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    No Basis in Reality
    No Basis in Reality
    No Basis in Reality
    Ebook121 pages1 hour

    No Basis in Reality

    By Rob Nixon

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    About this ebook

    Unfortunately, some of the people you're listening to don't know what they're talking about. There are no dramatics, stopping-to-listening requires zero effort. Getting to that nirvana is the trick, though. Again, unfortunately, if you are completely surrounded and bombarded, the likelihood of that sojourn is remote. But please tolerate

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAndrew Juhl
    Release dateFeb 21, 2022
    ISBN9781732784208
    No Basis in Reality

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      Book preview

      No Basis in Reality - Rob Nixon

      1.png

      Listed

      When it’s dark thoroughly,

      I sometimes listen to the low rumble overhead.

      Inside, light emitting diodes,

      other people being served,

      not one connection between them and me.

      There are tree frogs in my neighborhood.

      And at night they constantly croak

      until they stop.

      Their defense, sudden silence after racket.

      They make you hear your footsteps

      and absorb every crack.

      Predators arise at night too, and I can hear them

      mixed with their all concerning, focused laughter.

      Fuck.

      I am a mess.

      Condoms litter the streets.

      So cold on a night like this,

      not a strand of DNA is left.

      I am there too,

      I join them,

      but conscious on the cold ground,

      and hidden from view.

      Caught in the Dark Web

      I clicked on a video.

      Very professionally made.

      Good for a reason,

      little to distract from the message

      that was about to be delivered.

      It is no different than a clean sheet of

      parchment and the best quill penmanship.

      The following is extracted from my notes.

      The whole floor—

      I see cubes lined in queues,

      one section is oriented in a certain direction

      and then another on a different grid,

      and so many workstations in each,

      and still another grid,

      all on an ice blue carpet.

      I would say 400 people work in this place.

      Even though they close,

      a few cubicle doors stay open.

      They probably stay open all night.

      There is absolutely no sound.

      At least I don’t remember any.

      (My mind was trending on the tracking of the shot,

      the tour, how it was done,

      and how it was edited.)

      An office comes into view (not a corner office).

      The camera descends,

      and there is a man inside,

      perfectly dressed and fully made up,

      seated behind a desk.

      The perimeter office doors

      which encircle the workstations

      and grids are all closed except this one.

      It is daytime.

      "Subliminal audio communication

      consists incidentally of liminal notes.

      These will be heard distinctly by the subject

      and it will be irritating.

      It has been described as a bell-like sonic covering

      of pitches and trills.

      Your subject will perspire.

      You have two things against you then,

      the primitive state opened so and agitated.

      In desperation to decipher your message,

      unmistakably to him or her,

      the human mind will over-the-border borrow

      from its dream world,

      suspicions of reality—

      basic building blocks to make sense

      of the cheap wind chimes’ clamor.

      A complex deep thought,

      almost Tinkertoy-like in abstraction

      (not a hundred-piece exaggeration,

      but a few pieces anyway),

      will incorporate your message.

      Your target will self-diagnose.

      Most will be unsuitable.

      I know my business.

      But I try informal covert rehab visits

      for my throwaways.

      I hope you do the same.

      Many are blessed with enlightenment.

      A nice counterweight to the raving schizophrenics

      roaming the streets.

      Neither of these are useful to government though.

      It is in the business of exploiting the psychology

      of the suggestible vast majority in between."

      I think I am an abandoned building,

      gutted,

      it is the cold air.

      I feel it like snow during the day.

      It is constant. I feel I am susceptible

      to the thought that words unreasoned

      and reasoned are spoken at once.

      It’s a language expressed in nouns,

      the other parts of speech, groans.

      I Won’t

      I doubt I suffer from an abnormal psychology.

      If that is your diagnosis, I want a second opinion.

      Consider why the strange,

      as in foreign, unnerves us.

      That we would all like to know.

      Remains

      As a guest in a private cellar,

      I am told I am loved because I am a beautiful,

      and that I have made myself so,

      that I’d never needed an escort,

      that I knew instinctively the social path to take.

      Possessed by these thoughts, though,

      I feel not let go.

      I feel also bound to return to society—

      matured and ripened.

      This overgrown rough of humanity,

      itself putrid and flourishing,

      yellow and green,

      I am tossed back into,

      as from a passing van.

      Can I Put That Another Way?

      You work in the theater,

      so, you’ve been around artists.

      (Who knows? Maybe you haven’t.)

      Listen, if someone misinterprets a piece,

      the artist may correct,

      but he or she (mostly) could not care less.

      There is a high and low for transcendent

      understanding in the human species,

      and almost every artist knows that.

      Even those on the periphery can be reached.

      God will be jealous, conjuring up figures.

      But that’s where we always fall.

      It is our snare.

      Oddly Soft and Rounded

      I can appreciate the altitude,

      the depth of the cliff,

      the protuberances—

      how Pachinko Palace-like

      one must fall,

      not tumbling far enough

      or fast enough

      to the next broken bone

      or obliterated tooth

      to die,

      but live on to the next

      (still the next!)

      awkward

      angle

      impact.

      Radio

      I am a country song at 3 am

      in Midlands, Texas, 1973.

      The light in the window of the house

      that can only be seen by looking across

      the back alley is a cancer diagnosis.

      It will be an average harvest this fall.

      Criminal Thoughts

      You think I have good taste, right?

      Well, I am totally digging your face right now.

      I think you’re so pretty. And you must work out,

      you’re lying, you have such a nice body.

      I am totally into that too. You are sexy to me.

      And I like looking at you. I know we are not

      seeing each other, like that, you know, dating,

      but I think it’s really cool we’re riding the bus

      together so much. I like sitting next to you,

      and talking with you, and smiling, and feeling good.

      Exhalation

      My innocence is spoiled.

      Confirmed, as you get older and sicker,

      you’re pushed further and further

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