A Month Without Narcissus-X is Like a Year Without Darkness

Shrill cadences of choral claptrap clatter jinglingly across Muzak carriers. What matters it to Narcissus-X, the drab distinctions of conventional culture bestowed on Rudolph? Of what account are Donder and Blitzen to Narcissus-X? And why slight Comet and Cupid?

For Rudolph is the Narcissus-X of the reindeer! Set apart, unique, indispensable, and yet fettered with the common yoke of servility to crass commercialistic consumerism!

The outrage!

The infamy!

The art! Oh, the art!

Narcissus-X Contemplates Chittering Hamsters

Enfilading swarms of presumptuous gerbils.

Ermine-tipped hamsters scurry from canvas to canvas: sniffing; nibbling; chittering unconscious clichés.

Narcissus-X will not swallow the bromides; permits platitudes to pass, disdained.

And yet it is such as these that seek the work of Narcissus-X.

Narcissus-X Contemplates a Century Passed

Decorative decoupage, Aubrey's sinuous lines. A century later, Gesamtkunstwerk's a gesundheit. Ardent efforts.

Mass production for masses. Massive mediocrity.

Abide intricate inadequacies of industrialized crafts Narcissus-X will not. For Narcissus-X is the fine, the pure, the clean, the dark: for in secret necrosis of millwork grows elusive, illusive, fungoid shapes of crystalline wonder.

Narcissus-X Contemplates Bleakly Banal Bandwagons

Bleakly banal bandwagons beckon. How easily Narcissus-X could step, step, step, step up to the side: climb in and be carted away. Lovely lucre.

But no! Narcissus-X is artist. Not for Narcissus-X the tawdry trappings of crass commercialism. To be constrained? To be directed? To daub and draft and draw in dreary, dismal, debilitating drudgery? No!

Narcissus-X is artist. Narcissus-X creates. Narcissus-X perceives, ponders, weaves dark threads among the gray.

Narcissus-X, paid for putting paltry pablum before the masses? Ha! No such demeaning insult will Narcissus-X heap upon Narcissus-X. For Narcissus-X is artist. And art must be sustained.

Narcissus-X Has Seen Beyond the Caverns of Crystal Oblivion

Gibbering gibbon, gibbous moon, Gibbons' tale of gathering doom.

Pallid perceptions, pellucid panes, views of conventional artists' names.

Rhymes to the right them, rhymes to the left of them, into the valley of fame rode the ten thousand.

Narcissus-X seeks not fame: Narcissus-X is artist, creator, perceiver. Narcissus-X understands - but Narcissus-X cannot expect understanding.

Narcissus-X must create: for Narcissus-X has seen beyond the caverns of crystal oblivion.

Enchiladas of Cretaceous Crustaceans

Enchiladas of Cretaceous crustaceans frolicked in Patagonia mire. Chitinous tortillas, wrapping chthonian inamoratas in polymeric armor.

Enceladus, writhing and wounded and buried 'neath mountain, whose breath is the source its fiery fountains.

Chthonic halls, whose barred doors guard - what?

Narcissus-X Gazes Into the Eyes of Sargon

Pure stereopticon dissolving one image into the next in planar display of temporal order. Time marches on, and on: one view succeeding another in cosmic cadence of pyramid and tomb, time on a loom, shining filaments of shadow and doom.

Impure stereopticon images of Assyrian tombs. Amenophis and his double stride through muraled lives, ka enduring after.

Narcissus-X ponders Tyre: island-city; purple cloth; Hiram's home; founded Carthage. Nineveh: Ancient crossroads; Sargon's library; Sargon's head. Bearded head, cast in bronze. Wounded eye. Does he smile?

Odin, they say, gave an eye for wisdom at Mímir's Well. Did Sargon do the same?

Does Sargon smile? Or is it pain?

Nineveh, Tyre, Harappa, Ye. Names remembered, places that were.

Manila, Seoul, Jakarta, Chicago. Names known, places that are. For now.

Narcissus-X gazes into the eyes of Sargon. They are not eyes. The head is bronze, the eyes are empty: dark portals to the void where Nineveh and Tyre drift, and forgotten kings sit on silent thrones.

Narcissus-X Rejects Artless Bastions of Banality

Philistine fears! Toilers amid interminable clauses and minutia! What cares the artist from whence inspiration springs, save only that the artist may grasp the clay, mold it, transform it in the likeness of what the artist's inner eye beholds.

Did the sonnet-slinger of Avon care, what preceded the pecuniary plays? Did he writhe at the thought that he re-cast carts into juggernauts, rolling down the centuries? Narcissus-X thinks not.

Narcissus-X rejects the corporate colossus, with its fears and foibles and fantasies. No more will Narcissus-X offer such purveyors of prosaic pablum the geistkinder of Narcissus-X.

A tale of ancient yearnings, hapless hope, futile faith inspired by a doom-star! And these mental microbes, these artless bastions of banality, have not the vision, the inner sight, the aesthetic sense, to take what Narcissus-X offers! No, for it might upset the scriveners, the banausic barristers, the crass councilors of caution.

