprouted and sprouting.
When birds sing, often they sing from
trees.
VII
Call and response is common among birds,
aborigines, dolphins, whales and others. Some mammals, some not.
To duplicate a call is to lure, to
falsify, to mirror, to fragment.
To duplicate is not to echo.
VIII
Spirit speaks in a multitude of ways,
tongues, eyes, telepathy and others.
To spirit is to be immersed. To duplicate
is to merge.
IV
Everything that merges does not separate.
Everything that intersects does not echo.
Everything that has a point may not
contain language.
Everything that is experiment is noise.
Everything that is a signal can be
illusion.
Everything that is ego can be a mechanism.
Everything that is mind can be of steam.
Everything that moves from one pocket to
another may not be invisible.
Everything that is heart can be from the
infinite.
X
10
1+0 = 1
All that duplicates must eventually become
a vessel.
XI
11
1+1=2
All vessels are built to hold spirit.
Echo, heart, ego, part.
Converge and merge, diverge and splurge.
Echo, heart, ego, part.
Echo, heart, ego, part.
Echo, heart, ego, part.
The Problem With
The problem with the problem with:
A spirit duplicator sometimes fails
To exactly transpose the details.
Like a mistake in (mistaken) DNA,
it may contain an an extra duplication.
The sppirit apparates.
The spitrit finds a spittoon.
The spirits multiply.
Inherent in the design is the flaw.
Duplication duplicity duplexing duplets.
Each clone a lesser one than before
Weaker and more borken.
The problem with the problem with.
The Duality of Closest and Farthest [Furthest]
That which is echoed, has a point of
origination. All points originate.
All points are potentially infinite.
Like a graph, infinite points are
infinitely plotted on a line.
Like a heart, an infinite number of points
can reside inside an aortic graph.
Not all that echoes will converge, but
spherical harmonics lends that each beat of the heart will resonate into
infinity.
Not all that echoes will converge, but
spherical harmonics lends that each beat of the heart will resonate into
infinity.
into
infinity
into
infinity
Until I am
interrupted by Ryan Gosling in Crazy.
Stupid. Love.
interrupted by Crazy. Stupid. Love.
Everything that
intersects must merge, but only at one point. Then separate and diverge again.
Calcium Cave In
The
logorhythmic ah-spirial [with]in the Cauliflower
the
logorhythmic ah-spirial in the horn of the rhinoceros
bending spun
wins downs for the further record
spins down
wins the bending further up twin
slope
elision, muscles masticate flavor
labor gowns
les musings, rebel lapses
Symbol of
modern life, the chaste peal, bell round
mutilations,
warble like the moon, bird on a fig
cascade
toward caldera, who could understand
so much
hydrology? petting the sea bottom heavy
so much
gastronomy, surprising up with a coast
or other
hyperbolies, lap lace, wretching
form you
late your face to a moustache, tip
types forms
your o into a genius, mark.
Spherical Harmonics for Dummies
 |
| © 2012 Sylvia Liu |
From “Spherical Harmonics for Dummies” (yes, there is such a link, and no, you still can’t understand it):
“Spherical harmonics functions are the solution of the Laplace's differential equation . . . What is meant is every point on a unit sphere has a numeric value. . . .Just because a function has values for every point on the sphere doesn't mean there is a sphere.”
So…
Points on
Spheres like marbles, planets, bubbles about to burst,
Harmonic in their convergence,
Differential in their functions.
A clink clank point on an orb with filaments of magic and game,
A human, ant, or stalk of corn, roaming or rooted on the blue orb,
A soapy iridescent sheen on an unstable thinning surface.
Just because you have value
And made your place on the sphere
Doesn’t mean there is a sphere.
Herald
Perhaps it
was the end of the month,
when trees
shook down their garments, hanging
platters
like servants in a palsy, trays and themselves
unearthing,
what lies beneath, makes rubbish of cars.
So, many
fires, so many submerged tunnels.
There is Gabriel
fearsomely blowing his trumpet,
his cheeks so red from the effort.
We are
all thankful to have set before him
a little
deaf girl designed to alert us to the sound,
she is
making mud pies, her red rain boots
up to the
lip never fill with water, slickers
prevail,
silence is its own protection.
Everyone out
of the way! The ice in my gin is melting
new political
continents, map this with your acquiescence.
I’m riding
my tricycle down to the park.
I don’t
worry about traffic because I evaporate
before each
taxi, puddle under pick-ups,
and
reconstitute like a powder of milk. I wave
to you in
your office building, you muskrats,
staring at
the nail that held the clock, I squeeze
the bulb of
my horn, red-full of fluid time,
no honks but
squirting, clown gags a face full of innards,
I’m
arriving, train bob, roller coasters set to sea
for their Viking
burial, not natural but heralded.
