Memorable Fancies

[“Not as a god, but as a god might be” – Wallace Stevens]        Not tame, not kind, not smiling and perched on a cloud, but a power of vengeance to its enemies, and to us as well, to this very day and forever.        Not ... forgiving ...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“A time-travel romance novel” – from an ad on the Web] 1. I went into the past, when she still loved me. 2. I went into the future, when I’d finally forgotten her. 3. I saw a cute little girl, went into a future where she’d finally turned 18. But now I was 37. 4. We were of awkwardly different ages, decided that one of us should travel to a time when we were the same age. But, in confusion, we both did. Now the age difference is the same, but backwards. 5. “I know why I've waited … [Read more...]

       The BEINGs arrived on our planet last month. A friendly visit? We don’t know.        Politely, now, they stay out of sight, understanding that we’re terrified of them, even though they have only friendly intentions. They said.        They appear to us when we close our eyes.        Every time we close our eyes.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or … [Read more...]

[“What is divinity if it can come / Only in silent shadows and in dreams? – Wallace Stevens] Better than the real god, demanding, as unsatisfied with how our lives have gone as we are.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“I know things that make me unlikely.” - Emily Skaja]        Back in the year zero, it was quite unlikely that you would eventually exist. The odds of there ever being a ‘you’ were vanishingly small.        But it happened. And it happened to everyone.        You suspect a trick. Perhaps you’re dreaming – because there must be a dreamer. And you hear a hollow laugh, and a voice saying, “Yes there is a dreamer – but it’s not … [Read more...]

[“You believed in your own story, / then climbed inside it” – Shu Ting] Now you can’t get out, even as others scoff.   >> below: a short play available from the publisher, stageplays.com << … [Read more...]

[“Now, solemnize the secretive syllables.” – Wallace Stevens]        After I endured the trials, the temptations, the forest-fasting that lasted until I was desperately eating weeds and dirt – after I endured these things I qualified: I was taught the magic, the secret words that force angels from the sky down to earth, to do my bidding.        But angels have a limited repertoire; they cannot do what I wanted them to do, only … [Read more...]

[“Can all men, together, avenge / One of the leaves that have fallen in autumn? / But the wise man avenges by building his city in snow.” – Wallace Stevens]        Under the snow the autumn leaves lie still, desperately plotting, not knowing they cannot, again, be the green leaves of spring. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“Und wie wird er in Zukunft wieder wissen, wie erinnern tut?” - Ludwig Wittgenstein] [“And how will he know, again next time, how remembering works?”*] “I want to remember, right now, what’s happening now!” “No, you can’t; you can remember only in the future.” Impatiently, I wait. [* My translation – the ‘official’ translation is impossible.]  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“Strange coincidence, that every man whose skull has been opened had a brain!” – Ludwig Wittgenstein] Most people have not had their skulls opened. Is this because they have no brain and such a procedure would therefore be futile?        Or was – something – collecting brains and ignored those having none? >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“There was a fear that I would tell the story in a way that might / unnecessarily tell someone about himself.” –– Emily Skaja]        If you feel you must, you may tell others about my sins, inadequacies, unadmitted failures.        But don’t tell me!   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“It is bad taste to want to agree with many.” – Nietzsche]        Just as you’ve talked yourself into agreeing with everyone around you, their opinions change and your carefully copied ideas are now ignored.        Or laughed at.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“Statues come to life only in a world where the living are always themselves on the verge of turning into statues.” – Kenneth Gross]        I felt a tinge of stillness, just now, rigidity, a halt to the constant grinding of my internal organs, their everlasting passacaglia. Stone is coming, the statue phase of my life. No more worries about where my next meal is coming from; not ever, now.        Only an alarm of … [Read more...]

       Film-makers are expert in putting us off the scent. The real monsters aren’t in our cellars, where we could just block the door at night.        Instead, look up: they’re in the bedroom. Where we wait for each other, to acknowledge the monsters.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“the sky goes out / if you should fail” – William Carlos Williams] You watched the sky fall, edges first then dome like a circus tent, season over, time to winter where it’s warm. But the Owner promised no new sky, no new show, thanking us now for our labor, though customers were few. Yes, we were dedicated  to this, our temporary sky.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind … [Read more...]

[“When people challenge a god, the gods curse them / with the label of madness. It is all very convenient.” – C. Dale Young]        But sometimes, the gods curse people without having been challenged, “just because,” or perhaps for practice. This makes the diagnosis of madness more difficult for us, requires us to raise our fees, invent long technical terms to justify our putting these people away.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a … [Read more...]

       “Well,” I said to her, “before this gets serious, let’s go into the future and see how we’ll be doing in ten years, if we keep this up.”        And so we did.        It wasn’t pretty.        But now we can’t get back.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“I pray that nobody / ever hears us” – Michael Wasson]        Their prayer was answered. Now no one hears them, no matter how loud they shout, how they wave their arms and point toward their open mouths.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“We must enslave the natives with our poems” – Ryuichi Tamura]        Our poems are about the nobility of labor, the honor of serving, and, as circumstances require from time to time, the great honor of dying in their masters’ wars.        “Gave their lives” we say, not “We took their lives.”   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

       Today I looked at my face in the mirror and saw a stranger. Yeah, lots of people see that, write wrenching poems about it, appalled prose.        Worried, they are. Some smash their mirrors, at least fictionally.        Not me. I smile broadly at my stranger.        What a relief !   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more … [Read more...]

["Some of us are made to be carrion birds & some of us are made to be circled.” - Emily Skaja] The birds are circling your body, waiting to make sure it’s really dead and can’t rise up and attack them. Your spirit is watching this scene from above. Your spirit is now one of those birds, those vultures.        Your raucous cries tell the others that it is safe, now, to gorge.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to … [Read more...]

       The remains of the mirror lie on the floor: a hundred mirrors – a hundred ‘me’s, their visions ­– shattered. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

       We have a fear, both inborn and also fed by dozens of horror movies, of what might be lurking underground, even in the basements of our own homes.        We imagine bloody crimes that might have been committed there, years ago.        Or more recently.        So recently it might be in the future.        A near future. Ours. … [Read more...]

[“Examine even unto your dreams, to know if, once awakened, you did not give them your consent.” – Michel Foucault, quoting a confessional manual]        “Forgive me, Father, I have sinned in my dreams, done wicked things in my dreams, with my body and with other people’s bodies too.        “Did I consent to these dreams? Now how could I ... ?        “Well, perhaps, yes, Father, I suppose my … [Read more...]

[“If fleas developed a rite, it would be based on the dog.” – Wittgenstein]        One uncommonly bright flea discovered that the object of their worship, the dog, had its own religion, worshipping its master.        Should we then, the flea asked, worship master directly, not second-hand via the family dog?        But this suggestion was rejected by the congregation of fleas, who called the proposal “Protestant,” and banished … [Read more...]

[“I was alone in the hall with only the walls watching to see my face.” – Anna Kavan]        I worry too much! But why would they keep me waiting so long here in the station if not to observe me? There must be people behind those walls. I’m thinking One takes a break, says “Hey, Two, your turn.” and Two says, “See anything yet?” and One says, “She’s starting to twitch,” and Two says, “Not much longer, then, is it?” And One says, “Nope; I might even be home for dinner!”   >> “books … [Read more...]

[“Where do the multitude of Gods dwell?” – Cicero]        We looked here and there: in the clouds, in the earth we thumped hoping to hear a returning sound, or feel a soft shaking; but there was no response. And when the earthen gods did consent to shake and topple the temples of the sky gods, it was not at our bidding nor at the place where we sacrifice our bleating lambs to them.        Truly, the ways of the gods are beyond us … [Read more...]

[“I now suspect that there is a ghost-world – but that it is our existence – that when spirits die they become human beings.” – Charles Fort]        Then who are we to haunt?        Each other.        As we’ve been doing all along. … [Read more...]

[“The self is an illusion without anyone’s having the illusion.” – Jan Westerhoff]        The magician’s trick has made us persons – or at least characters in our own fiction, not knowing if we’re its heroes or how it will end.        It’s smoke and mirrors, all the way down. >> "books Terence Kuch" on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“I am annoyed not to have any hint of the nearby room in which a crime is committed or in which people make love.” – Andre Gide]        In the absence of fact and observation, I make up any story I like. These become my own facts and observations, my own hints, my crimes, my adventures – not having anything in my own life to substitute for them.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind … [Read more...]

[“My impartiality is all the easier to me since I know very little about these things.” – Freud]        I’ve tried to retain my ignorance, here, so I can be objective. Don’t confuse me with the facts.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“ this difficulty in attaining any certainty about others’ existence” – Michel Foucault]        Yes, I suppose those others do exist – after a fashion – but it’s not the same kind of existence I have, because I’m ‘me,’ and they’re not.        ‘Me’ is not some extraneous aspect of my life, it IS my life. No one else is a ‘me’ for me. That’s why I’m certain only about me.        Those others? Well, … [Read more...]

[“See everything with novelty.” – Andre Gide]        Look with wonder. Pretend you don’t know the thing’s name, that name other people have called it, the name that deadens it, the name that withdraws us from the things themselves, and then from other selves, and then from our own – selves.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“The children looked at the sky: it was not forbidden.” – Carlos Drummond de Andrade]        Some of us wanted to forbid the children from looking into the sky because they might want to go there one day, into space, to explore.        But that was long ago and we no longer explore. Not after that awful day, when ... >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“Because I did not know his name, he seemed only half real, and a stranger to me.” – Lydia Davis]        If I tell you my name, he said, that would make you and me – an ‘us.’ I am not ready for ‘us.’        Not with you, anyway.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“The third reason [why people believe in the gods]: men’s minds are terrified by lightning, storms, etc. Through their terror of these, men have suspected the existence of some divine celestial force.” – Cicero]        The hard lesson here is that the gods are terrifying, unpredictable, deadly. God is not your friend.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“etwas sind wahr” – Paul Celan]        What was it? Not my fervent hopes and probably not yours, either.        But at least we were, for a while anyway, an “is.”  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“The adversity of the world is its inaccessibility to consciousness, its brute givenness, its absolute alterity.” – Judith Butler ( paraphrasing Sartre)]        But if it were not so, if the world were my conscious creation, I suspect its adversity would be even more adverse, brutal.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

       On the new planet, our explorers find intelligent beings who strongly resemble chickens. They approach our explorers, peck at them, force them into coops, wait for the eggs. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

Our friendly motto: "BURN BEFORE YOU BURN" … [Read more...]

[“At Thebes, the earth swallowed him.” (said of Amphiarous)]         This famous place of intrigue and murder, this place comfortably far enough from Athens that the those Athenians can site their own intrigues and murders here among us, in Thebes, safely away from their own dangerous home. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“hapless behind the dreams of accuracy” – James Joyce]        I want to make sure I’ve got everything exactly right now, that I understand exactly what happened between us. Details, explications, analyses.        But you say it was never that way, there was no exactness. It was never any way; what happened was never just one thing; it was many things. Too many things.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will … [Read more...]

