Do i call like a magnet
like the serpent?
do i call things into being
when i name them?
To call is to differentiate,
to acknowledge,
to separate out
the boundary and outline of a thing.
To call, to summon—
to become a god?
or god-like?
or simply god-guided,
giving precedence to the accident.
I am called again and
again to this practice.
a practice of strangeness,
the strangeness, the ritual—
a way to find order in chaos—
emerges when one steps back from practical things:
the doings done because
this, then that, then this... then that...
What emerges when survival
is not driving?
and what, who do i call?
My thought shapes my flesh.
my flesh is moved by the impetus
to answer the strongest calling;
Is it the most threatening voice?
you must do this ... or else...
A seductive one?
I have heard that it is better to
be moved by love than the desire to avoid
(enemies, starvation, corpulence: discomfort in all forms....)
There is evidence that i have often
behaved like a frightened
confused and desperate thing
with a strong heart that insists,
that pulls her toward the impractical and irrational
that claws at her when it is displeased and
prevents her from attending to the presumed-obligatory.
Yes, i could summon the gods,
if only the other voices weren't so loud.
and – no sooner have i summoned;
they come running and i think
oh! wait. no no no. i don't think i meant that.
The practice is to summon then…
and do not doubt?
An experiment, a practice in summoning
without doubt.
Is this what (this) art is? ...
The practice of summoning,
of acting without regard to result.
insult.
It may be impossible
to summon
without any regard to result.
Maybe it's like this:
NOT: is the result what i meant it to be?
But instead: what is my response to my own summoning?
...because i may or may not be a God,
but there is something here.
So i begin anyway to get a sense of how this voice,
moving through this flesh might summon cleanly
and without hesitation a thing which might
be delightful somehow (to whom? and why?)
at least there is not harm in this–
or at least less harm than there is
in many other things:
Perhaps if i have curtailed my unruly mind
from rampaging endlessly the practical world,
it is enough.