:
Something Important to Say
Chug-a-chug-a
Hush
Chug-a-chug-a Hush
Chug-a-chug-a Hush Hush
The experiment is noise. The experiment is loud. The experiment leans and grows and
growls and knows. Hush hush.
The radio blares: hush hush.
It has no stations, knows
no listeners. All is quiet, tuned
out, turned off.
Hush hush.
What was once a warning is now a declaration, a voice, a
kind remark. All stories that have
a beginning must have an end. Some
are made of air, and others of dense liquid words chained together like links
on a bicycle, teeth on a cog, moving fluidly around a center. They must be brushed. Chug-a-chug. They must be aired.
Chug-a-chug. They must be hardened,
molded into echoes.
Everything that emits sound must have a point of
origination. The tree in the
forest that falls still makes noise, except there is no one around to hear it.
All noise is vibration, ego, hot air, like a balloon that rises and disappears
into the stratosphere.
If you tie a message to a helium balloon and let it rise,
there is no guarantee that it will eventually land in another part of the world
so that someone can read the message.
All messages floated into the air are not guaranteed readers.
What was once a warning is now an annoying thing that simply
goes on and on like an unattended garishly loud politician. Ghandi would not approve.
What was once a warning is now a car lineup stuck in
traffic on its way to Cow Palace.
What was once a warning is now an omen scaring little
children into staying home when its dark.
What was once a warning is now a sign a signal, softening,
softer, softer with something important to say.
What is now a sign, a signal, should now be posted on a billboard
for all passersby to see.
What is now a sign, a signal is in need of attention:
The air of the ego is illusion but the blood of the heart is
a mechanism.
Chug-a-chug.
Steam Engine
When the television goes to commercial
my daughter sets off a wailing
as though what pressure is involved
in keeping her sane is suddenly
hit a critical level. My face goes red
like a cartoon, the containment valve
inside my noggin tipping down
to red ticks, wobbling some final seconds
of warning, my eyelid twitches
as a fog screens what concentration
I had, blurring out the titles of books,
the reflection on the windows, the trees
outside into one interminable haze,
until I am locomotived, a chug of wheels
lurching me toward a new America,
I take one step, exhale, then another,
to the wall where I yank the plug
and collect the tv in my arms
cradled silently, imploring. I
bustle it out to the shed where it
malingers still, rotting among
the buffalo carcasses of a happy homelife.
Zombie Oarsman, Zombie Balloons
Assignment Two
By Kelly Lydick
All hot air rises, but not all that rises must converge.
Everything is a living, breathing creature, even if
inanimate, stoic, gleaning.
That all has breath indicates that all teeth must be
brushed.
A steam engine is nothing more than a machine that processes
air.
Moving air from one pocket to another is like shuffling
invisible dance steps. Zombie
dance steps dragging one leg behind the other. Just like Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
All zombies move air from one pocket to another. Sometimes
there is change, a few dimes, but often there is only a cellular phone.
The cellular phone does not move air from one pocket to
another, but has the capability of transporting data the way a train transports
cargo.
In India, there are trains with open windows that symbolize imperialism. Ghandi would not approve. Ghandi did not ride trains that had
steam engines, and he did not listen to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
All hot air rises, but not all hot air is full of fluff, of
philosophy, of meaning. Everything
that is full of hot air is like cotton candy, sweetly sickening in smell but
tasting good. Everything that
smells of cotton candy must eventually melt.
Everything that is air is invisible. You might consider
dyeing it so as to track its movement through space. Everything that is dyed is trackable.
Also, a steam engine train can be a time machine, as
illustrated in Back to the Future III. All time machines must move backward
and forward in time. It’s prudent
to dye the time machine, too, so as to find it again amongst the regular steam
engine trains. Every steam engine
train that is a time machine must be tracked.
A steam engine has neither an ego nor heart, but rather a set
of chug-a-chugs that move in circles.
This is reminiscent of an oarsmen with only one oar, who tries to move
through space. Everything is
circular and therefore trackable.
An oarsmen cannot travel through time.
All hot air rises. Balloons are noisy and cold and
unromantic. They are full of fluff
and fire and if they had teeth, those should be brushed, too. A balloon cannot travel through time. A
balloon also processes air, just by burning it from nothing into nothing.
Traveling through time is overrated as most places that are
worth traveling to are not light years away. Except the eagle nebula. The eagle nebula can be tracked. It also moves air from one place to another and shines
brightly with fire like a balloon.
All hot air rises.
In winter, it’s a good idea not to invite an elephant to your home
because they may fall through the floor and break through the roof. An elephant is not trackable, except by
other elephants. Elephants do not
listen to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Most, however, really like Ghandi.
All hot air rises.
All chug-a-chugs make noise. All chug-a-chugs move air. Cause this is Thriller. Thriller night.
Oarsmen beware.
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