Narcissus-X turns away from such tawdry trivialities, to face the night. Alone.

Narcissus-X Ponders Plutonian Patterings

Angora clouds weep, shedding darkly on crouching grass. From the roof, indistinct muttering. On the windows, tick-tick-tickticktick. A shade of memory from some Plutonian shore.

Narcissus-X hears pallid patterings, the mutter of - what? Is this how the Artist is heard? As some somber, tenebrous impression of voice, heard beyond a roof?

Narcissus-X in the Cubical Cubicle of the Commonplace

Narcissus-X embarks on a clerihew quest, rhyming and chiming: a commonplace jest.

Ipswich, Suffolk, suffering folk.
Folk music sways like a pig in a poke.
Shiny green ice cream, prunes in a jar.
Cantaloupe postcards from Vina Del Mar.

Cubical cubicle, dutiful particle,
Patternless carpeting deadening sound.
Taupe as an accent on putty-plane surfaces.
How can the workaday toiler endure?

Who would seek Vina Del Mar in Oxnard? Yet Oxnard's imposture, deceivingly laid in curvilinear streaks, assuages the eye with tile roofs.

Strawberry fields lie on Oxnard Plain, Narcissus-X prefers pistachio.

Narcissus-X Ponders, Penguins Stalk

Thoughts arise like drowned muskrats surfacing in a bog.

Empathetic Euhemerists skedaddle in chariots of fine wire, sounding horns of brass. Cornucopia of cupric kaleidoscopic cadences. Horns of brass, city of glass, its leader is fallen, forgotten: alas!

Penguins haunt forgotten lands. Grim penguins with loon-red eyes, harvesting toadstools of forgotten kings. Narcussus-X does not forget, Narcussus-X cannot forget. 'Forget! Forget! My kingdom to forget!' So might cry the prudent king. For uneasy lies the crown that holds the king.

In eerie silence penguins stalk toadstools. Flee, toadstools! Flee! But they flee not.

Narcissus-X Follows the Whispering Nostrils

Nostrils of Narcussus-X whisper silent songs of dirigible dance.

Do none mourn the mockingbird? Shall no one mock the roc? Mockable roc: flightless in physics, yet mighty in myth. And myth takes are likely unless the manual is thoroughly read.

Manuel! Servant of Fawlty, native of Spain, student of English and eager to learn.

To learn, perchance to think: aye, that's the rub. For in that learning comes sleep deep as death. You'd think they'd have better air conditioning in those classrooms.

Classrooms. Narcissus-X has known classrooms. Desks in columns under rectilinear array of acoustic accouterments in planar alignment: softening sound, dulling thought. Drone of the pedant, patiently plodding through pastures of preferences. Ostentatious offerings of overtilled fields of study.

The whisper.

Narcissus-X hears the whisper.

Hears the silent whisper.

Nostrils of Narcussus-X whisper silent songs of dirigible dance. Thought's dirigible dance carries Narcissus-X to - What?

No matter.

For Narcissus-X follows the silently whispered song.

Narcissus-X Contemplates the Penguins of Rancor

Iridescent onyx, pale depths of sombre pitch and sway of a deck in some ancient gale. A thousand coats of atramentum tectorium will not hide sable stains of charcoal thoughts.

Narcissus-X had that dream again: Grim penguins with loon-red eyes rise up and cry, "where are the fish? There ought to be fish! We must have our fish!"

Then the red soil of Biwabik and Buhl trembled as malignant moose meandered meaninglessly while manic mice munched moorings and mansions crumbled.

But terrible penguins abound in unrelenting malice, marching, marching, marching to the sea. Their eyes of flame! Loon-red eyes of flame! Loon-red eyes of flame, transfixing gaze of illimitable malevolence, rancor without end, vicious venom of vindictiveness piercing flesh and mind. Will none defend the borogoves? Must the vorpal sword be drawn? Begone! And leave my sight! Banquo's inheritance is secure, but at what cost?

Both heard alike, but the choice! The choice!

Narcissus-X Among Toadstools of Forgotten Kings

Elephants of doom tiptoe menacingly around toadstools of forgotten kings.

Alas! the aardvark cries: but not for joy. Edentate cousin of elephant shrew and elephant, ask not for whom the hyrax shrieks: it shrieks for thee.

If a million mushrooms sprang from a million stumps in a million forests, would a woodchuck chuck wood?

Pale parabolas of muted joy sprout inverted ailerons while gyres of untamed dream sing nightsongs of flightless birds and you'd think they'd have at least covered his face but there is no accounting taste, for the proof is in the pudding and in veritas vino veni vidi vici which sounds funny if pronounced the way mighty Caesar would have spoken for but someone took it anyway there is none but the lonely heart of aortic attraction dispelling the shades of forgotten stones that roll and gather no moss.

Does Morris Quigly dance with Eleanor Rigby?

