Impasse

This evening I considered nothingness and your absence. I dreamt of the end of your time and mine as if that was a perfectly suitable escape for the stress I'm under and overwhelmed with. I peered out from my car's front window, but I could not tap into the abyss of your cavity. And I decided then and there (approaching the intersection of Oleander and Baseline -East) that I could not live without you, and that it would serve a stronger mind to inter myself one limb at a time. Red, green -that won't do... not at all. There's only one other way: to outlive you and brace for the day that you fall from earthly grace. It's an evil deceit -a life and those lives tethered to its core. Who will hold you when the ropes have all burned and broken? The darkest matter was oil and water, and in my half-dream there were houses for everyone to float around in, but I walked the sidewalks searching for your face and the solace you provide when you smile.

GRE Vocabulary (Round Two) ..desperation ensues..

Zealot (n): someone passionately devoted to a cause. Precis (n): short summary of facts. Husband (v): to manage economically; to use sparingly. Dirge (n): a funeral hymn or mournful speech. Intrepid (adj): fearless; resolutely courageous. Erratic (adj): wandering and unpredictable. Gestation (n): growth process from conception to birth. Sinecure (n): a well-paying job or office that requires little or no work. Sagacious (adj): shrewd; wise. Pathogenic (adj): causing disease. Nominal (adj): existing in name only; negligible. Flag (v): to decline in vigor, strength, or interest. Repast (n): meal or mealtime. Listless (adj): lacking energy and enthusiasm. Ostentation (n): excessive showiness. Insurrection (n): rebellion. Wan (adj): sickly pale. Inure (v): to harden; accustom; become used to. Puerile (adj): childish, immature, or silly. Anachronism (n): something out of place in time. Ignoble (adj): having low moral standards; not noble in character; mean. Iniquity (n): sin; evil act. Umbrage (n): offense; resentment. Polemic (n): controversy; argument; verbal attack. Abscond (v): to leave secretly. Viscous (adj): thick and adhesive, like a slow-flowing fluid. Deleterious (adj): subtly or unexpectedly harmful. Fractious (adj): unruly; rebellious. Distend (v): to swell, or bloat. Collusion (n): collaboration; complicity; conspiracy. Coalesce (v): to grow together to for a single whole. Gambol (v): to dance or skip around playfully. Explicit (adj): clearly stated or shown; forthright in expression. Dogmatic (adj): dictatorial in one's opinions. Repose (n): relaxation; leisure. Probity (n): complete honesty and integrity. Opine (v): to express an opinion. Investiture (n): ceremony conferring authority. Ribald (adj): humorous in a vulgar way. ....desperation.

GRE Vocabulary (Round One)

Ardor (n): intense & passionate feeling. Erudite (adj): learned; scholarly; bookish. Dogma (n): a firmly held opinion, especially a religious belief. Enervate (V): to reduce in strength. Acme (n): highest point; summit; the highest level or degree attainable. Gradation (n): process occurring by regular degrees or stages; variation in color. Philanthropy (n): charity; a desire or effort to promote goodness. Leery (adj): suspicious. Legerdemain (n): trickery. Dither (v): to act confusedly or without clear purpose. Levity (n): an inappropriate lack of seriousness; overly casual. Attenuate (v): to reduce in force or degree; weaken. Sardonic (adj): cynical; scornfully mocking. Lachrymose (adj): tearful. Canard (n): a lie. Jocular (adj): playful; humorous. Corroborate (v): to support with evidence. Diatribe (n): an abusive, condemnatory speech. Bilk (v): to cheat; defraud. Crescendo (n): steadily increasing in volume or force. Yoke (v): to join together. Malinger (v): to evade responsibility by pretending to be ill. Apocryphal (adj): of questionable authority or authenticity. Exonerate (v): to clear of blame. Coffer (n): strongbox; large chest for money. Aggrandize (v): to increase in power, influence, and reputation. Pariah (n): an outcast. Pare (v): to trim off excess; reduce. Abjure (v): to reject; abandon formally. Stigma (n): a mark of shame or discredit. Vacillate (v): to physically sway or to be indecisive. Craven (adj): lacking courage. Peccadillo (n): minor sin or offense. Onerous (adj): troublesome and oppressive; burdensome. Mercurial (adj): quick, shrewd, and unpredictable.

Passion & Delirium

Language is the first an last structure of madness, its constituent form; on language are based all the cycles in which madness articulates its nature. That the essence of madness can be ultimately defined in the simple structure of a discourse does not reduce it to a purely psychological nature, but gives it a hold over the totality of the soul and body; such discourse is both the silent language by which the mind speaks to itself in the truth proper to it, and the visible articulation in the movements of the body. Parallelisms, complements, all the forms of immediate communication which we have seen manifested, in madness are suspended between soul and body in this single language and in its powers. The movement of passion which persists until it breaks and turns against itself, the sudden appearance of the image, and the agitations of the body which were its visible concomitants -all this, even as we were trying to gauge. If the determinism of passion is transcended and released in the hallucination of the image, if the image, in return, has swept away the whole world of beliefs and desires, it is because the delirious language was already present -a discourse which liberated passion from all its limits and adhered with all the constraining weight of its affirmation to the image which was liberating itself.

It is in this delirium, which is of both boy and soul, of both language and image, of both grammar and physiology, that all the cycles of madness conclude and begin. It is this delirium whore rigorous meaning organized them from the start. It is madness itself, and also, beyond each of its phenomena, its silent transcendence, which constitute the truth of madness.

-M. Foucault on the aspects of delirium.

Black & White

You were a friend to me, like the malignant swelling of your skin -just around the jaw.
And in the abscess of my memories: withered leaves dropping with swift-wind-swings.
(little wings)

Chasing the birds, your claws outstretched -i in the corner, pulling a string,
catching your attention with my woodsman alias. i set the rope aflame
just as you motioned towards it, knowing that i could never live with the
reality of you trapped inside, dangling and discouraged, those eyes, glimmering.

And under the leaves shifts the dry desert clay, blownback, lifting towards
an ever-changed constellated night. Choose wisely. Many have toured the sky.

You were a friend to me, a satellite of pillared future histories, and yet your life,
a microcosm in cost-benefit-analysis, a dried, mundane Thursday afternoon
swimming in the sunlight of my American-blinded room -those unhappy
rectangles of ultraviolet and your sprawling body under them, is worthwhile.

Annie & Susan

-Although none of the rules for becoming more alive is valid, it is healthy to keep on formulating them.