Hey Raj, I can't post comments, so...

...here's my reply.

“funky formaldehyde”—dat’s goot, yah, I may steal that for a title or something. I’d acknowledge my source, naturally.

You see what’s going on here, the quick juxtapositions of disparate kinds of language, the “encyclopedic” words embalmed in woozy-making ooze. I’m churning your mind with an eggbeater of language.

Not writing non sequitars, however. As in a ghazal, there are connections among the discrete units, like a security thread embedded in a dollar bill. (Like “Parnassus Theater,” this began as a sort of sonnet, actually.) Generally I prefer pinballing among associations—zigging from the end to the middle, zagging from line three to line nine—to the linear or chronological development of a theme or subject characteristic of prose.

Some of the language here I wouldn’t have used just a short time ago. I feel like a musician who includes traffic noise outside the studio or guitar feedback in the composition just because they happened to be there. The language still has to exert an intuitive tug on me before I’ll use it, but I’ve grown more inclusive. It’s as if my mind’s been opened up by a post-hypnotic suggestion.

Thanks for the comment.



photo: a very young Raj Kapoor