Narcissus-X Broods on Anguish and Art

Brooding gnostic conundrums drumming dreary dirges of dysfunctionally dichotomic dialectic. The corpus callosum of Narcissus-X a battleground of reason and ardor, affections of wonder assaulted by lances of logic!

The Artist suffers for Art, but enough!

Narcissus-X has suffered for Art. Perhaps now Narcissus-X should make others suffer!

Narcissus-X Broods on Flawed Inspiration

Thirteenth day. The fifth month, yet not the fifth day in that arbitrary cycle which begins with a day of the moon and ends with a day of the sun.

Thirteen. Thought unlucky. Thought is fleeting, art is not.

Ars longa, vita brevis; e pluribus unum: Caveat emptor; batteries not included.

Oh, for leaden skies and howling wind! A hearse, a hearse, my kingdom for a hearse! So might cry the poet, the artist, the misunderstood genius.

But no: Narcissus-X was surrounded by blue skies and chirping birds! On a 13th that isn't even a Friday!

Narcissus-X Ponders the Unticking Clock

The ticking of a clock. Symbol of time, symbol of interval. Symbol of time past.

Narcissus-X watches the clock: silently it marks the passage of each second, each minute, each hour. One number supplants another, only to be supplanted by yet another: until the cycle is complete and begins yet again.

So sound, no movement: nothing but the ever-changing, every-unchanging cycle of phosphorescent symbols.

If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is present, does it make a sound?

If a clock runs, and Narcissus-X is present, yet it makes no sound: does time pass?

If Narcissus-X watches not the clock, will time cease to be?

Narcissus-X Wanders a Wasteland of Wonder

Mendacious minions! Duplicitous deceivers! Manic marauders! Pandering poseurs parading dramatic reenactments while announcers smile and smile and yet be villains.

What good is a lifetime guarantee, to one abandoned by creativity's spark? Narcissus-X abandons late-night promises of untold wealth and perfect julienne fries, to be marooned in a morass of iterated competitions: encounters of commonplace persons, strangely animated by tantalizing promises of riches and renown.

Narcissus-X cares not what lies behind Door Number One, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three. Word association, blind guesswork. Not even set design of decades long gone offer Narcissus-X hope of release.

Perhaps the stylized combat of geococcyx and latrans will re-awaken creative fires within Narcissus-X.

Narcissus-X Contemplates Flight Through the Ebon Abyss

Churning mass of umber-hued mire. Dark dither of dull dreams, drably parading past a review stand of petrified oligarchs.

Out! Narcissus-X rages: Out with you, sharp-edged nuggets of thought! Emerge from your prison! Narcissus-X, sinking as if alone in an oatmeal ocean.

Alone. The artist is a lonely one: pursuing what others cannot, or do not wish to, see; traveling paths made by - what?

Perhaps Narcissus-X the sleeping has already traversed these lands, leading the way for Narcissus-X the waking. If only Narcissus-X could meet Narcissus-X: could merge the waking and the sleeping mind.

Then - fly through the ebon abyss of night with all eyes open: those that see only light, and the eye of the mind which perceives what is seen, and can peer into the unseen: now and again catching an outline - a color - a movement. And return, as a ship in ancient times: returning from unknown lands with strange cargo.

Narcissus-X Ponders Porlockian Presences

Soulless circuits screaming hoarse cries, frenetic cadence shredding serenity: slumber's visions cloven, wavering, rippling; and gone. Narcissus-X reaches for the spectral shapes: grasps and holds - nothing.

Precious phantasm. Dream or vision, impression of a truth or the truth itself: it is gone.

Metronome of madness, watcher of the hours, perfidious sentinel of sleep: the porlockian presence shall not despoil the domain of dreams again. Narcissus-X has paper, pen, and lamp at hand, should shrill alarms again disturb the portals of dream.

Narcissus-X Ponders Aspiration

Noble schemes seldom forfeit,
Braver deeds often fail,
Than trying to carry water
In an old, rusty pail.

Narcissus-X Contemplates the Suchness of Forms

Qantas and quatloos, quivers of quail:
Mountains of elephants packed like a snail.
Merfolk in desert, camel on ice:
Cats are like giants for krill in a pail.

Narcissus-X Broods on Day of the Taxes

April 15: A sixth part of the quarter, beloved interval of the Philistine.

And Lear cried out, "I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; / I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children, / You owe me no subscription."

At least something, somewhere, somehow, was not taxed: if only in the realms of dream summoned forth by the Bard of Avon.

But Narcissus-X taxed must be, and much taxed with regret that so much time is lost forever, collecting records, filling forms, filing financial facts. Time in which Narcissus-X could have traversed the charcoal-clouded vastness of Xanadu's dream.

But now the forms are gone, cast into the bureaucratic abyss from whence they came: and art may live again.

Narcissus-X Contemplates Night Winds

Fears, avaunt! Not for naught does Narcissus-X breathe the clear, cold, air of night throughout the cobwebbed halls of fevered imaginings, driving out gibbering goblins of gloom and glowing-eyed ghosts of forgotten dreams.

