Dada Revisited

Measuring you with such an immense sadness that I laugh about.
Would you come up from Bethlehem, rising?
Would you bring your wasteland?
Would you howl?

So, so much rage against the light

That would repay me with a new war,
Another war,
That would bless my age with snipers and blight.

Measuring you with such an anticipation that I hop about,
Would you break, break on cold gray stones?
Would you kindly stop for me?
Would you suffice for ice?

My wrath, my wrath could not end, but went to hide
In the sepulcher there by the sea,
Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,

My chaos, my tempest, my shrew by my side.

Secrets

Are you as empty as you appear,
O silent man with fearful eyes?
Is what you lack so icy clear?
Are you as empty as you appear.
Tell us when we'll finally hear
of the world beyond your senile sighs.
Are you as empty as you appear,
O silent man with fearful eyes?

MORPHINE


Come be my spectacle.
tie me in chains against
your breast.

Be my pill, my jilted lover
still warming my bed,
My Sunday guest stayed too long,
my charm,

my pet, my
pain in the chest one morning.
my red rage,
my cage, my addiction.

And we shall live like kings
forever at war,
And I shall burn your treasured things
and steal your kisses.

and I shall roar at you with
all my might.
and you shall love me still,
even as we rage and fight.

And even as we rage and fight,
you shall love me still.

Where is the "Flatland"?

Dear Reader, you might have wondered where “Flatland” is actually located. Obviously, a flatlander must come from somewhere...

Actually, there are several answers to this.

1.  Indiana (my home state) and most of the region around the Great Lakes, which is mostly level farmland.

2.  According to the Urban Dictionary, a Flatlander is what residents of Wisconsin call visitors from Illinois. Or what Northern Pennsylvanians call visitors from south of Interstate 80. Or what Vermont residents call everyone else.   So these places could be Flatland.

3.  A fictional place from an 1884 story by English author, Edwin Abbott, titled “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions”.

The following excerpt from Wikipedia explains the plot of the tale and reveals where flatlanders come from:

“The story is about a two-dimensional world referred to as Flatland which is occupied by geometric figures, line segments (females) and regular polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a humble Square, a member of the social caste of gentlemen and professionals in a society of geometric figures, who guides us through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. The square has a dream about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland) which is inhabited by "lustrous points." He attempts to convince the realm's ignorant monarch of a second dimension but finds that it is essentially impossible to make him see outside of his eternally straight line.

The narrator is then visited by a three-dimensional sphere, which he cannot comprehend until he sees Spaceland for himself. This sphere, who remains nameless, visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hopes of eventually educating the population of Flatland of the existence of Spaceland. From the safety of Spaceland, they are able to observe the leaders of Flatland secretly acknowledging the existence of the sphere and prescribing the silencing of anyone found preaching the truth of Spaceland and the third dimension. After this proclamation is made, many witnesses are massacred or imprisoned (according to caste).

After the Square's mind is opened to new dimensions, he tries to convince the Sphere of the theoretical possibility of the existence of a fourth (and fifth, and sixth ...) spatial dimension. Offended by this presumption and incapable of comprehending other dimensions, the Sphere returns his student to Flatland in disgrace.

He then has a dream in which the Sphere visits him again, this time to introduce him to Pointland. The point (sole inhabitant, monarch, and universe in one) perceives any attempt at communicating with him as simply being a thought originating in his own mind:

'You see,' said my Teacher, 'how little your words have done. So far as the Monarch understand them at all, he accepts them as his own – for he cannot conceive of any other except himself – and plumes himself upon the variety of Its Thought as an instance of creative Power. Let us leave this God of Pointland to the ignorant fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience: nothing that you or I can do can rescue him from his self-satisfaction.'
— the Sphere

The Square recognizes the connection between the ignorance of the monarchs of Pointland and Lineland with his own (and the Sphere's) previous ignorance of the existence of other, higher dimensions.

Once returned to Flatland, the Square finds it difficult to convince anyone of Spaceland's existence, especially after official decrees are announced – anyone preaching the lies of three dimensions will be imprisoned (or executed, depending on caste). Eventually the Square himself is imprisoned for just this reason.”

4.  It is a state of mind.  To me, Flatland is a beautiful but dangerous ideal.  It can lead to such an almost militant conformity that its citizens can have a hard time even seeing it in themselves, like those in Abbott's tale.

So, with these four definitions of Flatland in mind, this blog hopes to make a few statements as it goes...

You see, the beauty of a Flatland is often hard to find; there are no oceans, few mountains, and a lot of distant horizons.  The splendor is subtle, to be found in simple things like the quiet sounds of nature and the simplicity and the vivid odors of the soil and creeks.

Or the beauty is so big that it is overlooked.  Like the spectacular view of the moon and galaxies on a clear night or being made insignificant by the grand vistas or the slow realization that the landscape is much more complex than originally thought.

Being in Flatland is ultimately this state of mind.  To me, it is being able to see the stunning sights in the middle of a dull world.  It is being able to simultaneously notice the big things and small things and connect them together.  It is finally being able to realize that there are other dimensions under our noses, and it is being able to respect it all because it simply exists.

Beatitude

Beatitude

Old lover, would you
Listen
To the hissing like a snake in the mown grass,
To the holy repetition?
The blessed confrontation often unsaid.

Upon my table,
Your word is my bread.

Blessed be the accusations never mentioned.
Blessed be our sacred, wounded
Silence.
Listen,
Teach me to kneel to the truth of your taste.

Soon there comes a sudden
Wounded sunrise to waken the forgiven,

And God in our noon of darkness
Seeing in a tide of sightlessness,
Eats our sin once more.

Lover, lifelong friend,
Betrayed
Over and over again.

Such things always whispered like a beatitude.
Such a holy, holy food.

-J Hemersbach

Starting; beginning...

Welcome to my blog, bienvenido.

The beginning is always the easiest. Closings are more difficult, because you have to end things with some sort of meaning. All that is needed for the start is a motif or a "skin" to wrap around your newborn idea.

So here is my theme-thing. I come from the flatland just below the Great Lakes in the U.S., and I like folky stuff from the flatland. Ideas, poetry, art, music, or just stuff.

I can't compete with anybody. I'm just looking at things from this one-dimensional place.

Sometimes there are interesting ideas that come from the narrow places. Edison invented the light bulb after sitting in a small room for months trying to find the right filament. Emily Dickenson was basically a recluse and ended her life in obscurity but wrote some of the most profound verse.

This won't only be from me, either. Hopefully, I can share things from other flatland residents. Especially poetry. And images.

Adios, for now.