MICHAEL J. CLARK:

THE ART OF LISTENING

TO THE SOUNDS OF WORDS

Michael J. Clark has been writing seriously since 1974. Examples of his writing can be found below.

Examples of his fine arts (painting, drawing, mixed-media) can be found at the following web-page:

http://www.hoalantrangallery.com/MJC2.htm

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Comments can be directed to:

mclark7@mindspring.com

A Silent Dell (Novel)

Silent Dell.htm

I began A Silent Dell in my creative writing class at the University of Wyoming in Spring 1974. Upon completion of my B.A. that year, I continued to work on the novel until completing it in the Winter of 1976. The novel is the story of a young man of considerable potential who drops out of the university, marries his young love, and returns to his hometown to work in the town's oil refinery. Conflict with his father is an ever-present theme of his life. In addition, his wife is pregnant. He wanted no children; in fact, they had agreed to have no children. He fears the encroaching responsibility. The novel "borrows" from James Joyce's Ulysses the structure of a story compressed into a single day. The hero, Daniel Newman, moves through this one day of his life, going to work in the refinery, coming home after work, napping, dining with his wife at his parent's house, arguing with his father, leaving his wife for a night at the town bar. Each alternating chapter is a poetic self-reflection by Daniel Newman, who earlier had ambitions to be a poet, prior to his "normalization" and marriage; these poetic chapters are designed to provide the reader with some understanding of who Daniel Newman really is and why this day in his life is coherent, in terms of character. There is an explosion of forces in the night which changes the life of Daniel Newman for ever.

Conversations On A Dying Age (Novel)

Conversations 1.htm

I began Conversations On A Dying Age in the summer of 1977 and completed it in 1984. The story begins with Jacob Heimkreiter, the narrator, "strolling" through the world at a very placid pace. The reader is his companion. Jacob Heimkreiter is philosophical, pessimistic, obsessed with the coming death of his own culture. He is the father of three children; his youngest son, Daniel, it later is revealed, has committed suicide--and his father is haunted by this and by his sense of having failed as a father. In fact, Jacob, it is revealed, bit by bit, is dying of cancer. This stroll is in fact Jacob's walk through his life and into his death. He talks to the audience directly, telling them about his life, his opinions, his fears. Slipping into death. The stroll in time becomes a massive journey into eternity, into the land of souls and historical figures, metaphysical concepts, personal fears, archetypal meanings and foundations, into heaven, into light, into understanding, and then back out again into rebirth. Jacob Heimkreiter becomes an archetype: he is alternately the biblical Jacob, Ahab, Prometheus, Icarus, Jacob Fugger, the Archangel Michael, his own son Daniel..). Indeed, Jacob "becomes" or confronts, at some point in the novel, many of the mythological figures from many different cultures, essentially being, himself, the sun-hero, Odysseus, Horus, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Moses. He is Plato, Aristotle, Mercury, the Angel Metatron. The book, as a unity of thought, conceived during Jacob's ascension into heaven, attempts to reveal a nature which is a synthesis of science and theology, of reason and poetry, causal necessity and mythology. Before the creation of the universe, the one womb, abstract space, contains the finished piece, the unified plan: a sort of jigsaw puzzle before its fractionation. The glimpse, the unity; the Big Bang (differentiation), the rebirth into life: the individual emerges out of darkness. Jacob eventually becomes his son Daniel, who is reborn in his father's image. The influences on this book are almost too numerous to mention: James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, The Old Testament, Albert Camus' The Fall, Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Dante's Divine Comedy. I present two excerpts from this novel here: the first part is the first few pages of the book, where Jacob meets his "companion" (the reader) and they begin their stroll through Jacob's life; there are four parts or chapters or seasons of Jacob's life, at the end of which Jacob is pulled out into the world of the dead; he visits his own funeral; he falls into Hades. The second excerpt presented here is the beginning of Jacob's fall into Hades.