Dust departed, Lemuria done, wind subsides, the halls are empty. No sound, no soft tread of shoeless foot on stone, no muffled creak of door or window.

No inspiration.

Narcissus-X traverses the halls. Steps echo in seeming answer.

Has more than fear fled? Narcissus-X will search the night.

Narcissus-X Broods on Kumquats, Voids, and Pistachios

Elysian kumquats of dubious intent hover forlornly about the works of Narcissus-X. Sunlit skies and lusterless grass fail to excite aesthetic embarkations. Narcissus-X broods on blank expanse: vast desert devoid of detail, inspired or plebeian.

Narcissus-X has visions: visions of vast voids, vacuums vacantly abiding where inspirations once flew.

Is the muse on furlough? Absence may make the heart grow fonder: but drives the artist mad.

Can inspiration fly without wings of fancy?

Whither pistachio almond ice cream?

Narcissus-X and the Easter Platypus

The Easter Bunny delivers eggs. The eggs come from somewhere. Perhaps the Easter Bunny lays eggs. Bunnys are rabbits. Rabbits are mammals. Mammals don't lay eggs. Except for the platypus: mud-dwelling monotreme.

Has Narcissus-X penetrated the veil, raised the curtain, revealed the truth?

Is the Easter Bunny a platypus? Or, mayhap, an echidna?

Narcissus-X: a Haiku

Snow from spring blizzard
Untimely and unwelcome
Shoveled and melting

Narcissus-X Contemplates Distant Sakura

Narcissus-X walks adumbral paths, abides at times in the grotto of velvet coal, often dwells in lands beneath the obsidian sky. Narcissus-X travels anagogic paths of shade and trenchant chasms of phenomena: searching for light.

Light: effulgence of torrid Xemx; scintillating ephemera; or unwavering gaze of Sol, beyond Earth's umbra.

Light: coruscating shaft of mind's comprehension; unwavering glare of hard, sharp fact; creative flare; imagination's guide.

Light of the mind guides, illumines: sunlight or darkness.

Light of the eyes: color, clouds of white and pink. Wonder of these days.

Mayor's gift to Gallic child's dream, roofless Mall, Philadelphia's loss and Maryland's cost: Beauty abounding, gentle symbol of valiant land, darkness leaves its mark but blooms return. Cuttings return to ancestral lands after three score and nine.

Three more, and a century has passed since Arakawa River's shade arrived on Potomac's shores.

Narcissus-X remains in land of ice and flood, but a portion of Narcissus-X travels to sakuran scenes.

Light of the eyes pleases, informs. Light of the mind endures.

Narcissus-X Contemplates Wonders Seen but Not Possessed

Silence that does not quiet, quiet that soothes the ear but not the mind, darkness that wraps all in imponderable probabilities of descending thought.

Narcissus-X accepts the night, seeks solace on ebon paths whose shadows reveal, more than hide, the trees, the towers, the dim doorways of beckoning vision. For beyond those doorways lie vistas of wonder: dark and light, color and shade, swirling maelstrom and pointed angles of dimensional dendritic expression.

Could but Narcissus-X bring a branch, a pebble, a single scrap from those vistas glimpsed in dream into the world of sight.

Vista seen in dream
Iridescent black and gray
Wonders may not leave

Narcissus-X Ponders Chaos: Perceives Order

Harmony in cacophony, order in splintered spectra. Wherever Narcissus-X turns, Narcissus-X finds order, method: "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."

Madness: artist's partner; bane of the bourgeois; gateway to dark wonders and incandescent chromatisms.

Is madness chaos? Is chaos ordered?

Or is a seeming chaos - - - order, not yet understood?

A simple order is understood by many. The more complex the order, the fewer understand. Many see fractal patterns and say "chaos theory." Yet patterns may be complex, and yet be ordered: frond of fern, arm of galaxy.

Euclid was not the last philosopher.

Narcissus-X sees order, where others see chaos. Wonder, where others see bleak nothingness. Is Narcissus-X mad? Or does Narcissus-X perceive where others do not? Are these mutually exclusive postulates?

Narcissus-X cares not.

For Narcissus-X is artist, creative spirit, vagabond mind.

Narcissus-X Ponders Quietude

As stillness is to sound, so darkness to light. Is Narcissus-X in abeyance, because no art is found?

Still life with apple
Stork and raven disputing
Over naught but paint

Paint and easel, brush and cloth, artist staring at blank canvas. Not even the muse's laughter is heard.

Narcissus-X Contemplates Pleonastic Redundancies of Approximation

Wheeling round a concept's ember like moths in Plato's Cave, going to Saint Ives, and crossed the path of seven wives, kits, cats, sacks, wives: why should a boomerang return?