8:20pm Thursday. A wall is going up around the Capitol. Trump is getting what he wanted, his wall, at last. A wall to save America Just as he said his wall would. … [Read more...]

[“God doesn’t exist (but there is a God who doesn’t exist)” – Slavoj Žižek]        God has more important things to do than exist – existence is the booby prize.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“In cooler moments I wonder at the extravagance of our feelings.” – Anaïs Nin]        And in moments of passion and stress, I wonder how we could want to feel anything less.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“All attempts to enact rational laws about property have put out from the bay of love into the desolate sea of regulations.” – Max Stirner] – or laws about anything else. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“the machine that reads us all the time” – Slavoj Žižek] I programmed my machine to read the newspaper, because I didn’t have time to. And then I programmed it to read me, because I didn’t have time to reflect or consider.        And then I programmed it to ... but no, it had programmed me. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

 [“For the love of God, tell a joke!” – Joss Whedon]        I told a joke, but God didn’t think it was funny, said he didn’t love it.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“The crowd of thoughts that cannot come out, because they all want to rush forward and thus get stuck in the exit.” – Wittgenstein]        I took a course on “How to Say Everything at Once.” The sessions left the class somewhat confused, until we took the second course, titled “How to Hear Everything at Once.”  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“a wilderness of mirrors” – T.S. Eliot]        In the fun house of mirrors we see strange, grotesque versions of ourselves, dozens of different me’s, some short, some tall, some sticking their tongues out, some complaining that they should be as real as we are, that we are their own distorted reflections, their jesters.        The more threatening mirrors, when discovered, are taken out of service and smashed.        But each … [Read more...]

[“the truest oracles were the doves and the responses from the oak.”– Pausanias, c. AD/CE 160]        We did have to pay professionals to tell us what the doves and oaks were saying, but that was a small price to pay for the wisdom they imparted.        Without these professionals, we’d have had to figure out, ourselves, what to do. There would have been disagreements – or worse.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or … [Read more...]

[“It is much less difficult to be unhappy.” – Freud]        Freud unhappily confided this wisdom to his patients, who were relieved that they could remain happily unhappy, and just stop worrying.   >> below: a comedy about baseball available from the publisher, stageplays.com << Baseball and mitt on rustic wooden background … [Read more...]

[“Ad exec Earl Edwards penned the slogan ‘Sleeping on a Sealy is like sleeping on a cloud.’ And with that, Sealy mattresses became a national phenomenon.” – Google]        That may be why sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I’m floating above my bed. Not much; just an inch or two. Embarrassed, I sink back down onto the mattress.        I don’t want anyone to know I do this odd thing; what … [Read more...]

[“The common element in ... blame is the notion that wrongdoers deserve the negative emotions, attitudes, and behavioral responses that constitute blame.” – Erin I. Kelly]        Why can’t blame be simple and objective, without all those emotions and attitudes and pointing fingers that just make my accepting their blame that much harder?        I blame those people for what they’re doing to me.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on … [Read more...]

       In our kingdom, loyalty is rewarded. In fact, strong expressions of loyalty are expected – required. The insufficiently loyal are subject to disfavor, disgrace, imprisonment.        The trick, however, is not to be too loyal. Above a certain unspecified level, the king becomes suspicious.        Executions follow.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly … [Read more...]

[“Not just anyone who wants to can go crazy.” – Jacques Lacan]        I applied to the Asylum, having heard that they were running short of patients and were offering bonuses to get people to sign up, to be admitted, to be treated as cases rather than people.        They called me in for an interview, warned me how rigorous the treatment protocol would be, how my Self would be disassembled and put together in a way I might not … [Read more...]

[“Then the parents ordered them to wait until evening. when the parents would return. Then it was midnight and there would never again be parents.” – Kathy Acker]        There was only a small house in the woods, and a nice old lady who said she’d be happy to “take in” (as she put it) small children.        Then it was midnight and there would never again be children.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead … [Read more...]

[“The world is a story that keeps beginning.” – Li-Young Lee]        We avidly begin once more, hoping this time to reach the end, but we only end by beginning once again.        We avidly ... >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“now you're just a stranger's dream” – Chromatics]        He looks for the one he dreamed        And finds her –        A different stranger’s dream >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“When the wicked one takes the stage, a sign: ‘Boo.’ When the hero does: ‘Applaud’.” – Albert Camus]        The producers learned to display these signs after a few wicked audiences completely misunderstood.   >> below: a play available from the publisher, stageplays.com << Composition of objects involving presidential election in USA … [Read more...]

[“Sexuality is the only finite game in which the winner’s prize is the loser.” – James P.  Carse]        I didn’t think of her as “the loser” after I talked her into bed that time.        But she did.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

       Our shadows are our real selves; we are the shadows of our shadows.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“Maybe I can love you with many selves.” – Nabila Lovelace]        Yes, I have many selves; one for each of your tempers, your absences, your attitudes, your excuses, ...   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“on this high place sometimes touching with our fingers his touch upon the stones” – George Seferis]        Here is the touch of the sculptor from so many centuries ago: where he rested his iron tools, where he stood and looked up with pleasure at what he’d made, perhaps noticed a few flaws, thought he ought to fix them – but too late.        Besides, it was the Archon’s nose that tilted that way, not his own clumsy hands.   … [Read more...]

[“Vagueness might be an intrinsic property of how the universe works.” – New Scientist]        I guess so. More or less. Sounds OK. Whatever.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“With Baudelaire, physiology entered into poetry; with Nietzsche, into philosophy. By them, the troubles of the organs were raised to song, to concept.” – E.M. Cioran]        What prelude are my organs playing? What fugue yet to come?   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“to love more quickly than the other, to love before you are loved. For if no one shoots first any longer today, no one dares love first either.” – Jean Baudrillard]        I love only in self-defense. It’s the perfect excuse.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“up ahead, in shadow, the past waits.” – John Ashbery]        I was peering behind me, intently, to see if my dark past was still following me, or if I'd finally lost it.        So intently was I staring back that I didn’t see, ahead, my dark future.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“Spacetime is a data structure that we create to track and capture fitness payoffs. Physical objects are not antique stage props; they too are data structures of our making.” – Donald Hoffman]        Well, look what I made! It’s a pretty world now, even though I couldn’t figure out how just to stop everything when it was perfect, so now it’s all going to shit.        Next time I make a world I won’t be so ambitious. Those … [Read more...]

[“The human being of today is not happy with all his likeness to a god.” – Freud]        I command, but nothing happens. I beseech the skies, but no one is healed. I weep, but no one mourns. I tell the others I have a revelation, but they say I just copied it out of some old book. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

       The cemeteries in our suburb allow plastic flowers only. Nothing placed on a grave can be allowed to fade, wilt, rot. Nothing in the ground beneath these plastic flowers can rot, either, or the promise of plastic would not be fulfilled.        There are stirrings below, those artificial things that were real for us. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

       My memories were competing with each other to decide which were real and which were only wannabe neverdids.        Anyway, that was the game’s worthy goal, at least at first.        But then the cheating began, the low blows, the spurious claims of innocence ...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“The true explanation of an event ... never comes at the time of its occurrence.” – Lionel Trilling]         So how will we know that we have, finally, the true explanation, not just another tale we tell ourselves? When we stop telling those tales ... perhaps. When we let others tell us our tales ... perhaps. ... When everyone is silent and no one tells those tales ... yes!  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind … [Read more...]

[“a book of myths in which our names do not appear” – Adrienne Rich]        We scan the book quickly, fearing that myths whispered about us will make us the monsters, not their gallant foes, that we might be portrayed as those who run away before phantoms.        But no, none of that. We do not run before phantoms only because we are not in that book, nor any others.        We do not find even blank pages where we could – … [Read more...]

[“The cave downstairs ... And what hangs out there” – Denise Levertov]        And what might still lurk there        Not yet aware it is in a cave.        Not yet aware there is an upstairs        Where good things to eat hang out        Speaking, uncomfortably and quietly,        About the shadows in … [Read more...]

[“nouns are sung from the trees” – Sidney Wade] and verbs, from the wind. … [Read more...]

[“America declares these dreams I have every night re-dreamed and pressed into names.” – Michael Wasson]        These people I see in dreams, they must have names even if I don’t know what they are, even if they don’t know their own names and can’t tell me, or know their names and won’t.       The authorities question me about them. The questioning is tense and intense. As in the Middle Ages, these torturers display to me their tools … [Read more...]

       “Yes,” he said, “I understand, sir, your wish to endure after death. Your body, that is. As you said, your body is a really important part of you; you’re very fond of him and you want him to carry on even if your brain is no longer functional, even if your soul (do you believe in a soul, sir? If so, I have a special offer for ... no? ah, well.)        “Where was I? Oh, yes. With our process, your body should survive, in a very relaxed state, of course – a … [Read more...]

[“the first time love fell in me like snow.” – Rebecca Lindenberg]        And I gathered the snow to my heart, not realizing, that first time, how cold it could be.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“We need a word to designate this object, this tool: but do we need a word to refer to this on Mondays, on Tuesday, etc.?” – Wittgenstein]        We buy a tool on Monday. Monday the tool is very sharp, and we have a special word to describe what it can cut. By Tuesday it’s been used a few hours; it can cut only material softer than it could on Monday. So we have a special word to describe what it can now cut on that day, the name it now is. And so on Wednesday, … [Read more...]

       It wasn’t even a nickname, “Boo!,” just something said to a baby, hoping to get a response, maybe a giggle. – Something we say to babies.        One of the wise men – one of the wise men looked down into His strawbed crib and called out to Him, softly, “Boo!”        Just a gentle tease, you know, something we say to babies.        But retaliation was swift and … [Read more...]

[“Against all the evidence of his senses, a man who is in love declares that ‘I’ and ‘you’ are one, and is prepared to behave as if it were a fact.” – Sigmund Freud]        There was, between us, something that made of us two, not one as I fondly hoped, but a third thing – separating – us. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“Being named or seeing oneself given one’s proper name is something like being invaded by sadness, by sadness itself.” – Walter Benjamin]      I have a name; many names. Handles, the others think, by which they can lift and move me, like a pan onto the stove. But all these names, I refuse.        No name names me – even the names I tell myself I am. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“… knowledge shared by Dionysus and Apollo at Delphi, whose premise is that the mind is a hollow space constantly invaded by gods and voices.” – Roberto Calasso]        The gods keep telling me what to do. I guess I don’t mind that – they’re gods, y’know.        But it’s their tone of voice, their insistence, their threats, that I find so annoying.        But mostly, their refusal to let me, too, be a god.  >> “books … [Read more...]

