Fishhook Theater

@DptOmnishambles

From the desk of the disembodied head of Jorge Luis Borges, Honorary Member of the Department of Omnishambles Advisory Board:

To all department heads and members, headmasters and headmembers –

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I make this statement to you from a state of total ignorance regarding the needs and wants of the Department. The current state of affairs eludes me, though I could not truthfully say I have given pursuit. And yet, I am inextricably linked to you, by proxy if not by spirit. When I am not dreaming of tigers surfing through labyrinths on mirrored knives, it is all I can do to stay awake to try and imagine just what you ladies and you gentlemen of the Department of Omnishambles do here. Esteemed colleagues of the School of Inhumanities, it is not in my nature to suppose the abstract can teach us anything when wholly separated from reality, but to ask the following question, I must at least pretend that such a divorce may be profitable: What the fuck is this supposed to be, some kind of joke?

As I am sure you all know, I lost my eyesight before I had my head removed and placed in this tank, so even in eternity I have no way to enjoy my longtime love of reading; no books in which to get lost; no books to cautiously pet, knowing they may tear me apart at any moment; no books in which to see myself or not, to see myself as unfamiliar or see a stranger named Borges; no books to pierce my mind or at least cut my steak. I find my mind is deluded, possibly, thinking that the reality I once knew is still knowable, is still known by others, perhaps even by some here in this Department. You will recall, of course, these lines from Shelley:

I arise from dreams of thee

In the first sleep of the night –

The winds are breathing low

And the stars are burning bright.

I arise from dreams of thee –

And a spirit in my feet

Has borne me – Who knows how?

To thy chamber window, sweet!

And so, as long as I am here, your favored modernist proto-post-modernist, I shall continue uttering sensible, if totally irrelevant, musings and oblations, content that many of them will never be attributed to me, and that at least an equal number of things I myself never wrote or said will be in their stead.

Yours Eternally (it would seem,)

JLB

Runner-Up

I am first among losers, like Lucifer. 

LitReactor’s inaugural WAR competition is over and I made it to the finals. 

The “proof.”

Scrapped

I got it in mind after reading this old treatise on witch-hunting to transcribe the whole thing in modern language.  I scrapped the idea because nonsense can’t be transliterated.  Some of it makes enough sense to restate, but many of the most important points are based in a world-view foreign enough to be untranslatable.  A person could rewrite the whole thing with footnotes and explanations, but that’s more work than I’d planned on; it’d be professional-level work, not for laymen such as myself. 

It’s still an interesting read, if you’re up for it.

Bad News (Sort of)

This box will tell you a writer you write like.

I put in some shorter clips and got a different answer for each one, James Joyce, David Foster Wallace, even Margaret Mitchell.  But I put in the last three essays I wrote for my old blog, each one in full, and got H.P. Lovecraft every time.  I like Lovecraft’s ideas but find him to be a pretty boring read.  Is this a mirror I see before me, or the portrait of a stranger?

ishe

because there’s never enough time - you’ll swear it’s not too late - put it back on red - let it out - lead it blindly over your stonewall senses - go see if Finnegan’s woke yet -

Tom Waits

Prowling the pavement, equal parts
troll and billy goat gruff,
less a street-sweeper
and more a mobile refinery:
garbage in, bullion out,
night’s own pacemaker -
‘If only that Grammy played records…’

(My entry into the Studio360 / Tracy K. Smith contest)