Again and again, resounding echoes repeat, repeat: hi! hi! As though to greet were to know. Listen to the echo. Hear the echo's voice. It is your own, returning from its travels. Again and again and again and again, til logic's luster fades and sense and sensibilities seen oddly familiar.

But what of Narcissus-X? Is Narcissus-X the moth or the ember?

Both?

Neither?

A weary, wearisome, wearied public hoards, and sleeps, and feeds, and knows not Narcissus-X. For Narcissus-X travels beyond the circles of commonalities, and yet circles the unknown ember of ideal form again and again.

Circles and circles, but never reaching the inner parts. An endless survey from every angle, never departing, never approaching: never reaching.

Narcissus-X Listens to Silence

Foolish festoons of fables and fears: doomsayers crying, followers quivering. What need has Narcissus-X of perilous projections, forecasts of despair?

Narcissus-X has seen the night, plunged into ebon depths of Cimmerian shade, wandered under an obsidian sky, discovered the grotto of velvet coal.

Solitude.

Voices stilled by distance and time, light reduced to echoing memories of dim times past. Cimmerian warriors aided the second Sargon, yet scholars deny their fame. What matter that Ithaca may have changed its name, or that Schliemann dug through the Troy he sought?

Silence.

Not quiet. Quiet soothes, lulls, brings placid calm. Silence wakes the mind as ears strain for implicit sound. Listen to the mute stones. Empires rose and fell. The wise carved faces and forms for the next to see: for art lasts. Thoughts last. Visions last. Silent as the stones, yet shouting to those who will hear.

Narcissus-X Unmasks Winter's Sparkling Shroud

Vernal equinox comes and goes, sun rises more northerly each day. Winter's pale disguise collapsing reveals dank truth and sodden leaves. No burbling rivulet may assuage the stark reality of last fall's leaves reduced to moulding slices of autumn dreams.

Narcissus-X is artist, and art must be true, be stark, be unrelenting drip-drip-drip of drenched dreams and dashed hopes. Not for Narcissus-X, the smiling multitude's adulation. Rather, Narcissus-X reveals the moldering leaves and sodden dust beneath winter's sparkling screen.

Whither Words of Narcissus-X?

Metamorphosis of ephemeral hills sends liquescent streams burbling until, swashing, they rush into linear caverns of uncertain destiny.

Narcissus-X ponders: What fate awaits words. After mind forms and fingertips press in digital reality, where do they go?

Do words wait: patient, passive, til they are read?

Do they weep in dark servers?

Or are they mere crystallized essence of Narcissus-X, flashing into metaphysical impressions on distant screens?

Narcissus-X Comprehends Manifold Tetrads

Focus of ophidian fears, Padraig's past in emerald lands evokes trifoliate visions.

Drenching mist, verdure merging into dim gray-blue haze. Did peacocks pine when sage declined? A myriad grow, til one is found: not three, but four the stem go round. Serendipity's symbol shines: tetrad, vierbein, manifold model and Pythagorean dream.

Narcissus-X dreams icy visions, sharp and fine: colors that cannot enter this narrow world. Small wonder that critics carp. Carpe diem swims with koi in strange waters.

Now see: Narcissus-X shares with the world.

Narcissus-X Reaffirms the Narcissus-X Address

Alas! Poor Prufrock: Narcissus-X knew him well. Witty, urbane, measuring out his life with credit cards. Why do women come and go, talking of Michelangelo?

Perhaps Narcissus-X should eschew the capital, or spell each word as if it were the the poet's own. ornotusecommasorperiods

It little matters that brittle patter of critics' rambling should fail the test. For none may comprehend the works of Narcissus-X but Narcissus-X. Nor could that be expected. Art for art's sake, art for expression's sake, art the work of Narcissus-X, and beyond the ken of critic and carper.

For Narcissus-X resolves that art of Narcuccus-X, by Narcussus-X, for Narcussus-X, shall not perish!

Narcissus-X Ponders Myriad Psyches

Narcissus-X ponders.

Quo vadis? E pluribus unum, ergo sum.

Narcissus fears not friggatriskaidekaphobia.

Narcissus-X Ponders Inchoate Myrmidons

Were Naphthalene a city of crystals in the night, and sublimated urges robbed Achilles of his might, then Narcussus-X would ponder under darkly lowering skies as inchoate myrmidons run swiftly to intoxicating toys. And elusive mothballs carry Priam's people far away, for the poet profits little when the piper asks for pay.

Narcissus-X ponders dim visions, gliding on dark crystals across a sunless sea.

Narcissus-X Traverses Dolorous Vistas of Melancholy

Trifle not with the muses, for they are solitary abstractions of illuminable depth. Narcissus-X mused not long ere, musing, plunged past cerulean syllogisms of light and air, through lowering reveries of woe, to darksome prospects and dolorous vistas of endless melancholy.

Is not suffering art? Art suffering not? If, artist, thou art suffering not, no artist thou!

Narcissus-X is artist, poet, dark brush. Dark brushes past like an exhalation from ancient caverns: caverns of ice.

