WORDS
in Five Plays
of ∞ Acts & Scenes
By unorthmonk
Dear _,
I hope this work, which is dedicated to each and all of us estimated 100+ billion humans within this realm (historical + present sum) + honorable mention to its word workers, finds you _.
"...if there is still one hellish, truly accursed thing in our time, it is our artistic dallying with forms, instead of being like victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames." ~ Antonin Artaud
If WORDS fall in the forest
and there be no ear to hear
do they still yet then make sounds?
Should we arrive later
and inspect around the ground
shall we feel any impact crater?
WORD LIVES MATTER
none of these are blahs
Invest them each cognition
linger ponder in selahs
Eat them slow and carefully
it's not a clock timed test
Before you read the next line
let the last fully digest
CHAPTER 0: GENESYNTAX
BLACK
EMPTY
SILENT
STILL (for there was thermodynamic equilibrium)
until...
a WORD wind
ripples a dim instant sea of entropic dark deep
In the beginning was THE LOGOSAL WORD
and from Him sprung
and upon Him hung and strung
the reaching winding vines of lines through trees
and sailing diving depths of seas
and blown from His lung's frequencies...
of words
both manifest
and un
GERMINATIONS
In garden’s midst and mourning dew
when our realm was freshly new
the TREE OF WORDS abud in blurbs
mysteriously grew
DO NOT EAT its fruity meat
our Elohim decreed
but all the rest you’re free to test
and spread replanted SEED
Humans being just one man
and his helpmately wife
to garden tend and walk with Him
Who made all of this life
The serpent slides more subtly than
our beastly impulse mind
says we could (and in fact should)
on WORD fruits feastly dine
The woman picked and did ingest
the words "I KNOW WHAT’S BEST"
the man then followed her behest
and thus we fail Elohim’s test
The garden wounds hence ramified
five weeping river flows
pouring seas of sinful seed
whence Babylon yet grows
GENERATIONS>ITERATIONS
And the whole earth was of one alphabet, and of one lexicon. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the beasts, that they found a substrate in the land of Behavioral Modernity; and they discoursed there. And they said one to another, “Come, let us make lexemes, and syntax them thoroughly.” And they had grapheme for morpheme, and phrase had they for clause. And they said, “Come, let us build us a syntactical paradigmatical matrix, whose epistemic ontological structural integrity may reach unto heaven.”
ECCLESIASTESESQUE
To everything (which we have thought to taxonomize) there is a word.
A word for blind, a word for sight
A word for loose, a word for tight
A word for won’t, a word for might
A word opined, a word that’s right
A word for fun, a word for frown
A word for work, a word for clown
A word that’s who?, a word renowned
A word that swam, a word that drowned
A word for sink, a word for float
A word for seas, a word for boat
A word for cold, a word for coat
A word to greet or dig a moat
A word foolish, a word in fear
A word forsake, a word so dear
A word forgone, a word still here
A word of praise, a word to jeer
A word for else, a word for this
A word the worst, a word in bliss
A word that nailed, a word that missed
A word Mr., a word his Mrs.
A word of faith, a word in doubts
A word for withs and those withouts
A word anon, a word with clouts
A word discoursed, a word in SHOUTS
A word reveals, a word enshrouds
A word just me, a word in crowds
A word humbly, a word so proud
zero dB and WORDS TOO LOUD
A word for shrink, a word for BIGGER
A word to bury, a word for digger
A word for ease, a word for rigor
A word that’s safe or pulls a trigger
A word destroyed, a word amends
A word unused, a word that trends
A word fucks you, a word amens
A word before the word that ends
TAO TE STRING OF WORDS
Words can be guides
and maps to many ways
and even fixed paths
lighting nights
shaping days
No words
is the mother of inscription
beginning of this & that
the blank page is a word cage
or ideal habitat
The Word
is the Son
of the breath
of the Father
and hands of the author
and sands of the seas...
ALL THE REALM'S A STAGE...