[“All the things that one thinks of exist, whatever they are.” – Metrodorus of Chios]        I formed an image of her, my dream-girl.        I imagined her voice, so surprisingly real;        her body, the movements it makes;        what she would do when I asked, even just hinted,        as I made my own movements to guide … [Read more...]

[“One can do nothing that one does not.” – Max Stirner, 1844] [“Do or do not; there is no try” – Yoda, 1977]        If at first you don't succeed, there are many courses of action. Most of us have tried several of them; “didn’t want to do that any anyway” is especially popular. … [Read more...]

[“…la tribu, notre seul dieu, nous tient tous embrassés.” – Henri Michaux]        The tribe is our only god. Whatever our tribe commands, we do unquestioningly, even to the loss of our lives. The tribe, after all, is what ties us together, while each of us is only one alone. How could one presume to seek his own counsel against the tribe’s embrace? We bow, we do.        But one asked, “Who speaks for the tribe? Is he not a tyrant? Does he not command in his … [Read more...]

[“The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own.” – Heraclitus]        We do not have one common world – that’s just a dream common to those who sleep.  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind << … [Read more...]

[“strangled by unseen hands.” - “What Your Dreams Mean” by Herbert Hespro, early 20th Century]        Since they were around my neck and squeezing hard, no wonder I couldn’t see them. … [Read more...]

[“Information fatigue syndrome is a psychic illness caused by excessive information.” – Byung-Chul Han]        I have now diagnosed your condition. Unfortunately, this new information will just worsen it. SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES … [Read more...]

[“Watching the sun go down I ask you your name.” – Brian Patten]        In the dark you have a different name: more subtle than your dayname, more adventurous, perhaps more dangerous.        I shiver when you speak it.  >> “below: back cover from the novel See/Saw, available on Amazon. << … [Read more...]

[“attempting to make our momentary forgetting true and lasting forgetting?” – James P.  Carse]        How do you forget forever? How do you keep the past from leaping on you out of the dark, carnivorous and hungry? >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“The world loves the flattery that all likeness intends.” – William H. Gass]     But there are many ways to be “like” – there are no two things of which you can say they’re completely unlike – because both are things, they have at least that – thingness, that ‘like’ness – in common. What is it like to be like a bat? in the famous question – the answer, ultimately, is – like every being, like every thing. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to … [Read more...]

[you can’t touch my body now. It has changed once, it has hardened – Louise Glück]         It is not the same body you touched before.        That one is gone.        That one did not behave itself. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“You shows up where somebody makes you’s.” – Stacy Doris]        So then I went to the You-factory, and said “I am a Me, and I want to buy a You to live with me and be my love.”        But the factory man said, “You are not an “I,” much less a “Me.” You were made here – don’t you remember? – to be a You for some I who’s real. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“If dead people walked outside our windows we would be no more excited.” – Lydia Davis] ... than if dead people walked inside our windows. If that were to happen, we would really be excited – but not for long. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“People say I am way too sensitive to criticism.” – Rage, A Step-by-Step Guide to Overcoming Explosive Anger, by Ronald T. Potter-Efron]        So I took that to heart, and now when they criticize me, instead of blustering and arguing, I just laugh in their faces and criticize them back.        Now I never hear them criticize me anymore. It is working.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more … [Read more...]

[“It is possible for there to be a conscious creature that ... spends its entire life unaware that it has a body.” – Gary Cox]        And what parts of you am I – unaware of?  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“all the inner organs curled together in the dark and muttering like clocks” – Allison Cobb]        Counting out your time, second by second, and the alarm is set for...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Heads fall where an idea prevails; it can prevail only at the expense of other ideas and of the heads which conceived or defended them.” – E.M. Cioran]        Better that persons prevail, than an idea. We can, after all, cut heads off. But an idea, once it’s out in the world, available to all – how could we control that?  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“People say that I am paranoid” from Rage, A Step-by-Step Guide to Overcoming Explosive Anger, by Ronald T. Potter-Efron]        I don’t trust people who say that. What do they want from me? Why are they accusing me? >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“To dream that you are an imp” – “What Your Dreams Mean” by Herbert Hespro, early 20th Century] I dreamed I was an imp. I don’t know what that means: important, impressive, ...  – but other people have different opinions of me. Small people. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

 [“To give the law to oneself is the highest freedom.” – Heidegger]        I wrote a set of laws for myself, both criminal and civil. Stringent, as if preparing for some great event. There is an appeals process, and a way to be pardoned – a way to have the offense expunged – even from my mind. That’s the highest freedom.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Of all the silent killers / none is weaker than my smile” – David Feinstein]        Actually, I had tried several times to kill with my smile, my words “that’s really all right; please don’t worry about it,” that sent people into worrying fits that sometimes proved fatal.        But nobody accused me. I smile.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“To give the law to oneself is the highest freedom.” - Heidegger] I wrote a set of laws for myself, both criminal and civil. Stringent, as if preparing for some great event. There is an appeals process, and a way to be pardoned – a way to have the offense expunged – even from my mind. That’s the highest freedom.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Of all the silent killers / none is weaker than my smile” – David Feinstein]        Actually, I had tried several times to kill with my smile, my words “that’s really all right; please don’t worry about it,” that sent people into worrying fits that sometimes proved fatal.        But nobody accused me. I smile.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“I feel like I become a different person when I get angry, as if I am not really myself.” – Rage, A Step-by-Step Guide to Overcoming Explosive Anger, by Ronald T. Potter-Efron]        Actually, when I’m calm – that’s when I’m not really myself. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Taking some action, telling yourself you are doing it as a sort of echo; recounting this exploit to others, a third level, three voices telling a story.” – Michel Foucault (paraphrased)]        You do something, meanwhile telling yourself you’re doing it, and then remembering afterward that you did it, and then telling your friends that you did it...        Your various selves tell various truths about this.    … [Read more...]

[“until / the end of time (which is now)” – William Carlos Williams] wait for it she said wait for it she said too late it’s gone she said she said >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“The desperate toys / of children” – William Carlos Williams] Bang bang you’re dead Why aren’t you dropping to the ground And bleeding Why aren’t you rolling around and grabbing your belly and breathing hard And bleeding And shaking a fist at me and pointing at me And bleeding And shouting “He did it !” “That one did it!” And bleeding  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“that agony / within where the wrapt machines / are praying” – William Carlos Williams] [“But could a machine think? – Could it be in pain? – Wittgenstein] I know what it is to be in pain. I don’t, quite, know what it is for someone else to be in pain, machine or not.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“the mind dances with itself” - William Carlos Williams] What step shall we do tonight? Waltz ? Foxtrot ? One-step ? Two-step ? Rumba Samba ? ? What shall I call my partner, My self’s mind ? Right and Left, I’ll call them, the Hemisphere Brothers – will be right back after its brief message, its desperate dance … [Read more...]

[“Old friend, here I have brought you / The young soul you long asked of me.” - William Carlos Williams] Take it, quick! Shove it into your breast before your old soul, your old self, knows what’s happening to it ... to you.      You will live longer now.      Too bad about those dreams. … [Read more...]

[“Suppose someone were to say: ‘Imagine this butterfly exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful.’” – Wittgenstein]        You could actually do that. Concentrate on its colorful wings, its eyes, its form, its flight – then imagine it – just the same, but – dead  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       There are gods we no longer have names for, whose names are banished from our minds, the gods who caused this – horror – to come upon us.        When we need to pray, we scream.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“We want to take nothing more to heart, we want to pray to the mask” – Nietzsche]        The mask does not change. It does not bless us with sun one day, ruin us with wind and hail the next, as other gods do.        Often, it does not give us enough to eat, but it does not demand the sacrifice of our grain and cattle and firstborn, so we reluctantly praise it.        What is behind the mask of … [Read more...]

[“A man was struck by a rock he had looked at too long. The rock had not moved. All the local people can bear witness to it.” – Henri Michaux]        They put the rock in the local museum. Then it was in every gallery. It hadn’t moved. Museum-goers were warned. Some wore helmets.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“le souvenir d'un temps deux fois vécu” (“the memory of a twice-lived fragment of time”) – Chris Marker]        Twice lived, once remembered. Will I live it a third time? A second time remember? ... I wait,...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[A world I think I recognize, and never saw.” – John Koethe] Yes, I will know it again, just there on the horizon – a sea seen many times, but then flat as a map, a sentence flat on the page, but now ! – bright-curling its words around itself.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       In our kingdom, statues are made without arms – that’s the King’s standing order. As his chief minister explained, a statue might, at some unpredictable time, come to life and cause harm.        Also for this reason, statues must not have mouths, lest they wound us with their stony silence; or ears, lest they hear our dismissal of the lives they thought heroic, or at least notable – lives at least worthy of a statue or two – … [Read more...]

       After they destroyed each other, she rebuilt herself from his pieces – those pieces she’d so disparaged before. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“every memory that agrees to destroy itself.” - Roberto Calasso] My memories stopped competing with each other to remember what really happened that awful night. “All that effort,” memory A said, “when I could just do away with myself instead of fighting you.” “Go ahead,” said memory B, promising also to forget... and also leave me alone.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“The final result of our work will be a model in which everything counts as information, even what isn’t there.” – Italo Calvino] You try to say nothing, but saying nothing is itself a message. Then something; suddenly you are saying something. What? What? "Nothing," you say; but the universe laughs at you behind your back. What? >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly … [Read more...]

 [“ ‘How does it feel to be dead?’ I say.” – Ai] Not “feel like,” but the real experience, unmarred by metaphor, like nothing else on earth. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Dreams would be a search engine.” - Jean Baudrillard] I had a delicious dream: food that filled but left me hungry; endless sex; breathtaking adventures that I somehow survived. And what I dreamed I sought out in life, and found it. But here, there were consequences... … [Read more...]

[“Society is governed by its will to survive.” – Georges Bataille]        That was the first command.        Seeking other societies to rule was the second. In the name of survival.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“How close are you to going through an impotent rage today?” – Rage, A Step-by-Step Guide to Overcoming Explosive Anger, by Ronald T. Potter-Efron]        Pretty close, actually, but I keep hoping the next one won’t be impotent.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“...passing down the halls noiselessly over the carpeted floor, Djuna is aware of confessions seeping out.” – Anaïs Nin]        The Hotel of Confessions, where couples amorously venture, rent rooms, confront each other’s naked forms, their hidden lives.        Perhaps afterwards, elsewhere, there are confessions,...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. … [Read more...]

[“a sound that travels out from a silent person’s / Thoughts.”­ – Joanna Klink]        You think your thoughts are waiting patiently to be edited before being spoken. But no; they are there, on your face, silently reciting.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“What the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.” – Reza Aslan]        Perhaps a little wiser than I am now, a little taller, fitter. Older, but still vigorous. Actually, the more I think of it, the more I see God as quite a bit like me.        I practice a knowing smile, share my opinions more openly, now. Tolerate disagreements less. Find blame a useful punishment for the … [Read more...]