Art calls! Narcissus must seek once more grottoes of velvet coal, caverns of crystal oblivion, shores of a sunless sea: there to board dark-masted bark of silent crew. For Narcissus-X must, once again, glide beneath obsidian skies and dream of night.

Narcissus-X Commutes to Mountains of Wonder

Bucket of black snakes writhing in a mug, java jolt, insomnia in a cup.

Espresso expressions of crystalline dreams, dormant in a jar. Norwegian nerve juice of the masses, nap suppressant for Narcissus-X. Swedish gasoline driving imagination up mountains of wonder, with Conchita at the wheel.

Narcissus-X Rejects Avant Garde Conventionalities

Amateurish accolades on artistic atrocities! Laurel crowns, Laurel and Hardy, duck soup of the masses hardly whets the aficionado's appetite. Grim guerdon of common esteem: Narcissus-X seeks this not.

Crowd-pleasing commonalities do not art make, nor pandering popular perceptions. Art flows from Narcissus-X, for from Narcissus-X rush the inner visions of Narcissus-X, artist. From ebon depths to obsidian skies, Narcissus-X is beyond philistine blandishments, beyond crass commercial considerations, beyond avant-garde conventionalities.

Narcissus-X finds no surprise in vulgarians' vague verbiage on viewing the art of Narcissus-X, for who can understand the recondite heart of Narcissus-X, but Narcissus-X?

And yet.

Narcissus-X ponders: Can Narcissus-X withhold art from those who know not art, and, artless, yearn for that which they cannot know? May Narcissus-X withhold? Withholding tax comes back again, but art is long and deep.

Narcissus-X must brood.

Narcissus-X Takes Pity on the Muses

Eyes see, ears hear, ears of corn hear nothing by may taste sweet. Sweet music flees Philistine panderings. What matter, a lizard's opinion? Do odorous golfers truly fell crowds? Was the squirrel truly stunned?

Sinister Right Guard, stinging mist assaulting optic sense. Official deodorant of hoopsters, begone! Narcissus-X has no need of association with those who run, and sweat, and run again.

Jane Allen, Jane Eyre, Jane Austen, James Joyce in underwear. Ulysses was not written on a court. Prometheus bound, also available in paperback. Narcissus-X cares not, for Narcissus-X has the works of Shakespeare: Sonnets, Coriolanus, and lively Lear. Leer not, Lear. Lear Jets fly fleetly through the skies of United we stand, divided we fall fashions are but commercial exploitation of bourgeois yearnings.

Out, out, brief commercial! The artist must muse, else the muses shall suffer from the absence of Narcissus-X

Narcissus-X Reaches into Darkness

Windows on the sky. Darkness within enables vision. Stars, wheeling past. Clear, sharp stars in winter darkness. Cold night, cold light. Chilling points of diamond in an obsidian sky. Or are they tiny pits, holes in that dark dome, cryptic hints of stellar fires beyond?

Narcissus-X reaches into the darkness: not with flesh and bone, but with mind and - - -

Narcoleptic visions of stars wheeling overhead.

Strange paradox, that darkness brings vision, night reveals lights.

Narcissus-X Muses on Winter

Narcissus-X muses. Is winter woe or weal? Solitude. Silence. Sun retreats, night prevails. Heron-legged thoughts stalk nocturnal reveries.

Silibant softness
Damply stinging upturned face
Winter wind and snow

Sapphire beacon
Within swirling cloud of snow
Deadly steel within

Frozen swamp so still
Stony nectar glittering
Butterflies are gone

Leafless tree and snow
Clouds scudding past overhead
Do they fear the tree?

Narcissus-X Implores Green Turkeys

Night comes. It comes again. Narcissus-X Fears not the night, nor naught that nebulous reveries may inspire. For Narcissus-X fathoms the darkness, embraces visions of of sightless color.

Green turkeys at night
Luminous fowl in darkness
Fly, emeralds, fly!

Narcissus-X Observes the Unseen, the Unheard

Grim gibberings gnash in the gloom.

Night flows out of the east like an inky stain, blotting blue from above and shrouding snow in stygian shades of unseen eyes.

Tenebrous eyes. Eyes in the night. Eyes unseen, which yet see. And what the seers? What visions do they see? What words fall silently on unlighted snow? What phantasm of darkling dread lurks, beyond light, beyond sound?

Narcissus-X sailed through the grotto of velvet coal, roams at will throughout shining obsidian vastnesses, yet knows not what stands but a few yards beyond the wall.

Stands, abides, endures: or crouches.

Narcissus-X: Ode to a Vorpal Urn

It little profits that an idle king
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.
Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,

O Attic shape! Fair attidude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun.

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,
Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.

For Narcissus-X has written, and having written moves along.
It matters little, meter, but the sense is in the song.

Narcissus-X and the Doom Spittoon

Attacks by the critic, slurs by the philistine fool, mutterings of maundering men: meaningless mumbles. Of such is Narcissus-X much accustomed. It is the lot of the artist, the fate of one who soars below the reach of ordinary sense.

