--- S T U A R T   L I S H A N

				I
"Sizzling."  "Brass."  "Sizzling brass."  What you
heard last night at the club.  "With a club,
an East Timorese man hits one of his
countrymen against the side of his face."
"Face it, whose side are you on, or against?"
				*
		i.e.,	how does one have
			the means to say what
			one means to say

and not just that

what lies in the feel of words what gestures
what colors for example		tone through

the shiny notes of "ah"		"ch" and "oo" as they
rise above goldenrod to		germinate

pollinate meaning			so that those who can
resonate back				listen to what you say

replying				to say bless you	bless you

				II
	but still...."

	"New Mexican butte, still, table flat, as day
	succumbs and a young jeune fille of an in-
	evitable, shivering evening fills the mesas"

	"The mesa, si, me saw, Senior Gringo,
	though I grow in grin weeping that I see
	Another scene for eyes you much rich buy."

words as social entities, as-
sociate wit-
		h one another, hone
meanings with their fellows, bump, rub
against each other like boxers sparring
in ferocious intimacy, their tones,
bones grappling in a ring...
				*

(And sometimes the same words and letters mix
up, down, meaning to mean in different ways:

	Allen: In other words, we would never have a thought in the
first place without the words or letters we have, as well.
	Nella: Huh?
	Allen: I.e., It is only the way we expect words, reliable as a
light switch, to go when we use these words, expectations based on nothing
but "true" experiences we've had before, which determines what (if?) we
mean to say in a sentence (one like, "The words' a sword, you wet-eared,
buttered ass!"), say.  A term, "frames of references," can serve our
purposes to get across what we mean by word's circumscribed meanings "of"
(or is it "to"?) intentions.
	Nella: But our words "other" in you, as well, without a "what" of
intention.  Like, is it only a [the?] word's way, reliable as light, to go
get the experiences we've had?  I.e., before the words, have we nothing to
expect, to mean?  When we use words to assay, what is it which determines?
	Allen: Huh?
	Nella: True, we serve a term circumscribed by a word's meaning[s],
but if we switch words or letters in a sentence ("we teared"/"wet eared,"
sword"/"words," say), can these expectations, based on one's "frames of
references," cross purposes or mean a thought[s] we never would have in
the first place?)

				*

		Their story, our story, a word, Yahweh, say.
How its goes through/about/in/with/to
		us, [t][b]urning each of our "my's"
			into an "our," an "us" without reference.
Has that been planned before we
	uttered the world of that word?

				III
			And hard bellied ab-
stractions given tractions by words,
		concrete is-
	lands of objects repressed-
		scented, wordy representations sentenced
to sentences, mingle with memememememory,
	habits of usage, and contexts, deterred, mined by cultural
		praxis and all like that: I.e., She-it!  And be
					yond words, place and shape deter-
			mines meaning, too, so that different sun-
and subsets of nuances
	become relative (new aunts, say) ac-
cording to where the rope of
					syntax is looped, strewn
		about, like, for example;
"At bat, he drove me bats the way he fidgeted on the mound,
	like a bat swooping, moving every
which way"; or "which witch did you eat a sandwich with
			in the sand at Playa del Rey?";  or
"for ample ex-words ('sword,' for example) lunged at us,
	and punctured each of our longed, lunged breath, until death."

				IV
"I was a young tuft of stamen."
	"I yearned and longed to yearn."
		"I struggled into womanhood."
"The dogs bark, as if tied up with bent up misery."
	"There were fibroids in my uterus."
		"The woods dark, trying out their pent up mystery."
"The contour of a bee in your heart."
	"Fibroids in the universe.  A word's sculpted shape."
		"The aroma of your eyes, your gaze, your loveliness."

Nella: "I've lots to tell you,"
	Allen: "Let me just screw this into place, O.K.?"
		Nella: "And if we could only cuddle now,
			facing each other, on either side of the bed, I
would."