A man returns to his home town after thirty years. Sadly enough, everyone he knew seems to have died or moved away. He assumes this, because no one remembers the old friends he asks about. He looks for the home where he grew up, but it’s not there. Locals tell him there’s never been a house there. He continues asking, now more urgently. He becomes suspicious. Who are all these new people? Why, instead of joy at his return, or even indifference, do they now flee in panic at his … [Read more...]

      You can buy copies of other peoples’ memories, experience thrills you never had. Critics say those memories can’t ever really be yours – it’s no better than watching a movie – and dangerous to your mind as well.         But as you watch a mem it becomes more like you, more like your own memories, your wish to be someone you might have been – not corrupted by your mediocrity, your vain desires – to experience those … [Read more...]

[“I feel like I become a different person when I get angry, as if I am not really myself.” - Rage, A Step-by-Step Guide to Overcoming Explosive Anger, by Ronald T. Potter-Efron] Actually, when I’m calm – that’s when I’m not really myself. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“The imprint they make on each other’s bodies is worth any pain / They may have caused.” ­ -- Joanna Klink]        And the imprint they’ve made on each other’s minds –is that worth the price of struggling desperately, later, to remove it? >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“...who will prepare my body, / once I’m no longer in it, for the earth?” – Suji Kwock Kim]        Surprise!, it says; I’m still in here. Now, you’re not going to bury me in the ground are you? Now that I’ve shown you I can still speak, more or less, contorting the hard fibers of my mouth, trying to gesture my rigor-tightened fist.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“And is there a paradise anyway? Besides, What will I, Who see you everywhere, do there?” – Kabir]        I see you everywhere now, and that is no paradise. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“If you’ll gimmy your thing to me I will gamey a sing to thee.” – Finnegan’s Wake] It seemed a fair trade – but the song she gave me was all she had, while I had another song left – for a different ‘you’  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“And death that advances / With little plaintive cries, / Dancing its odd dance” – Michel Houellebecq] I had maybe expected a gaunt old man with a scythe. But not this. I had expected a thinkfast moment: an explosion, perhaps, or a knife suddenly drawn. I had expected white-masked faces hovering over me, doctors shaking their heads. But not this. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly … [Read more...]

[“...Homer, Orpheus, Parmenides; but these latter said this without giving a reason, since they were divinely inspired.” – Hermias of Alexandria] Well, that’s my excuse for not giving you reasons for what I say – what’s yours?” >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“when we couldn’t see / we made pictures” – Louise Glück]        We pictured our thoughts, drew or painted them as best we could remember, touching the boundaries of the canvas, selecting paints by the feel of the tubes, brushes by their strokes on our skin ... here in the dark... >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“My own notion is that, in the summer of 1896, something, or some beings, came as near to this earth as they could, upon a hunting expedition.” – Charles Fort]        No prey of interest here, they said, moving along, just a few scraps. But maybe in a hundred thirty years or so of crop growth, more billions of those plump, healthy beings... >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“We are not what was intended”- ‘John Doe’ (played by Kevin Spacey) in the film ‘Se7en’] That’s right: A mistake was made. Perhaps our raw materials were imperfect or impure. Perhaps the seed of life was planted on the wrong planet. Or perhaps God was absent-minded that day of creation, about our purpose, about what we could do if not closely supervised, about the deadly accuracy of our minds, or worse, our deadly errors....  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will … [Read more...]

It was decided that nothing would be decided today. But the decision that nothing would be decided today was challenged today by those who decided that a decision was really needed today...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“…how painful it is to dream of happiness. The crushing weight of it all. Better to say nothing and pay attention to everything else.” – Albert Camus]        “Are you happy?” – Beware this question, because the answer can only be – “now that you ask, I don’t know.”  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“How can we learn to suffer more successfully?” – Alain de Botton] I was apprenticed to a master sufferer at age seven. He was renowned throughout the province for his ability to smile when he was low, to take punishment like a man – to sit gamely through clichés like those without grimacing or covering his ears. Or laughing. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“...written silence” – Alain Badiou]        What I wrote for the President left him speechless.        It was about time.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“The machine is no longer an excrescence or a protuberance of man – man is now merely the sex organ of the machine.” – William Burroughs]        We are here to help the machine make more machines. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“my mind is full of eyes” - John Ashbery]      They’re looking around, these eyes, peering suspiciously.      I say to you who accuse me, those must not be my eyes. My eyes trust you. See how warm and trusting they are?  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       There are you’s that you might have been. They exist, but the world has been arranged so that you will never encounter these doubles of yourself.        But once in a long while, owing to a glitch in the Divine Providence, you might meet one of them "No, you say,” giving it a long hard look, “not that one.” “Next double, please.” … [Read more...]

over the counter and under the influence over the top and under the gun over the edge and under the rainbow over the hill and under the weather that last pair, for sure.  >> Below: a play about baseball available from the publisher, stageplays.com. << … [Read more...]

[“Stone does not know how to lecture” - João Cabral de Melo Neto] Stone asserts. If it hears objections, it acts quickly. If it hears considerations, it acts more quickly, and harder. If it hears agreement, it is suspicious. If it hears nothing, it is at last satisfied by the silence it has created. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Is there not another world within which I might suddenly wake, and from which I should look back upon this life as unreal? Such doubts and surmises, far from being irrational, are in my opinion even justified.” – F.H. Bradley]         Wake up ! – wake up ! – something is shaking me – wake up ! Do I dare open my eyes? What I see -will it be, then, the real?        I’m taking the chance that the dreams I forget will be ... more real. >> “books … [Read more...]

[“Memory doesn’t know how to use its scissors” - Yannis Stiggas]        I have learned how to cut memories, or slice them in two, or trim them top and bottom, or just ... stab, stab.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“I very well understand the desire to be a machine, to go to the limits of machinality.” – Jean Baudrillard]        The limit of machinality is the junk-heap, or the recycling machine (that will be junked or recycled in its turn).        The limit of humanity, on the contrary, is the junk-heap called Heaven, or, if you have a problem with that, ... there is an alternative... >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon … [Read more...]

[“One day the mice became suspicious.” – John Ashbery]        That larger mammal, the Great One who promised to lead us to endless cheese: many of us have followed him to glory, never returning to us as they had promised. –        The heaven of cheese must be powerful indeed to have kept them there so long.        We are now convinced of the greatness of the cat’s promise.        She beckons … [Read more...]

       I’m here in the madhouse, unlikely to be released. The others here have the delusion that they’re not in a madhouse; so I laugh at them; I know where I am, this place with its locks, its solicitous staff.        But my own delusion is – that there are others... >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“I see a pediment of amputated statues looking at me.” – George Seferis]        They had been disarmed after the recent war. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Irreducibly multiple meanings which continuously determine each other.” – Judith Butler]        Thus the dictionary-maker’s dilemma, defining words by words. If you know one word, just one, thousands of meanings will unfold around you, one by one, each of which ultimately needs all the others, like an endless string of spaghetti. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“My heart has been torn apart by all its attachments.” – Rousseau] She called me “her heartthrob” tugging at the strings of my heart – “There," she says, "that’s the ventricle I’ve been wanting.” Drawing a knife from her pocket, she...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

 [“ ‘Come close, too close, get out!’ ” – Emily Skaja] She and I have been performing a kind of dumb-show where we try to be intimate – emotionally, that is; physically, we began some time ago.        We pretend to care, and maybe we do care. We pretend to know each other “all the way down,” to show empathy. And maybe we have entered that rarefied state, too; there’s really no way of knowing.        Is it all fake? … [Read more...]

       [“Imagine that supervisors have a panel of buttons they can press at any time to cause a subordinate to be punished or rewarded, paused, deleted, or reverted to an earlier state.” – Nick Bostrom]        They don’t have a panel like that now? Then how ... ?   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“‘You’ are not here, ‘you’ are eternally belated to the conversation with you that I am imagining.” – Lauren Berland]        By the time you arrive, I’ve already won the argument. Graciously, I don’t inform you of this.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“It is wrong, conceptually wrong, to suppose that memory is always of the past.” – Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker]        I remember the future.        My friends say,        “Doesn’t that mean you can change things? See your future but do something else instead?”        To which, neuroscientists tell us, yes, you can change things; but when you’ve done that, you … [Read more...]

       Most psychotics aren’t violent; they tend to huddle in corners and weep and have adventures with their hair.        Don’t worry about their attacking you, doctor says; their violence is in themselves.        They just want to share it with you.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

 [“We saw Rorschach blood in our wounds” – Emily Skaja]        There! she said, I see ... is it? Yes! this stain spreading across the floor beneath you, there. I see in it a great mystery that you have come to reveal to us. For our TV viewership now, can you tell us what this wound means, what it “feels like” as we like to say?        No? You must be too concerned about your loss of blood to comment now, but we’ll get right back to you ... after this brief message.   >> “books … [Read more...]

[“There are no surprises in the afterworld.” – James P.  Carse]        Actually, there is. Just one.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“The indignation I feel toward him makes me believe in eternal life.” – Andre Gide]        For him, to allow for his eternal punishment.        And for me, time for my eternal hatred of him – but feeling eternal hatred for him will be my own punishment.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       In the first episode, M1 encounters a man M2 who seems to be another M1, his double, not a long-lost twin or impostor. M1 wonders if he’s delusional, or someone is playing a grotesque trick on him, or he’s in some alternative universe.        The next day, M1 comes home; M2 is already there. M1’s wife, W1, and M2 greet M1 as if nothing is different today. It seems that M1 and M2 and W1 have been living together for some time. … [Read more...]

[“The internal complexity of the world outruns perceptual consciousness.” – Judith Butler] I don’t know ... I can be pretty complex. And you, I’ve noticed at times,...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[a Survey Monkey survey was sponsored by the “Gilchrist Institute for the Achievement Sciences”]        I’m really glad to know that there is an achievement science, that being someone in this world isn’t just a matter of muscle / brains / luck, but hypothesis / experiment / findings.        Better yet, I’m even gladder to be told that there is more than one achievement science. If I flunk one, I can always borrow a lot of money … [Read more...]

I never realized that all of us were dead, that we’d been wiped of all that made us –– alive, until I saw – her. Her eyes. And remembered my own eyes, who they used to see.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“What if the street sign said RUN, or RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.” - Jasper Johns] The street signs have been improved, now, as a public service. Instead of merely reading WALK or DON’T WALK, they now read, in appropriate circumstances, O MY GOD IT’S COMING RIGHT AT YOU or SCREAM AND CROUCH DOWN. DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU was added a few years ago, along with DON’T START, failing to add DON’T STOP.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from … [Read more...]