Yet ever did Narcissus-X believe that the tools of Art, the tools of Narcissus-X were in accord with Narcissus-X. Ever, until today.

Narcissus-X sat, rapt in caliginous musings of abstruse surmise, sailing through labyrinthine latices of ebon scepters, little heeded the spittoon upon the case. Yet in that spittoon, small though it was, decorative though it might be, lay not one, but a dozen pens and pencils: poised for use; each ready to record, to write, perhaps to draw.

Little did Narcissus-X heed the infinitesimal motions by which the spittoon drew closer to freedom, closer to flight, closer and closer to a crashing destiny.

And then, even while unraveling the shadowed web of forgotten dreams, Narcissus-X heard sound. And such sound! Such crashing, clattering, ticking and banging sound! The spittoon, slave to gravity's call and its own destiny, flew Earthward, sincerely seeking this planet's core.

Such purpose! Such plunging! So short a flight, scattering so sharp an array of styli! Flying styli! Flying pens, like Pegasus unchained, sought freedom, and found Narcussus-X.

Musing is gone, contemplation collapsed. Naught by the night remains, and Narcissus-X, dreaming of shadows lost.

Narcissus-X and the Aqueous Throne

Narissus-X cares not for seasons, for frost and thunder: all are one or none for art. For Narcissus-X is not a camera. Art is not mere repetition of what is around Narcissus-X. Art is what Narcissus-X brings out.

Seasons care not for Narcissus-X. Thaw and freeze and thaw again, only to harden once more to that lustrous sheen. That beautiful lustrous sheen. Oh, treacherous beauty!

A step, two, three.

Narcissus-X cherishes freedom, independence from the stultifying conventions of an oppressive society. But Narcissus-X likes it not when the right foot sails north, the left west.

Narcissus-X sits upon an aqueous throne.

Ice is water and water is ice.

In winter, both are cold.

Narcissus-X Contemplates

Beans, Boston beans, Boston Brahmins: Boston baked beans made with beer and yellow onions.

Beans of song, beans of note, beanbag chairs are mellow boats. Narcissus-X goes sailing there: below the sky, above the stair. And stares through cold and glassy panes, past icy stars to ebon infinities.

Jack, shrewd Jack, wise beyond bourgeois dreams. Sold the cow for a handful of beans.

Beans in the moonlight, Beans in the night, Beans ascending to starry heights.

If Narcissus-X dreams, will the giant sleep?

Narcissus-X Muses on Cinematic Art

Sanguine essence of philistine mediocrity! Paltry proliferation of puerile plot!

That the single-sandaled stranger's namesake be a simple slaughterer: a sham! a shame! That cinematic Art should stoop so low! Where is Phrixus' trophy? Like Medea, Narcissus-X is betrayed, yet not surprised.

For from the start, the franchise played false with its promise of horror. Body upon body, shades of the dark Dane! Yet all is but gore, and warming promise of chilling thought fades swiftly.

Where the horror, where the sinking awareness of emptiness and doom? Where the contemplations of shadow-shrouded night and endless abyss? As if to slash were horror! horror piled on horror were all too little, and of one to Narcissus-X.

Little remains of Art in cinema, as though Cinerama were to Edison what Gracie said to George! Cigars and vaudeville have their place, but Gracie scores the winning goal.

But what is winning? What is losing? What meaning? What matter? What matter, though the patter be pert? Dark matter, dark energy, darkness all around.

The projectionist sleeps while filaments fail, bulbs break, film frays. As one may smile, and smile, and be a villain, a film may bleed, and bleed, and be a bore.

Narcissus-X Rebukes a Ridiculous Review

Dance, necrous nimbus of nightshade! Dim dimensions of derivative drivel drip derision, yet Narcissus-X shall not yield!

Though rubicund rumbas of rancid ridicule may rail, Narcissus-X triumphs! For Art is all, all is art, and artist is master over art, yet is mastered by art's arrows of despond.

Rant, reviewer, rant! Rant can't, shan't, can't stop the music: and uneasy lies the crown which catches the conscience of the king. A muse of fire doth burn as bright as any candle in the night, but rattling rambles gnaw like rats: let meaning tumble through the slats.

How sharper than a child's tooth to have a thankless serpent's review before my eyes, bringing with it awakened revulsion and phantasms which might haunt an artist's sleep.

Sleep, revulsion, sleep, perchance to knit the ravell'd sleave of care, for Narcissus-X cares not for the paltry patter of philistine pedants. Judge not for whom the bell tolls, the toll bridge closed last week.

Inconceivable, that any should question the penultimate profundity of this work of Narcissus-X:

Alban bone on snow
Calcimine creature so bare
Sun casts sharp shadow

An Aside - Narcissus-X Ponders: As Summer Fled, did Time Flow?

Summer found not Narcissus-X, as Narcissus-X found fortnights flying fleetly.

For fantasms formed firm foundations of thought.

