PALPABILITY
Missive #65 - Transcribed Poetic Dictation, Hypnagogic
[What a painful reception and transcription process this was. I’m not sure why it was so irritating to me in the moment. Part of me wants to say I was tired, as I kept insisting that I be allowed to sleep. But I was not to be released. The process became hypnagogic as I wrestled with the dictator in and out of half-asleep reverie. Almost torturous. Annoyedly, I would wake again and again to transcribe the last few insistent lines then, belligerent, attempt sleep again. If I had been in my humor, I would have realized this particular dictation was intentionally utilizing the hypnagogic space for this piece, and I would have remained more curious. About halfway through, I think I unconsciously got most of the way there, as the process became easier and (almost) enjoyable. The conclusion of it however surprised and haunts me. Most missives find a way to alchemize suffering to peace. PALPABILITY however did not bring me to peaceful resolution. And yet, there is beauty in it. It is okay for some pieces to be like this. Perhaps it is even good. And perhaps peace is here, I simply have yet to access it. There is a phantom stanza at the very end, which I am not allowed to officially include, as I cannot quite confirm the source of its dictation. But I can put it here: “The unimagined is not felt, yet / it is real”~] Received 11/29/24 | 5:27-6:47am
Listen to the Recitation:
PALPABILITY
In an essence
Sense of the gods, set the stage
With the objects of your heart
The stage is set
Setting the scene, the sun
On your closed eyes, gentle moons;
Serendipity, receiving the light
In a tangible way, felt
The numinous is not another world
It is not outside, far from reach
It is closer to you than the sound of thought
Beating against the wall of your mind
Than the blood beating through the course
Of your body, ripe pink tendons taut
Tendriled tensions strung knots through
The fiber of your being
I push back against the experience
Just to feel its weight against me
It cannot be moved, though it moves
Me, against it, though not without cause
We wrestle so undenying dehydrated
A broken grain against the grain, split
Apart to pound and dry, flour fine
A thousand memories race inside me,
A game with no winners, there is no prize
No stadium seating, no box to open,
No maze to traverse, no center to reach
The contest rages on regardless
A dreamy haze lifts on a deepened day
Doubtless, not one to undermine
In search of stippled surface
Or ruptured mass, blood dying the water
Red, a sweet cherry tone, jewel-like liquid
Not rich, but precious to me as we are
I sit and gaze out, and what I see
Races into me: purple white lightning, flashing
Three headed dragon overhead, the sky
Ripping apart, cloth put on a show
As a bear mother and her cub, hungry
Chase down a lost and wandering soul
Childhood home torn to pieces, holes
In the ceiling, the sundered sky shone down
Like so many angels descending death knells
A terror rises in my throat, unlike any other
Yet known to me, to those who make me up
At the deepest levels, endoing my life's lay
This is not how the drum's beat dies
This is not her final sound
In texture we come, and to texture remain
The burrs of a scoriated channel, edges
To catch fingers on the subaromatic level,
Subatomic reliquaries to our destinies, described
Or predescribed, stumbled upon in a blunder
A barreled boulder too hefty to hold up on
A shoulder's grimace, heavy-set on the mantel
A groan is a grind is a grin off-set, cheer
At the end of the duty's day, whole-filled
Satin soft, brocaded velvet, a warm knit glove
Consternation is a revelation, to come
And soon, sooner than we think, than we can
Think, sooner than thought sounds as it sounds
Upon the barrier of its being; they say
Thought has no substance, no matter.
They have not felt thought as I have felt it
Its viscereality, its thickness, its teeth, its blood,
Its laughter, its heat, its hot syrupy scent
Cloying clothing, as real as I am, as my knowing
Or knowledge, which itself knows not when
It could be, but is without regard, mine or any
We live in a wider ecosystem, wider than wide
There is no limit to its life; not even death
As a thought can never die, nor can you kill it
The tone of this song is heavy—
It is actually impossibly light, unbearably
Unbelievably; believe it, know it
Know the unbearable lightness of its being
What sounds heavy is not taken seriously
And it is not taken personally, though it is
Personal, highly. Or rather, a higher person
Dropping such things down on us, on our heads
Like boulders, like bombs, like razor blade
Rose petals, known to be sharp, yet fragile
And soft, in fact harmless, though many die
Below them. They fall upon us, as it falls on
To us. This pain is palpable; it is not imagined
It is felt.
It is imagined, and
It is felt.
OOF I felt this one