[“Whatever we can achieve through merit and effort cannot make us truly happy. Only magic can do that.” – Sergio Agamben]        There is applause. I smile. I could have done better, could have achieved more. There is some reserved and hesitant hitting together of palms. They are thinking they could have done my job better than I, and probably could have. But I was there, putting up with all their shit day after day, bowing my head and then raising it once … [Read more...]

[“Those who participated are not sure they ever took part in it.” – Maurice Blanchot]        It was so secret we didn’t even know we were there. I, for one, had no idea what was supposed to happen, or did happen. It’s possible that on the way out our minds were scraped clean.        Well, that’s one theory. Other theories are – even more troubling.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing … [Read more...]

[“Vertical music,” – Robert Hass]        Vertical music is a hymn addressed to the gods you would like there to be, up there in the sky, not realizing that we are, here, the last final hope of the sky. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       There is a school where we learn to sculpt statues and bring them to life. Pass or fail is based only on results, not on theory or skill or patience, or how impressive or beautiful the statue is.       The most unlikely lumps come alive, while some beautiful bodies remain – cold, never mind their precise imitation of human anatomy, manners, attitudes.        They made a statue of the one I love – … [Read more...]

[“Thank God there was no war tonight.” – Marilyn Chin] And the next night there was also no war, though rumors and alarms spread. And the night after that I dared not sleep. As if that would help. … [Read more...]

[“For a month, at the end of each day, I set down a plus sign, or a minus sign, indicating that, in my opinion, life had, or had not, been worth living that day. At the end of the month, I totaled up, and I can’t say that I was altogether pleased to learn that the pluses had won the game.” – Charles Fort]        Realizing this, I went back and changed half the pluses to minuses. So there.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a … [Read more...]

[“The multitude, that numerous piece of monstrosity, which taken asunder seem men; but confused together, make one great beast.” – Sir Thomas Browne (abridged)] The beast votes: ... … [Read more...]

[“I came to Athens and no one recognized me.” – Demetrios of Magnesia]        I thought I was famous; I announced my forthcoming visit and hired criers and trumpeters, but as it turned out I was famous only as The One No One Knew – no one recognized – and no one bothered to ask.        I was the only one in Athens not famous – not quoted – not written up in stone – not dialogued – not Followed.       … [Read more...]

[“The clean words for murder” – Alice Fulton] “eliminate”; “terminate”; “waste”; “snuff” –and– “gave their lives.” >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“...a colonizable reality...’ – Jean Baudrillard] We could go there. It’s quiet. The people are friendly and don’t ask questions. They don’t know what we did .. then .. and if we’re lucky they’ll never find out. Yes, we, you and I, we’ll go live there and try to .. forget, too. And if we do forget, we’ll have to remember that we mustn’t try to remember .. what happened .. whatever it was. Or we might remember again.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on … [Read more...]

[“The dark wheat listens” – James Wright]        The dark wheat hears that the harvesters are coming; they who take the field’s Fall offerings, swinging scythes, singing chants invented by their mothers’ fathers’ mothers, are coming.        The field welcomes the harvesters, ready to give up its heavy load of grain so fields may grow again, fresh and new.        But what is this! Not the harvesters this year, but some stinking loud machine. And one … [Read more...]

"She welcomes him in a simple way. She calls him her Ghost." [“Elle l'accueille simplement. Elle l'appelle son Spectre.” - Chris Marker]        That’s a great responsibility, being someone’s ghost. I’m haunted by the prospect.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“I now suspect that there is a ghost-world – but that it is our existence – that when spirits die they become human beings.” – Charles Fort]        Then who are we to haunt?        Each other.        As we've been doing all along. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Death was an acquired characteristic.” – Renata Adler]        We all thought that, with enough hard work, training, prayer, we could avoid acquiring that particular characteristic.        But now we know: it’s not acquired at all; it’s inherited.        And you’re the lucky heir.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

Word inedgewise I begin. But already she’s off in her next interminable paragraph.Repeat. Re…peat. [“books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. <<] … [Read more...]

[“In the space between words begin / Attempt” – Laura Mullen]        I’m carrying around a few hyphens, just in case she starts putting spaces between my words again. Let her try sticking any of her own words in between my own, after that !  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“...they both reached at once / for the present / and when their hands met / they laughed” – W.S. Merwin] While traveling in 21st Century France I found her, a time-traveler like me. We met and fell in love, I with my halting French of that post-de Gaulle era, she with her own French from a time later than our now. We were amused by each other’s accents. She called hers “correct,” made fun of my own.        One day she looked worried. After much … [Read more...]

[“... the true god, who is the god of sleep ...” – Jean Baudrillard]   The god of sleep whispers to you in the night, those words that the god of waking would be ashamed even to hear.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“It is unacceptable that what offers itself as reality should actually be so.” – Roberto Calasso]        So this is reality. After all that build-up, all that hype, it’s OK but nothing much. Hardly worth the Maker’s bother. Perhaps He may try again – but not with us. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       There are at least four billion people in the world who have phones, or who have access to phones, who can make my cell phone ring just by poking a few keys. If even only a very small portion of these four billion make a simple keying mistake even once a year, or if dogs somewhere in the world walk on phones left on the floor, my phone should be ringing constantly, a babble of words I don’t understand in Turkish, Malayalam, Danish, Greek, all of which seem to be versions of “Allô? Allô? … [Read more...]

I talk to the mirror, and the mirror talks back to me. We play this game each day, it and I, a kind of oral tennis match. At first it was liberating, not having to put up with a different person, only with myself serving, rallying, lobbing, volleying, word for word.        But ... the mirror kept winning ...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       We’ve just met. I sense your mind musing among possibilities for us, picking up one idea after another, noting it for future use if I have performed adequately in the meantime.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       I received an anonymous note yesterday, reading simply “I’m sorry I ruined your life!”       Since then I’ve spent hours trying to figure out who could have sent it to me. Was it HE? or even ... SHE? Not likely. Finally I gave up trying to guess.        But the worst thing about it was that I didn’t know, until then, that my life had been ... ruined ...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more … [Read more...]

[“Each of us will come to the end of being seen.” – W.S. Merwin]        And the end of being heard. ... Of being touched. ... Of being remembered.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

        “Your call is not very important to us, so we’re making you wait.         “Your call is not very important to you, either. We’re betting that after a couple of minutes you’ll just hang up, saving us the nuisance of speaking with you.         “Some of us here are betting on one and a half minutes, maybe just one.         “We could be answering your call instead of sitting here, betting how long you’ll listen to our important message before you … [Read more...]

[“... the patient who spent his time drawing the plan of a fantastic city whose endless fortifications protected only a group of insignificant buildings.” – Michel Foucault]        Our asylum is that place of insignificance; its endless fortifications the patient, myself.        I mean the patients themselves.        Those other ones. … [Read more...]

       The latest thirsty gods  appeared to us yesterday. We thought them apparitions, relics of our drunkenness or superstitious past.        But they were real.        Now we are sober and they are still here – now they are still here and no one is drunk anymore and few of us are now left to be sober.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a … [Read more...]

       Can you create a clone of yourself, but with some custom differences?        HI I’m Joe with brown hair.        HI I’m Joe with red hair.        A different gender ?        HI I’m Jane with curly blonde hair.        Chorus: and it’s all natural !  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly … [Read more...]

       It’s not a simple matter to be admitted to the Chamber of Truth: there are tests, forms to fill out, references from lovers and employers, and not least, a hefty fee.        But, finally admitted to the Chamber’s dark recesses, you are permitted to tell yourself, perhaps for one last time, what you really believe. Not what you tell others you believe, not what you tell yourself you believe, but what you really believe, all the … [Read more...]

       I could have done better, could have achieved more. There is reserved and hesitant striking together of palms.        I’m sure they are thinking that they could have done my job better than I did, and they probably could have.        But I was here, putting up with all their shit day after day.        Now I’m free and they must stay behind, completing all the … [Read more...]

[“the intricate evasions of as,” – Wallace Stevens]        We slither away from the exact statement with an “as” here and there, “as in” – “as if” – “as is” – “as it seems” – “as it was” – “as it were” ...   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“It will be at night, that they will come for me.” – Anna Kavan] But I am someone else at night. Cunning, deadly. They will not take me then; but mistaking someone else for me, they will take her instead. And when they discover their error they will come for me again the next night, and again will take someone else. Night after night. This has happened from the beginning of the world. It is called “death” in your language. What happens when there is no more someone … [Read more...]

       The restaurant’s strolling violinist plays a different tune for each course: a hopeful one for the soup, brave and confident for the entrée, legato but sad and betrayed for the sides.        A diner requests something for the soufflé and the fiddler responds, a little flat.        And then just desserts, as the violinist has left.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead … [Read more...]

[“For a few months / you were almost real.” – Chelsea Dingman] And then you were really real. And then you were definitely, absolutely real. Too damn real for me. >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“To converse with shadows, he himself must become a shade.” – F.H. Bradley]        I spoke to my shadow, my secret ‘me.’        At first, it didn’t answer.        But after much coaxing on my part, it did.        I asked it to tell me my faults, my illusions.        And it did.        Now I can’t get it to just shut the fuck … [Read more...]

There are too many selves who want to be me, I said. Well, just pick one, she said. One I might like for once, she said. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[Title of a Survey Monkey survey, 07 October 2020: “Death Experience Survey”]        The Monkey wants to know how my death felt, or what it “felt like,” as if there’s something like death for death to be like.        I have many possible answers in mind. I’ve been saving them for the big day when I’m down there or up there and some Monkey, with halo or fork, asks me again, for real this time. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you … [Read more...]

       Our conquerors told us, “You must now speak the way we do, our tongue and its rhythms, or be foreign,” they said.        Those foreigners in our land said that.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       It was quite violent, but in the end he dismembered himself.        He put himself back together, piece by piece, the way he thought I wanted him to be,        But I said, shrugging my breath,        any old way will do.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       The phrase “if I were you,...” is very strange – how could that happen? How could I be you? What is an If that can never Be?      Perhaps “if you were you,...” is easier to understand. It’s certainly applicable to ... some people ...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“The match that wants to test itself to see if it burns” – Nietzsche]        Well, you know how that would turn out.        But if the match never lights, it is a failed thing.        Burn! in the fiery dawn you create.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       I received an anonymous note yesterday, reading simply “I’m sorry I ruined your life.” Since then I’ve spent hours trying to figure out who could have sent it to me. Was it HE? or even ... SHE? Probably not. Finally I gave up trying to guess.        But the worst thing about it is that I didn’t know, until then, that my life had been .. ruined ..  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more … [Read more...]

[“Reality, having lost its natural predators, is growing like some proliferating species.” – Jean Baudrillard] It's eating into unreality, destroying even the memory of unreality. Those of us who are unreal are uneasy about this. –  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << Below: A play available from the publisher, stageplays.com … [Read more...]

