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“... Freezing daffodils nod againstApril snow. Long queue at thefood store. Brilliant deaths cutthe day. Hal was only 64. Hehad sung kaddish for someoneelse not long ago and no oneexpected – even the lark doesnot see the Open, someonesaid in another time.  ...”

“... Although gamma is the third letter of the ancient Greek alphabet, the fourth book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is called Metaphysics Gamma because there are two extant Metaphysics Alphas and (may we suppose) no one could bear to call one of them lesser, so references to the fourth book are given as Metaphysics Gamma (IV) or sometimes Metaphysics IV (3), this being the book where Aristotle outlines three versions of his famous ‘principle of non-contradiction ...”

“... Out of the folds of the heavenly things I was dreaming of Tom Stoppard in a car saying do you want to come look at my etchings and I thought here at last is someone who will know how this drear phrase came to refer to close acts of humankind so I said what does that really mean do you think and he said sex and I awoke in tears because I suddenly remembered when my Dad died I had to pawn his TV, which I did for not enough money then after midnight I went out walking the streets of his small town and there it was Dad’s TV on a shelf in the shop in the dark with others ...”

“... Beckett’s Theory of Tragedy Hegel on sacrifice. The animal dies. The man becomes alert. What do we learn we learn to notice everything now. We learn to say he is a hero let him do it. O is shown moving to the window. What a rustling what an evening. Oh little actor (living moving mourning lamenting and howling incessantly) time to fly back to where they keep your skin ...”

“... I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.’ Marcel Duchamp A sonnet is a rectangle upon the page. Your eye enjoys it in a ratio of eight to five. Let’s say you’re an urgent man in an urgent language construing the millions of shadows that keep you alive. If only it were water or innocent or a hawk from a handsaw, if only you were Adonis or Marcel Duchamp settling in to your half hour of sex or chess, not this raw block cut out of the fog of meaning, still damp ...”

“... I think I should go in and see her. Can I stand it. She is shaking. No doubt. I should go in. She’ll be pouring another glass. It stops the shaking. No doubt. She’ll be sitting in front of that stupid painting she likes, she’ll talk about going out to shovel the steps before it freezes, maybe she will go out, slip on the steps and kill herself, that will stop the shaking, no doubt! I should go in ...”

“... Sonnet of Addressing Gertrude Stein Here is a pronoun to address Gertrude Stein with : dog you’ve never had before has died. Drop’t Sonnet When a language drops a distinction (as e.g. English has modified the 2nd person singular so that I can no longer express the wish, Tell me spirit! whither wander’st thou? or split a king in two saying, If thou beest not immortal, look about you!) there is a lowering of arms, a thinning of air inside the whole system, a sadness in the sparrows, a slipping away of prefixes and wisdom, ’las for alas, ’less for unless, ’pale for impale, ’unsist for unresisting, and whether is one syllable and needle rhymes with kneel (yet I confess not till I met you did I begin to feel this change as a loss ...”

“... Do you hear sighing.      Do you wake amid a sigh.            Radio sighs AM,              FM.                Shortwave sighs crackle in from the Atlantic.            Hot sighs steam in the dawn.     People kissing stop to sigh then kiss again. Doctors sigh into wounds and the bloodstream is changed for ever ...”

“... i) CASSANDRA: My lips rush the night, skull empty- ing, wide, cold, yolks gone, was it for this? is like the moment when is like the when is like the CHORUS: you amaze me CASSANDRA: Apollo! CHORUS: lust? CASSANDRA: shame! CHORUS: come on CASSANDRA: we wrestled! CHORUS: conceived? CASSANDRA: spat him out! CHORUS: but still he? CASSANDRA: ah my gift! CHORUS: bad? CASSANDRA: (never) believed! CHORUS: oh but we CASSANDRA: [screams] was it for this the skull glows wide I know that smell O clear nightingale gods wrapt her in wing a life with no sting but for me waits SCHISM of the 2 edged was it for this the skull blows wide I know that smell burst- open bride CHORUS: what is it like? CASSANDRA: what is what like? CASSANDRA: Me a killed slave easy fistful of death you O humans O human things a shadow is enough to a sponge can wipe you off you I pity [exit Cassandra] CHORUS: as brightness blows the rising and hang in it, their glory, stare out death for death for death (ii) CASSANDRA: ‘I know that smell’ (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1333) Gorges down black drops white water after shadows plunge out of wild all around to deep trees a white cock crows ...”

“... It was hidden in her and it gave Kant pleasure. L’Eclisse begins with a wind blowing Monica Vitti’s hair. She is inside a room. Kant’s was a partly negative pleasure. Where is that wind from? Kant took pleasure in what he called Thing In Itself. She is prowling the room with her eyes down, observed deeply by a man in an armchair. Thing In Itself was unattainable, insurmountable ...”

“... In fact Odysseus would have been here long before now but it seemed to his mind more profitable to go to many lands acquiring stuff. For Odysseus knows profit over and above mortal men nor could anyone else alive rival him at this. (Odyssey, 19.282-6) It’s a panel on something improbable (Godard and Homer?) in a fluorescent salon of some city’s Palais des Congrès ...”

“... I Do you think of your saliva as a personal possession or as something you can sell? What about tears? What about semen? Linguists tell us to use the terms alienable and inalienable to make this distinction intelligible. E.g. English speakers call both blood and faeces alienable on a normal day but saliva, sweat, tears and bowels they do not give away ...”

“... Mengi’ event, Brooklyn, 12 May 2023 she does a performance that involves screamingmore formally you might say vocal improv I would say screamingwhat I think of it I’m not yet loosened up enough to saythey are quite pale the musicians mostly Icelanders mostly improvwho has trouble with improv, well, who does notI don’t know if it’s good ...”