Calculated Response
for Gary Stogsdill

What first irked Frege about calculation
described as aggregative mechanical thought
is that such conjecture is wasteful,
fraught with temptation toward hasty admiration
for what we think we know we know.

Do laws exist to suit the objects
about which they are thought? Mechanical speech,
he might assert, is about as thoughtful
as a parrot whistling a skirt. Calculation
equals aggregative mechanical thought?
Gottlob Frege: Definitely not.

Skipping Stones

A rock will call you, its color catching your eye,
the weight or shape offering rightness in your hand
as you bow to pluck it from its settled place.
Texture, smooth or rough,
forms against you in an act of solidarity.

A word will strike you, the rhythm, or syntax
from tongue to ear, or pen to eye, as familiar
as old friends who know one another's cadence.
The context reveals the connection
between intimate and unfeeling
in its familiar molecular docking.

Pebbles jingle in pockets and words in minds.
Pick a stone that fits your palm well. Carry it
in your pocket like champion marbles; hard-won
against pocked cat's eyes and battered steelies.
Skip a word across smooth water.
Notice how many times it taps the surface
as it carries you, the way it pulses like a metronome
to keep time with your clamoring heart.

surviving extremes


should not (i know) venture here
and yet (rovers must be prepared)

i streak across time and space
(for the unexpected) encounter

(nature is) what i feel
(an arbitrary teacher)

(to prevent hypothermia) your skin
screams (strip naked) touch me

across the space (find a protected area)
where minds drift (and lie close together)

a dangerous course (to maintain integrity
of the body) permit (and ensure) hands

head and heart (sustained
warmth) unfettered flight.

Mouthwatering


She dances
like rain falling.

He drops his umbrella
and catches her
on his tongue.

"Mouthwatering" first appeared in Erotic Readers Association in 2004.

Challenging Gottlob Frege's Notion of One

…if we were to say 'a means a number,' this would be open to the same objection as the definition 'one is a thing.'… a does not mean some one definite number which can be specified…With one, however, the position is essentially different.

The problem with ‘it takes a village’
is that it did not take one to create a child,
and while one benefits from positive factors
in the family, the exponential is not true
in the personal: a mother is not the same
as the mother, as the one mother
one had when one first had a mother.
(One mother plus a mother) minus one mother
does not equal the mother.

Any child can do this math.

Brazen Crow at Rosario

on the white white plank
a black crow waits
his cloud aura
puffed up proud
against blue blue sky

a black crow walks
the plank
chattering at sailboats
trying to fly

black crow you caw so
much mess
cook frightens you off

Play Objects

bumper sticker

Don't believe most
of what you think.

How She Sybilizes Just After She Speaks

Prescribed Play

Unprescribed Play

Impromptu
by Z--

sketchy ii

Getting Unstuck

It's hard to find a quiet place to write in a house filled with children. For years, space constraints meant that I hunkered down at a small desk in the corner of the living room, television on one side, Nintendo on the other. I tacked a small red stop sign on the inside of a closet door. When I was writing, I'd open the door to reveal the sign so children would think before interrupting. Time passes. children grow. The last few years I've been able to slip away for a few days at a time to conjur other lifetimes.

One of my favorite writing places is Colonyhouse; the upstairs room that gives a level view of the clouds, close enough to hear the pounding waves. It's easy to get distracted by dark clouds rolling in or the patterns of birds, boats, or lines of surf. I often find myself staring at the shapes of chimney vents on rooftops.


Sometimes, my thoughts give in to the imagined antics of long-stuck smokestacks coming to life. (We can agree to ignore the obvious metaphoric reflection of an object being so rigidly confined to one spot, can't we?) What a relief to let go of expectations about what we think we ought to be or accomplish--to immerse oneself in the play of what is.

Stuck Duck, Part I

Stuck Duck, Part 2

Stuck Duck,Part 3

Sketchy, but true...