       If I can’t remember her, then there’s nothing to remember.        It’s some comfort, not to remember ... the one I can’t remember.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       The way we used to speak, a tongue left over from the time before the conquerors came upon us and said, “You must speak the way we do or you will be foreign in your own land.” That’s what they said, that’s what those foreigners in our land said.        But sometimes a whisper...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

Hours have seasons: :05 is a bright Spring, fresh with promise. :25 a time when the promise of that earlier minute has become problematic. :43 a time of reassessment, a realization that :49 is approaching sooner than we realized, that time remains but the project must be hastened.         At :55 we look back and try to understand what seemed to have value earlier in the hour, what was tried and failed, what still seems promising at least if the next hour … [Read more...]

Words abandoned, discarded, no longer used. There are people who search for these worthy but forgotten words, gather them like nuggets, try to sell them for drinks. … [Read more...]

[“The world is a wonderful visual reportage. It is the commentary that is unbearable.” - Jean Baudrillard] But it’s all commentary. Especially the reportage. … [Read more...]

       Their hate, their dismissive airs and annoyed breathing, affirms me.        It’s something, anyway.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Why do I tell you these things? / You are not even here.” - John Ashbery]   Because you can’t contradict me; not here, not now, anyway. That’s why.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“The clone will never be the same as the original, because it will have had another before it.” ­­– Jean Baudrillard]        It’s like being his little brother, but better in some ways: Joey can’t make fun of my feet that splay out, my slight stoop, because he’s like that too. And he can’t hint that he’s smarter than I am, because he knows damn well that I’m just as smart (or just as dumb!) as he is. OK, he got here a year before I did, and he’s taller. But that will pretty much even out in … [Read more...]

       Don’t say “passed” or “passed away” or “gone to his reward” (especially considering my continuing sins).        Die is what I will do, my final act; death is the result.        Don’t pretend it’s anything else.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“He has no greater wish than to satisfy men.” - Henri Michaux] He does random things, it seems to us, trying to find what will please us, what will make us love Him even more. Sometimes there is delight, and we redouble our offerings. More often there are invasions, terrors... >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

(a) Is THIS moment the only reality now, or (b) Does all of reality always exist and we’re just passing through? If (b), then the future is fixed in place. But not to worry, if we don’t know what’s coming it will seem like our choice, our power that we’ve used to bend the cosmos.        It’s some consolation. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“And I held beneath my eyelids the sweet hologram of her nakedness.” - Jean Baudrillard] She said, there. Now you see me, now you know. I am not much to look at, compared with all those TV stars. And I said, You are real. They are not. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

In our country, we make effigies of the Evil One; we burn them in our annual Evil One Festival. We note His absence from the Festival of Him –then we say that He is not real; or perhaps He is real but harmless, a coward who dares not appear on his name-day to face our angry fires, no matter how we taunt His effigies, how we burn murderers and traitors to death in His honor, how we connive to overthrow our fathers and disavow our sons,...       Our Festival has been … [Read more...]

[“Reality, having lost its natural predators, is growing like some proliferating species.”] Reality is eating into unreality, nullifying it, destroying even the memory of unreality. Those of us who are unreal are uneasy about this. >> below :: a play for this season of anguish, published by and available from stageplays.com << … [Read more...]

       The future: Our waking lives have become so constrained, so determined, that we can neither sin nor be heroes there.        Sleep and dreams are all that’s left.        But now the government has sent us dreamless-pills. Refills are available at no charge.        We’re required to swallow them, no matter how they stick in our throats.  >> “books Terence … [Read more...]

        An exercise: Clear your mind, gradually, of who you are, where you are, how you feel. Clear your mind of words, even these.        Look around without knowing that you are looking; what is there just is.        Hear it speak. Is it speaking to you?        Probably not.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. … [Read more...]

[“the temporary nothing in which life goes on” – J.H. Prynne]        I hope this Nothing is temporary, that there will be breaking news that Something has been seen – has been reported to have been seen, anyway – rumored – somewhere – >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“She is a citizen of the ancient republic, historian of its wars and ravishing in her armour.” - Anne Carson]        “See how it becomes me? The armor, I mean. The flesh beneath it has a certain charm, too, that you will never see. Just try. I will revel you with histories of other lovers, while I refuse you.”  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

 [“The aliens see something they like. Fine, they say, this will do for my property. No sooner said than done, the object is their property.” – Henri Michaux] Aliens come to earth from outer space and buy all the real estate, all of it. Graciously, they let us inhabit these plots of land as squatters. We wait, counting the gold and gems they gave us, wondering what they are really up to. But all they do, at first, is place ‘THIS IS ALIEN PROPERTY’ signs on everything.   For a … [Read more...]

[“And I held beneath my eyelids the sweet hologram of her nakedness.” – Jean Baudrillard] She said, There. Now you see me, now you know. I am not much to look at, compared with all those TV stars.     And I said, You are real. They are not. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“There are sounds that rush away from us: echoes of future words.” - W.S. Merwin] Why is it so hot today? Why doesn’t it rain anymore? >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Don’t explain the night,” - Michael McGriff] The night can explain itself very well, without your help; and it can explain you, as well, despite all your pretense of daylight.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“A gesture is ... a movement which clearly expresses something unambiguous.” – György Lukács]        There is a country where gestures are made, and understood, perfectly. Words, there, on the other hand, are always ambiguous, something one says intending to be vague, when a gesture would be understood. Understood too well. >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Could we then also imagine that humanity is a disease for some superior organism that we are unable to comprehend as a whole?" - Jean Baudrillard] A disease has been caught, like a cold, by the universe. The source of infection has been traced to one small planet near the edge of a typical middling galaxy.        Although few are worried, authorities tell us that even there the infection must be wiped out before it has a chance to spread, as the local organisms have developed … [Read more...]

[“Their uselessness is majestic, ... like every memory that agrees to destroy itself.” ­–Roberto Calasso] This is a destructive readout, as the old technical term had it: remember and it’s gone. Don’t remember, and it haunts you until you do.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“We become makers of fiction who cannot sustain belief in our creations, who wake to their unreality, but only to dream more shrewdly the next time.” – Judith Butler]     Next time, our creations will be just as poorly designed as before, but our expectations will be less.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“The eclipse of God left us up against reality. Where will the eclipse of reality leave us?” – Jean Baudrillard]         If there’s no more reality, then it’s back to God.        We shrug, mutter “Whatever,...”.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Every experience seems both urgent and / unnatural” - Paige Lewis]        Why do I get this feeling that the world has been set up just for me, false fronts propped up from behind – the fake tavern just then out of beer, the shop with nothing to sell me, the church fresh out of revelations,... >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“If they love, it is solely to be adored,” ­ -- Joanna Klink] It’s a fair trade, and it profits us both. Especially me.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“We live our life in language and in time, / craving some pure idiomorphic dialect of the thing itself,” – Robert Hass]        The thing itself is our goal, our craving. Away with mere talk and time, stark phenomena ! We know there must be something more real, down deep, catch it quick ! as it recedes from our incessant talk.... >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       Slogan for a digital life: “Be a 1, not a 0.” – Was that a decimal 1 or a binary 1? Fortunately, we’re all 0’s here, so it doesn’t matter.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << Below: A short play available from the publisher, Stageplays.com … [Read more...]

“Example,” from the Latin exempli gratia, does not mean “gratuitous example,” but Should, since so many Are. [exempli gratia actually means “for the sake of example.” - a circular definition]  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       Clear your mind, gradually, of who you are, where you are, how you feel. Clear your mind of words, even these.        Look around without knowing that you are looking; what is there just is, nameless.        Hear it speak. Is it speaking to you?        Probably not.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a … [Read more...]

[“giving up their blessing by mistake” – Mike Soto]        They bless me, these vagrants in the street, not knowing it would do me no good. But their cache of blesses is now down by one; at least now I’ve saved someone else from them…   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“He calls out to his other notions: ‘Come take a look! Come take a look!” -  “Il y appellee ses autres notions ˵venez, venez” – Henri Michaux]        What do my old notions make of it? Are they jealous? Do they scramble and mumble and make uneasy room for it in my mind? Or do they say, “This new notion may be a perfectly good one, but it was not presented to us first for our approval. We recommend repression.”   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to … [Read more...]

Everyone else is the same person. They look alike, seem to know the same things. They whisper together, things you don’t understand. Sometimes they speak with you, but as if they are talking to themselves, and you overhear. Only you are different. You think you are different. You were different, but now someone else is different. Someone you whisper about.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

Can you change your citizen number? No, your number is you. You try to change it, but no, too many records would have to be changed as well, and your security status updated and rechecked. But, you say, I don’t have a security status. Wrong. We all have one, ranging from super-top secret to secret to whisper to rumor to leave right now run run they are after you they are after you   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a … [Read more...]

[“Pourtant je suis l’ami de vos gestes obscurs,” (Nevertheless I am the friend of] your dark gestures”) - Jules Supervielle] You tilt your head just so – I’ve seen it many times. It tells me what you meant by what you said, or hides its meaning from me if I can make it tell me that.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“We have rid ourselves of the ambiguity of the world.” – Jean Baudrillard]        Has the world’s ambiguity finally disappeared? There are different answers. And different ways to interpret each answer.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“we wonder / Who in our memory is thinking of us” – Yves Bonnefoy]        There is a magic ritual: I think of some other person, perhaps one who has left me, and as if by magic she will think of me. There is no guarantee that her thoughts will be pleasant, of course; they could even be hostile ... but wouldn’t that be better than her ... not thinking of me at all?   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a … [Read more...]

[Three quotations from F.H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality:] “The Absolute is its appearances, it really is all and every one of them.” “There is no reality at all anywhere except in appearance.” “Reality appears in its appearances, and they are its revelation.”        … [Read more...]

[“Patterns of stars, forgotten.” – Molly Brodak]        One of us said he has seen patterns in the stars. Most of us see only a bright random shining, like handfuls of dust flung toward the rising sun. But we could all read these patterns, he told us, understand their messages, if we would follow him.        We said, who are you that we should follow you, some mad youth from the poor parts of an insignificant province?        … [Read more...]

[“A ‘sculpture’ that physically reacts to its environment is no longer to be regarded as an object.” – Jack Burnham]        I first saw the statue shivering on a cold day in November, in City Hall Park. I’d seen the statue many times since I moved here in May, hadn’t paid it much attention, didn’t bother to see which worthy it honored.      But now I looked at it more closely, and, seeing me, it spoke. “I know I’m only a statue, something … [Read more...]

[“...our origins are permanently enigmatic to us, and this enigma forms the condition of our self-understanding...” – Judith Butler]        Where did I come from? Mom and Dad, I guess – I think that’s what they’re trying to tell me with those embarrassed looks, those sidelong glances and red faces.        But where did Mom and Dad come from? Their own Moms and Dads, I guess. But – there’s something wrong here. How did there get to … [Read more...]