THEATER OF ∞
ACT ∞
SCENE ∞
AUDITORIUM OF THE THEATER OF ALPHA & OMEGA, ∞
[FADE OUT LIGHT 0/10]
[OPEN CURTAINS] (which we can only hear being done)
(luminescent words, seemingly suspended within the depths of dark space, fade in brightly)
METHINKS
THEREFORE
ME BE
(then fade back into the black)
[CLOSE CURTAINS] (which we can only hear being done)
(loud/sharp thunderclap followed by deep/vast rolling/rumbling)
[FADE IN RAIN SOUNDS 3/10]
(shoveling sounds)
TSCHIF
thuk thuk
TSCHIF
[OPEN CURTAINS]
(dimly flickering cinema screen images depicting: beneath dark rain thick cloudy skies hiding moon and starry night (for it is a dark and stormy one), a spade blade breaks the top-conscious-ground, instantly fractional-cratering a divot into dampening dirt, destined for digging into ever greater sub-conscious manifest-h(o)le depths of unfore-scene-able scope)
(a _ walks out from stage right into center stage, lit only within the glow of the screen)
ANNOUNCER/HOST: Welcome, all, we writers, readers, theater of brain/mind door greeters, stagehands, narrators, announcers, actors, audiences, and varied Who knows whos. Behold, our first-personly views of gloved grasped tightly hands, upon the ancient shaft of spade to pierce the layered stratum bands. Well already used abused, both digger and the tool, with drama’s wear and trauma’s tear, vast depths to dig we must and shall yet do. (exits stage right)
[FADE OUT RAIN SOUNDS 0/10]
(cinematic images fade back into the black)
(sequence of luminescent words appearing, arranging, combining and disappearing upon the cinema screen conveying audio, electrical, tactile, visual, etc. aspects of brain activity)
ANNOUNCER/HOST (from the dark depths): Let those with inner ears to hear the frequencies of flowing flickered flashing blips and pops pinging neural pathway pulses of knows surfing sparking synapse signal waves rippling through our mind modes waking days and dream stream starry nights.
[CLOSE CURTAINS] (which we can only hear being done)
[FADE IN LIGHT 2/10]
(a fog floats barely moving cloudly throughout the dimly lit atmospherics of the theatre surrounding the emptiness of the silent, still stage)
(the theatre proscenium before thee receding, expands, breathing to blur any lines in the sands, between author, announcer or host or yet most any actor or character or backstage stagehand, or member of theatrical musical bands and the audience or reader with book in your hands)
[OPEN CURTAINS]
(all room light fadely gathers into a center empty stage spot, leaving only deep black darkness beyond its focused beam)
ANNOUNCER/HOST: [FROM FRONT ROW CENTER SEAT IN AUDIENCE] Artaud! Artaud! Artaud? With hoped respect and outright awe, we invoke you with our summoning call; return from where you may now dwell, is it a heaven, or yet more hell? Come back to us and please relay, what you’ve seen, and knowledge gained, since last your part played on the stage, within this theatrealm.
ANTONIN ARTAUD: [BURST VIOLENTLY EXAGERATEDLY GESTICULARLY INTO SCENE] FLASH! CRASH! SHATTERED! Slivered shards of GLASS splintered wood digging deeply into fingers BLOOD fleshly claws against the walls in vain tall tops razor BARBED babies STARVED not only of food but mothering brood to WITHER AND DIE if only inside while still alive through dreams of should could instead of THESE SCENES.
[CLOSE CURTAINS]
TO ME, OR NOT TO ME...
ACT I
SCENE I
[KEEP CURTAINS CLOSED]
(A sperm swims. An egg floatly rests. Do they have conscious awareness of themselves and/or their drives? Do they know of each other, or of their own kinds? Do they know from whence they originated as created? Have they any sense of that which is to be faced ahead and far beyond their potentials of combinations into fresh fruiting humans and our _ minds? Can they see their own faces before they are borne?)
