James Bradley

In the process of once again re-cataloging my accumulated idle thoughts & fleeting daydreams of the past seven-or-so years into a more manageable schema, this time employing standardized metadata I hoped would lend itself quite nicely to the domestication of such incorrigible & flickering specks, my tired eye chanced upon a single scrap fallen from a particularly old notebook (designated N27-008 in my new schema), its cheaply bound, black binding coagulated in dark yellow glue while at the same time flaking off specks of its own unwanted matter which I could not help but think of as pieces of my own increasingly decaying sentiment for such keepsakes, weeping silently as they fell, without agency, swinging in the imperceptible air currents like memory in all its deteriorating manifestations. "In space," I thought to myself, "eyeless asteroids collide in much the same manner." In any event the scrap read: "THE AMPERSAND CRAWLS UP THE VOID WHITE WALL OF THE DEAD CITY (http://www.pw.org/content/james_bradley_2), SUPERFLUOUS CITY, CITY OF MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES & FLOWERY ALIBIS, CITY OF THE VEIL FOR SALE, LIKE THE CONQUERING VINE, TRANSFORMING & THUS OVERWHELMING THE SEMIOTIC W(ELTANSCHAUUNG) AS IS THE FATE OF ALL GREAT CITIES SAVE ONE, THE HOLY CITY. EULOGY FOR POETS AND WRITERS: THE 'T' ONCE AGAIN SPROUTS THE FAINTEST TRACES OF LIFE AFTER 100,000 YEARS OF EMPTY PUBLISHING CREDITS, AND EVEN THIS ONE SPARK IS KNOWN TO BE ESSENTIALLY 'A DUD.' POETS ENTER THE HOLY CITY AT THE GARBAGE CHUTE, WRITERS NOT AT ALL." I read the words several times in succession, attempting to make sense of this tangle of obviously-indignant paradox from my far-off youth, and then, quite suddenly, and quite violently, the tears came. In the midst of a long process of attempting to contrive certainty, was this...after all...me?