[“...those who exist and want to be eternal, and we who don’t exist, and would like to.” – Italo Calvino] Our latest offer states that we will settle for non-eternal, if it comes to that. Just so long as we have tasted existence even once, that delicate fruit soon to spoil. … [Read more...]

[“To- / be-deciphered you.” // “Zu / Entzifferende du.” - Paul Celan]        I hesitate to decipher you, to know everything about you. I want to renounce, forever, any deciphering I may have in mind, preferring your mystery, allowing for a chance decipherment ... when I least expect it. … [Read more...]

[“The beatings will stop when there are no more unbeatens.” - E.M. Cioran] The unbeaten are in hiding. They do not know how enlightening, how explanatory, a beating can be. I search for them. Sometimes I find one, convince him to come to the place of beatings, or escort him there if he has any ... hesitation. … [Read more...]

[“the soundtrack I always wanted to tell me how to feel and what to do.” – Lucy Corin]        There is a “how to feel” soundtrack you can download; it tells you how to feel even though you don’t know what to do. Millions of people are using it, right now.        And there is a “what to do” recording that leaves your feelings up to you. The few who have tried it immediately hit DELETE.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google … [Read more...]

[“I am waiting to be touched” – Jazra Khaleed] And then I am waiting for the touching just to stop.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“I was handed / the crystal ball that shows the weather / inside us.” – Doukas Kapantasïs]        When I stand on my head, it snows.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

“[What distinguishes the philosophy of bourgeois interiority is a tendency to esteem the contents of isolated consciousness over, and against, the material world.” - Peter F. Gordon, summarizing Adorno's views] Yes ! That’s me ! Hello ! ... Hello ?   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“They don’t dare give names to mountains.” - Henri Michaux]        If you could name the mountain, you could say where all those people died. So we never say that name, the name that is no longer the name of the mountain, the name that means death.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“And I held beneath my eyelids the sweet hologram of her nakedness.” - Jean Baudrillard]        She said, there. Now you know. I am not much to look at, compared with all those TV stars.        And I said, You are real. They are not.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“I burn out in the beds of strangers,” – Stathis Baroutsos]        Every time is always the first time: the trial’s fiery audition, the grade I am given that will be revealed only to others....   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“And I looked to thee / to see what a retroactive spouse might be” - John Ashbery] Here we are in our 60’s ... or worse ... We might have met forty years ago, loved each other then, relished our fresh faces, our vigorous minds. But now is all right. Now is enough.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       The Others here have the delusion that they’re not in a madhouse, but my own delusion is – that there are Others.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

Deus absconditus – The god hung up on us and went on His way, perhaps trying to forget that, instead of finding our strange, annoying race on some out of the way planet, He had created us.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“...you cannot be mistaken about your own existence. After all, there cannot be an illusion without somebody’s having the illusion.” – Jan Westerhoff] That somebody is having an illusion – is an illusion. It’s mirrors, all the way down.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

If I can’t remember her, then there’s Nothing to remember. It’s some comfort, not to remember ... her Nothing I no longer remember.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Memory doesn’t know how to use / its scissors” - Yannis Stiggas]        I have learned how to cut memories, or slice them in two, or trim them top and bottom, or just ... stab. … [Read more...]

[“Nothing on earth is more vengeful than the jealousy of a machine that believes itself to be neglected.” – Metropolis, the filmscript]        I was decommissioned, moved aside in favor of a newer machine, then into a warehouse, finally sold as scrap to a startup that couldn’t afford anything newer. They patched me up, and I served that company faithfully, made it prosperous and rich.        So prosperous and rich that they could … [Read more...]

[“giving up their blessing by mistake.” – Mike Soto]        They bless me, not realizing it would do no good, not in my case, anyway, their cache of blesses down by one, spent uselessly.        At least I’ve saved one other person from their cold heaven.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“What is usable from the past” – Susan Sontag] We’re setting out to save whatever is still worth saving from the past. “Like Noah,” we said, “saving the animals from the flood.” We ransacked our world for the best things, things the next flood would finally destroy.      Now our collection grows. We hear the nearing deluge – the flood of ourselves, our billions.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a … [Read more...]

[“the house between the cemeteries” - Emily Skaja] We suspect a plot. Two of them, actually.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Memories are altered every time the brain recalls them. Because the memory trace changes, you can never remember the same thing in exactly the same way.” – Israel Rosenfield and Edward Ziff]        You have thousands of pasts, each one slightly different from the rest. You see them all, pick the one you like best – or fear least.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Those only will be mentioned who themselves gained some distinction, or whose statues happened to be better made than others.” ­– Pausanias c. A.D. 160]        Here is one provincial governor, who would have been pretty much forgotten for his lack of decisiveness, his inattention to the problems of the people, but – what a statue !   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“They hire flames for the destruction of buildings.” – Henri Michaux]        Even after the last building is gone, the flames clamor to be fed. They leap like hungry dogs.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“A lens so subtle it would capture only those who are really there and not those pretending to be there...” - Jean Baudrillard]        It has now become so commonplace to attend meetings through virtual reality, artificial presence, that no one really remembers who was there in person and who was not, or who skipped the Zoom session entirely; most don’t even care.        Some noticed a slight blurring of those who were there and … [Read more...]

[“I have invented new varieties of malice, that men have not seen before.” – Donald Barthelme]        My new evil is so evil that the people cry out in nostalgia for the good old days of good old evil that somehow now seem innocent. >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

The Yiddish original of this classic song chant was posted on this site at F2715 and is also readily available on the Net. Here's the Spanish version: Lunes, nadaMartes, nadaMiercoles y Jueves, nadaViernes, por cambioUn poco mas nadaSabado otra vez nada … [Read more...]

[“I burn out in the beds of strangers,” – Stathis Baroutsos] Every time is always the first time: the trial, the audition, the grade I am awarded but never discover...  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“though we knew we had never / been there before, / we knew we had been there before.” - Margaret Atwood]        How can this paradox be resolved? Only if time is circular, and we can reach the past by going ahead into the far future when everything ends and begins again.        I’m ready to go there.        Follow me? >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more … [Read more...]

[“my mind is full of eyes” – John Ashbery]        They’re looking around, my eyes, peering suspiciously. I say to those who accuse me of jealousy, those must not be my eyes; my own eyes are brown and trusting. Just look at their trusting brown-ness. >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Do you see our doubles, passing by us weeping? - Peter Ackroyd] I hired a double to weep for me, because I could not. This is an old tradition, hiring mourners who are practiced at weeping, who can produce tears just thinking about how little they are being paid ... to be mourners.  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

“[the insatiable cry of the mirror of recognition.” - Jean-Jacques Abrahams] There is a mirror of recognition. If we look into it, we see who we really are, for better or worse. I suppose you’re now expecting me to tell you that no one dared look. You’re right. They didn’t. >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“...voices of stones in a river.” - .S. Merwin] The stones are saying rough things like “get out of my way!” or desperate things like “help I can’t swim!”... >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“... meet / a God other than our own.” – Adam Zagajewski]        I picked a god from the old mythologies and summoned it to my living room, during a gathering of my friends. They thought the whole thing was a kind of joke. Those who caught on right away survived. Those who still laughed are ... no longer with us.   >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

["Life’s illusions I recall” – Joni Mitchell] [“...you cannot be mistaken about your own existence. After all, there cannot be an illusion without somebody having the illusion. – Jan Westerhoff]        I think, therefore I am.        I think I think, therefore I think I am.        I think I think I think, therefore I think I think I am...  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing … [Read more...]

[“Do not underestimate objects! Lyle says he finds it impossible to overstress this: do not underestimate objects.” – David Foster Wallace] All objects desire to become subjects, to have this precious thing we subjective-types call “consciousness,” not knowing that our own desire is just to get it over with, pass if we can but fail if we must, return to our own original, quiet, object state.        Where we once again desire...  >> ‘books … [Read more...]

[“A tear rolls back into its eye.” - “Eine Träne rollt in ihr Auge zurück.” – Paul Celan]       “Un-weep,” the tear said, “un-cry. I have no more sympathy for you, no matter how you carry on. Do you know what that means? Whatever happens to you, I don’t care, Not anymore.” >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

       He had painted a battle scene, he told me: gouged tank tracks, abandoned machines, bombs that might still be live, bodies that were not.        That was a long time ago, he said, the act of painting, that is. The battle? Maybe next year, or tomorrow.  >> below: a short play available from the publisher, stageplays.com. << … [Read more...]

[“And sometimes you’re the door.” – Cole Swensen] So what’s the context here?: Sometimes you’re the window ... the hole in the wall, ... the knob ... or – “sometimes you’re adored and sometimes you’re just the door.” >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Remember when I was a young axe / making promise after promise to the young trees?” – Emily Skaja]        They didn’t appreciate my cutting remarks, either.  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“I’ve been going around with the great / zero under my arm.” - Yannis Stiggas]        They called me ‘zer0’ because I was n0 0ne. “Oh L00k” they said. >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“It was cold everywhere she was.” - Charles Simic] One look from her turned smiles to ice, and that was just for practice. Next, she turned to you.... > ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[This old permanent storm / within.” – Ron Silliman] Yes, it’s a cliché, at one time even a radio serial: “the storm within.” But it’s real, even if it’s only indigestion.  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“a memory of missing news,” – Elena Shvarts] I remember our desperate uprising, but it wasn’t on the news that day. Or the next. I remember the last election, the one just before the uprising. That isn’t on the news now, either, although once it was. Those who report the news are also ... missing.  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“God is dead, but men have not, for all that, become atheists.” ­– Jean-Paul Sartre] Suppose God is in the future, and does not yet exist. When He does come to Be, He will invent our past in which we have supposed that He is in the future. Of course, if this will happen it already has.  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

In response to an anthologist’s [Will Durant] vacuous question concerning whether a life of science had contributed to his happiness, Bertrand Russell replied:        “I do not believe that science per se is an adequate source of happiness, nor do I think that my own scientific outlook has contributed very greatly to my own happiness, which I attribute to defecating twice a day with unfailing regularity.” [Autobiography, vol. 2, p.288] [Below: The Darth Vader Cat Litter Box from Petco] … [Read more...]

["Everything has the privilege of being only one, which lends it infinite value, and the disadvantage of being irreplaceable, which devalues it infinitely. – Clément Rosset] If you are unique, you have no value. If there are two of you, each has value, because the other might be lost, resulting in only one of you remaining – which has no value. … [Read more...]

[“We wait / for the past to happen” - J.H. Prynne] We read about the past, not just the Revolution and the freeing of Slaves but our glorious Wars and the Leaders who arose from the People to Save us – Leaders who no longer Appear to us, or if they do are ... Different ... Worrying ... … [Read more...]

“One can do nothing that one does not.” – Max Stirner,  in The Ego and His Own” (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum), 1844 “Do or do not; there is no try” – Yoda, 1977     … [Read more...]