ME (from the dark depths): I was pushed and pulled from my mother’s matrix and forced to first inhale the atmospheres of Babylon from within its city of Rome upon the nineteen hundredth and seventy-third year of the futureward side of the Before Christ/Anno Domini threshold.
THE WORDERBOY
ACT I
SCENE I
(light arrives from a one thousand one hundred and seventy-seven trillion-mile journey through space)
[OPEN CURTAINS]
UNKNOWN MISSISSIPPI RIVERBANK TOWN, 1830
(a train whistles from the semi-distant depths of the background un-scenery as we merely faintly hear the subtly soft sustained machinery of its rhythmic clacks upon those tracks which parallel that regal rivered flow just beyond, from the flying eyed view of a crow)
CROW: (high flies the skies whilst silently scanning below)
(we find ourselves vantaged behind a man astand upon a wooden covered front house porch of the past, overlooking this pre-paved, unstirring, late morning neighborhood street which we behold over his brownish flannel shirted shoulder and beneath the wide brim of his Tyrolean hat (last owned by Andreas Hofer, if we believe him about that) - this space through which we peer from behind around him forms something of a C shaped scene frame into which enters a boy (aged twelve) in well-worked overalls, pensively pushing a wheelbarrow with apparent weighty heft from stage right (our left))
MAN: Say, boy, [GESTURE] what’s that in your wheelbarrow?
(the boy looks this way, stops pushing, looks back down to carefully lower its rear loop frame legs onto the ground from which we hear a subtly thuddly sound, then returns face usward)
BOY: Those are words, sir.
MAN: Words?
BOY: Yes sir, buncha words.
MAN: What are those made of, boy, wood, clay, metal? (he knew not to include “plastic” in his query, for there remained yet another 77 years before its invention, or discovery, however one opts to view such matters)
BOY: I think they’re just made from plain ol’ words is all.
MAN: Words made of words? What kind’a sense is that? Are you foolin’ on me here, boy?
BOY: No sir, I’m just tellin’ as best I know, which may not be anything or much, what with still bein’ a kid. I figure there’s probably other words in other places made of other stuff, but I’m pretty sure these here ain’t nothing but pure words, the purest I could find and pick, in fact.
MAN: But—how can words made only of words be tangible things which can fill a wheelbarrow? That just makes no sense at all!
BOY: Well, like I said, sir, I’m just a kid so there’s still lots of things to know that I ain’t got to, yet. I had you adults figured for knowin’ everything, seein’ as you’ve had all those years to learn it, and I’ve only had these measly few, thus far.
MAN: Boy, are you getting smart with me?
BOY: No sir, if I was smart, I’d know whatever it is you’re wanting. Well, I reckon I better get goin’, they’re all waitin’ on these words.
MAN: Who’s waitin’? Why would anybody be waitin’ on words?
BOY: There's a whole lot of folks waitin' on 'em, and I’ve already been gone a good long while on account of huntin’ up enough to fill this thing all the way. Well, guess I’ll be seein’ ya some other when, maybe some other where, and perhaps even some other who, you just never really know, no matter how much you do.
(the boy returns his grip into a stoutly squeeze tight, lifting the barrow up onto its wheel in his might, gives it a heave into motion again forward, toward an exit stage left (y/our right))
[FADE IN SOFT FLOW LUSH ORCHESTRA]
FEMALE CHORUS: The man remains astand in his place
spectacles resting on his nosey face
framing the scene moving at a snail’s pace
a moment containing all time and all space
Unlooked by the boy as he corners around
a word rattles free from the barrow’s word mound
tumbling to the ground
with an unheard-of sound
hmmmmmmm hmmmm hm hmmmmmmm
hmmm hmmm hm hmmmmmmm
(humming continues)
(the man lingers till all is clear before slinking over to see the word “NEAR”, which he picks up, curiously rubs, then lifts closely to his ear)
[CLOSE CURTAINS]
[FADE OUT MUSIC/HUMMING]
METATHEATRICALITIES
ACT I
SCENE I
LE GALÉRIEN (THE GALLEY SLAVE)
ACT I
SCENE I