And did Narcissus-X ignore the blog of Narcissus-X, if Narcissus-X was not thinking of the blog?

And did time truly pass, if Narcissus-X did not perceive the temporal passage?

Narcissus-X Meditates on a Pleading Fly

Flowers. Cold flowers. Snow flowers. Floral patterns of ice.

Crystalline curves of colorless beauty.

Beauty dripping down the window, sill stained with damp tears.

Deceased fly with pleading feet, awash.

Delicate film of varnish and dust, disturbed.

Fly, dead on cold sill
Shining wings still, legs aloft
Mute witness of fall

The Mandrake's Mandarin mutters in dark futility while ravens of prophecy cry aloft. Do ferrets cry in vain? Must muskrats wallow in delusion? Do swirling gnats bewail autumnal advents?

How different, gelid window and grotto of velvet coal. Yet, how alike.

Narcissus-X perpends on walls and windows, darkness and light.

Narcissus-X Seethes for Art

Red cat, green cat, Andy made a blue cat.
Andy made a blue cat, purring: it's so happy.

Andy's beauty within mass culture? Sleep! Eat! Spend a day with Empire.

A working day. Eight hours sacrificed to Philistine wordmongers of Croesian intent. Not a smattering of sensitivity among them. Narcissus-X rejects. Rejects. Rejects.

How ironic Empire: art, art, art, slowly showing the old order’s wonder. The building. The Empire. Empire. Film as art, art on film. Image after image impinge on the eye. Eye for Empire, Empire fills the eye. Time, captured and trapped in cells: cells of celluloid, released by light, sweet release. Yet Empire is art, ironic that art should show Empire: iconic building of crass commercial coarsity.

The End of Dawn leads to Salvador Dali. Hello, Dali. Hello, Nico. Nico in The Closet?

Philistine vulgarians, barbarian boors. None understand Art but Artists. Ars longa, vita brevis. But ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile?! As if the artist must toil. Latin phrase from Cos. Hippocrates was no Latin, but Narcissus-X prefers salsa. Hold the Mayo.

Salvador Dali. Memory persists, but do bumblebees fly? An elephant by any other name would smell as sweet. Swans may reflect elephants, but why is the sky so clear?

Narcissus-X need not toil to learn art, for art has Narcissus-X, and Narcissus-X has art. Art from the heart. Heart art. Narcissus-X art. Art. What is Art? Who is Narcissus-X? Narcissus-X is the Artist. But is art learned? Can art be learned?

Questions! Questions! Narcissus-X needs not questions. Narcissus-X seeks, Narcissus-X sees, Narcissus-X seethes in the cauldron of creativity!

Tea?

Narcissus-X Muses on Inescapable Cable Channels

Narcissus-X finds art in the artless, artlessness in the arts, for art is all and all is art, for the artful artist. Even inartistic drivel and cant may cast shadows, illuminating darkly the way to true expression: too true to woo.

Talentless twirlings of thumb-twiddling fans, exonerated only by ignorance of Art: Who mourns for Adonis, or the Quatloo Quartet? None but the lonely Harcourt. Game, set, match, but remember: only you can prevent forest fires. Fires leap, shadows dance, thought fades and feelings prance. Foolish foibles of rhymeless rants echo silently, for what purpose serves delicious, home-style barbecued buffalo wings?

The old died young, but Jung had some good ideas.

Ignoble aardvarks of illustrious descent strew costly pearls of wisdom before expiring. Expiring what? Alas! Poor aardvarks: I knew them well. But the New York Mets are oh for six and two for tea: me yew you and yew for age. Age, time, entropy, vast bleak asphalt path of existence.

Why does Narcissus-X trifle with such tawdry twitterings? Because they are there, and there, and there. They're everywhere!

And the remote hides of vanished species haunt the dreams of Narcissus-X, as Narcissus-X delves into the dusty depths beneath the couch, seeking release.

Narcissus-X Excogitates on a Parroting Window

Narcissus-X excogitates on a window's parroting of Narcissus-X, while beyond the pain sings a nocturne of brilliant blackness. But who sings? Or what?

Endorphic shades of desultory dreams draped across Dunkirk's drum.

Orestes, pursued by the Amenities: Cruel kindness; kind cruelty. None but the running hart knows the ascetic clarity of spring water, fresh from nature's bounty.

Beware squirrels in lederhosen! They slice! They dice! They make julienne fries!

Noctivagant Musings of Narcissus-X

Marzipan gardens of wonder.
Aureate symbols of promise against the night, as black cows hide within.
Remembered oblivion, forgotten smudge: distant sweetness of televised pitch.
Mithai and comfit, jujube and lolly.
Trolleys have conductors, but who will guard the jar?
Dulcet reminiscence fades as saccharine aftertaste grows.
Cyclamate warnings of doom, but who will mourn the rat?
Syrup torrents of amber light, licorice castles built in the night.
Cravings scream, reason withers: will Narcissus-X eat the fudge?

Yes.