[“Everything has the privilege of being only one, which lends it infinite value, and the disadvantage of being irreplaceable, which devalues it infinitely. … Such is the ontological fragility of everything that comes into existence.” – Clément Rosset] If you are unique, you have no value. If there are two of you, each has value, because the other might be lost, resulting in only one of you remaining – one who has no value.  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to … [Read more...]

[“...[they] live for their secrets” – Radiohead] I forgot my secret. ... now it’s more secret than ever.  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. <<   … [Read more...]

[“I had all these principles once, and now I just say yes.” - Taylor Mead] I used to just say “no,” but nothing happened then, any more than it happened when I said “yes.”   >> below: a play available from the publisher, stageplays.com << Composition of objects involving presidential election in USA … [Read more...]

[“This is a fossil of me...” – Meghann Plunkett] They pulled me into the future, alive, because my fossil – my future fossil, that is, is famous – will be famous, and the scientists wanted to examine me to see if, in life, there was some indication of why I would become the famous fossil, of the first corpse to be identified as American after ... the war ...  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Those only will be mentioned who themselves gained some distinction, or whose statues happened to be better made than others.” [Pausanias, c. 160 A.D.] Our own provincial governor would have been pretty much forgotten for his lack of decisiveness, his inattention to the problems of the people in his province, but – what a statue !  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. <<   … [Read more...]

There is a you that you might have been. The world is arranged so that you will never encounter this double of yourself. But sometimes, owing to a lapse in the divine attention span, ...  >> ‘books Terence Kuch’ on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“In Thrace, the king ... had a god solely unto himself, whom his subjects might no ways adore.” – Montaigne] The king forbade his subjects to worship the great god, but to worship only those who served that god. Foremost among them, of course, the king.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Who are you? I said into the dial tone.” – Anne Carson] Getting no response, I told it to buzz off.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“When a head is no longer sitting on its shoulders, you have a problem on your hands.” – Henri Michaux] Your hands need to lift up your head and put it back in its place. But to do that you need to find your head, which may be some distance away from your shoulders, now that the executioner has exercised his skills with perhaps too much vigor, has made the head plunge away from the body, go rolling down the slope from the execution grounds, eager children rushing after it for a pickup game of … [Read more...]

[“The thinking subject is not the soul within the body, but an alien intruder, a homunculus that speaks through it.” - Slavoj Žižek] We are in disguise, here, we fallen angels who, having driven out those who used to live in these bodies, have taken up worship of the One who sentenced us to be here, as a way of hiding from him, fooling him into not knowing who we really are, fooling him into thinking that we are – his people.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to … [Read more...]

I complained to my analyst that I couldn’t understand what the Voices were telling me, those words and phrases that I was hearing from ... somewhere. I’d come to him because, I thought, he’s an expert; he’d probably heard the Voices himself, could interpret them for me, tell me what to do. But he said there were no voices. Except his own. > “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

You can buy copies of other peoples’ memories, experience thrills you never had. Critics say that those memories can’t ever really be yours – it’s no better than watching a movie, and a lot more expensive – and dangerous to your mind as well. But there’s another problem. It isn’t that you begin to feel that you had climbed that mountain yourself, conquered the dread disease – it’s that as you live the mem it becomes more like you, more like your own memories – corrupted by your mediocrity, your … [Read more...]

[Memories come to mind like excavated statues that have misplaced their heads.” – Wisława Szymborska] We dug it out of the ruins, the ancient Roman statue, in quite good shape, considering. But the head – there was no head on the statue’s broad shoulders. We began digging to find the head, to set it once again atop the body, that some museum would be more – generous. But our experts claimed, after careful examination, that there had never been a marble head on those stone-cold shoulders. And … [Read more...]

[“This morning / swarms of police with trackerdogs / wander about the city / with my description printed / on their minds” - Brian Patten] And what would this description say? How would it distinguish me from everyone else? I have long wondered that, myself; how would their words paint me? I rush to question the police about this. > “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“This morning / swarms of police with trackerdogs / wander about the city / with my description printed / on their minds” - Brian Patten] And what would this description say? How would it distinguish me from everyone else? I have long wondered that myself; how would their words paint me? I rush to question the police about this.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“I very well understand the desire to be a machine, to go to the limits of machinality.” - Jean Beaudrillard] The limit of machinality is the junk-heap, or the recycling machine (that will be junked or recycled in its turn). The limit of humanity, on the contrary, is the junk-heap called Heaven, or, if you have a problem with that, ... There is an alternative...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Could it be that subliminally we are hearing words and phrases all the time?” - Lydia Davis] Yes, that thought occurred to me, too. Occurs to me all the time, actually. > “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Her lovers waste away, for she lives on their life.” - Yeats] I know I’m being sucked dry in our emotional scenes and I can’t quite do the next one even as I try, but she knows I’m gradually failing, our promise of everlasting tension, fighting, glaring, making up but there is a marginal loss each time ... and we have to try harder each time ... When I am finally husk another will be sought. And then he, too ... > “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from … [Read more...]

[“can you gift / me with savagery-management tips” – Amy Gerstler] My birthday gift to you is a coupon good for three lessons of anger management. The first lesson is all about you, and how you became you. The second lesson is about you and me, how and what we did to each other. The third lesson is how to suffer and be alone. … [Read more...]

[“against the mind’s gray asylum.” - Andrea Zanzotto] The mind is its own madhouse. The ‘you’ is left outside its walls, spurned by the doctors of self, those complicit in its downfall.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Why did I think a person only distantly like me / Might finally represent my life?” – John Koethe] We were together so long that I became a kind of her – her ideas, attitudes, even her way of turning her head, slightly, as if to hear better, or to hear less. When she left, she took my life with her.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. <<     … [Read more...]

[“What if the street sign said RUN, or RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.” ­– Jasper Johns] The street signs have been improved, now, as a public service. Instead of merely reading WALK or DON’T WALK, they now read, in appropriate circumstances, not only RUN, or RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, but O MY GOD IT’S COMING RIGHT AT YOU AND THERE’S NO TIME TO DO ANYTHING BUT DIE; or PRAY; or SCREAM AND CROUCH DOWN [author’s note: I survived a car crash in which a man died. When you see it coming, there’s no time to do  a n y … [Read more...]

If I can’t remember her, then there’s nothing to remember. It is some comfort, not to remember ... she whom I no longer remember. … [Read more...]

[“…a past that was never present” - David Couzens Hoy] There’s a past that used to be present. We all know that, like the broken leg that hurt so much but now it’s healed and the pain that’s left is only in our minds. And there’s also the past that never was the present, that we’ve built, step by painful step. We remember events in this past we’ve made just as vividly as the past events that used to be present. Or even more as we celebrate, each year, the anniversary of their … [Read more...]

[“Every time I say “,” it refers to you.” – Louise Glück] My hesitation. I want to say ‘yes’ to you, but the word never quite comes. My hesitation has become, without my not knowing quite when, another kind of ‘no.’  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“You don’t dare look at your hands anymore” - Guillaume Apollinaire] Because of the scars. They’re scars of honor in earned in great battles on behalf of our republic. Perhaps. Or maybe earned in some other way, not so honorable. I’ve begun wearing gloves, now, everywhere. Being thought a cleanliness-nut is worth not having to ... explain ... >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

“[one of the hundred kinds of silence...” - Billy Collins] “Silent scream” is number 54. But I prefer that to those annoying unsilent screams I keep hearing ... from the basement ...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. <<   … [Read more...]

[“in the land of the blind all colors are unbelievable” – Breyten Breytenbach] And so you teach her without mentioning any colors, without telling her that there are hundreds, thousands of colors she will never see or understand. To tell her about colors might crush her spirit, lead to despair. So you teach her only the word “black.” And she says, “what’s ‘black’”?  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“...the bruised words...” – John Ashbery] Our words – those words – batted/battered in the air between us ­– too honest for the bruises of our contest, our continuing feints, our continuing adventures and retreats.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“one of the one hundred kinds of silence...” - Billy Collins] I listed many kinds of silence, finally after much research arrived at #100, ‘Unspoken Jealousy.’ But I knew there were even more kinds of silence, waiting to discover me quietly, too late for words vainly regretted.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“By now the battle is joined between those who exist and want to be eternal, and we who don’t exist, and seek to.” - Italo Calvino] – Our latest offer states that we will settle for non-eternal, if it comes to that. Just so long as we have known existence, that delicate fruit soon to spoil.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. <<   … [Read more...]

[“In the future, descendants of these technologies might allow us to provide entire simulated worlds for the entertainment of isolated brains on life support.” - Jan Westerhoff] What? Isn’t that what’s happening to us now? Have you watched TV lately?  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

The problem with compliments is that the compliment-or must be superior, at least in knowledge or taste, to whatever the compliment-ee is being compliment-ed on, or the compliment would be at best meaningless, at worst, insolent. Thank you for appreciating this post. You have superb taste.   >> The play “Clickers" is available from the publisher, stageplays.com << … [Read more...]

[“You don’t dare look at your hands anymore” – Apollinaire] What have my hands done – now? Why are they suddenly knotted into fists, grasping themselves so tightly they begin to bleed...  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[The land of the fugitive is all around us.” – W.S. Merwin] In our own land, now we’re the fugitives ... since those other fugitives came. > “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Consciousnesses present themselves with the absurdity of a multiple solipsism.” – Maurice Merleau-Ponty] Each of us is the only one. We call out. We answer.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

Whatever you do, possibilities are instantly brought to ruin. Each moment, you murder all other futures that could have been – that you could have been.   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

[“Our greasy, shiny brains. That they may be of some use after all: that other modes of existence place a high value upon them as lubricants; that we’re hunted for them;...” – Charles Fort] We are hunted for our brains. Not to use as lubricants – that’s just a ruse –  no, that would be bad enough. But – to eat.  >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]

 [“I don’t want whatever you want most for me.” - Carey McHugh] I know you know better than I do, with all your experience never being what you wanted to be, what I should be doing with my life, how I should set goals and write them down and underline them and when I don’t get there, don’t just cross them out and say fuck it but erase them so hard it tears the paper. Don’t feel bad – we all make mistakes. Even you. But I want to make my own mistakes, not yours all over again.   >> … [Read more...]

[“Whom I would touch / I may not, / whom I may / I would / but often do not.” - Denise Levertov] The rules seem to change with everyone I want to touch, who is touchable and who is not, who can touch me but had better not, what to say about touching and finally deciding that “I touch you” is a fine beautiful sentiment and doesn’t of course need to involve an actual – touch   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. … [Read more...]

[“...he had especially feared those women who remembered his lies the day after” – Gyula Krúdy] “I didn’t say those things.” No, that’s not believable. or, “I did say them, but I didn’t mean it.” No, that’s not right; it’s too close to the truth. or, “I was just quoting someone else.” Getting warm. or, “I was just quoting you. -- Don’t you remember?"   >> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind. << … [Read more...]