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The Perfume Of Wisdom


by John Olson


I haven't spent much time painting. I tied myself to writing. I used sentences like rope. I tied ideas to paper. What is a personality? Is it a flavor, or a style of being? A strategy, or a tactic? Intuition plays a large role in discovering things that lack solid definition. A social paradigm, for instance, or the location of truffles in a French forest.

 

I don't mind being wet. Not really. Especially if I'm underwater. But is one truly wet when one is underwater? The stars send their love. Their light. Their smell. Stars smell of speed. Speed smells of distance. Distance smells of speed. Together they create an overwhelming perfume of wisdom.

 

Attraction is a powerful clue as to who you are and what you are about. It will provide a narrative to your life. Narratives, excuse me. Each life has more than a single narrative. Iron has certain lyrical properties that do not become fully evident until it is used to make bridges, or cannons, or rocket ships. Is iron used in rocket ships? Probably not. Though not because of its lyrical properties. Arrange your narratives as you would stories in a newspaper, or colors in a kaleidoscope. Have video games caused the kaleidoscope to go into extinction? Avoid the court summons. Move to Florida. Buy a boat.

 

I love the shape of eggs. Not so much balloons. Balloons are less compelling. If you want compelling, I give you the rattle of the rattlesnake. I give you a daub of creosote. I give you the metaphysics of glue. The seamlessness of ablution crawling through a hedge of boxwood.

 

Sometimes an image will become generously metaphorical, although a little overcomplicated. Which is intended, or not intended, to heat the brain up. À la oatmeal. Crustaceans and oars easily fit this category. When I sit in my office, I don't write mortgages. I watch feature length movies. Which I have made myself. Each is orange, and has the sheen of the ocean when it is quiet, and sleeping next to Persia.

 

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