Last Love of a Choirboy (Novel -- unfinished)

Last Love of a Choirboy.htm

I began Last Love of Choirboy shortly after moving to Eugene, Oregon in 1977. This novel (unfinished) describes the failed love of a young man in Laramie, Wyoming with a recently married woman – and how this failed love led to tragic events.

Instrumentation In the Wheelhouse (Epic Poem)

ITW Poem Complete.htm

ITW is a very long poem (7 sections, with a prologue and epilogue) which describes the seven stages of a man’s life in poetic form: 1. Prologue: Father’s Testament to His Son Upon the Father’s Deathbed; 2. Childhood; 3. Youth; 4. Education; 5. Despair (Love Lost); 6. Marriage; 7. Epilogue: My Investigations of Infinity. This poem was written, first, as a prosepoem; then it was converted into traditional poetic form.

The Infrequent Visitor (Novel -- unfinished)

INFREQUENT VISITOR.htm

This unfinished novel finds a writer living in a room of the dilapidated Sinclair Hotel working on a novel describing the history of his personal origins, the small town of Sinclair, Wyoming, a small refinery town in southern Wyoming.

The Anniversary of Crane (Novel -- unfinished)

THE ANNIVERSARY OF CRANE.htm

This unfinished futuristic novel is set in the near future after a catastrophe has broken America into smaller pieces of the puzzle. A private detective is investigating the murder of a friend.

Ballad of a Stock Broker (Short Novel)

Ballad of A Stock Broker.htm

BOSB is the story of a mystical Wyomingite who appeared in Eugene, Oregon in the mid-1970s, armed with a computerized trading system for stocks and options. He is hired on a trial basis by a local money management firm. His influence slowly wreaks havoc on the conservative, traditional firm.

History of the Department of Architecture at the University of Oregon

Archdept.htm

A short history of the Department of Architecture at the University of Oregon in celebration of the 75^th Anniversary of the program.

Death of a Liberal (Collection of Short Stories)

Death of Liberalism.htm

This collection of short-stories was completed in 1995. These stories examine the legacy of the liberalism of the 1960's from the perspective of the 1990's--a middle-aged eye being cast back on the shadows of the idealisms of youth.

Two Friends (Screenplay)

http://www.hoalantrangallery.com/TwoFriends.htm

This screenplay is the traditional Vietnamese folktale of Luu Bin and Duong Le, two friends, whose paths through life diverge and then, magically it might seem, approach one another in mid-life.

The Town That Could Not Sleep

http://www.hoalantrangallery.com/Town.htm

A children’s story written in 1997.

Pantomime (Collection of Poetry)

PANTOMIME poem.htm

Poetry collection completed in 1998.

CURRENT WORK

Death In June

deathinjune.htm

Draft – A book of prose-poems begun in May 2008 and centered thematically upon the destruction of capitalism in the Western World by Wall Street criminals colluding with politicians in Washington D.C.

Turn Out The Lights

Turnoutlights.htm

An examination of the metaphysical causes of the Great Depression of 2008, with a special emphasis on Allen Greenspan’s role as Ahab, the captain commanding the American ship of state in its quest to eliminate poverty, despair, deflation, and death from the world.

Cross Examination (Novel in Many Volumes)

This novel documents the dream of Michael J. Crossmann, a popular English teacher at Southwest Eugene High School. The school is attacked by three armed students who murder and injure many students and faculty. The shooters are disarmed and captured by fellow students, put on trial in the basement boiler room of the school, found guilty, and executed by hanging. Michael Crossmann has acted as judge in the mock trial. He has been wounded in the attack; and he is unconscious during the final sentencing and execution of the suspects – still, he is the only person arrested and tried for the act of vigilante justice. His trial is the first cross examination of the novel. He is acquitted – and subsequently becomes a national figure, appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show during Millennium Eve, 1999, the second cross examination in the novel. Crossmann’s trial at the hand of Oprah transforms dream-like into a night on the town in New York City on the same Millennium Eve night and includes an interview on the Charlie Rose Show (to discus Crossmann’s novel “Conversations On A Dying Age”), an exhibit of Crossmann’s art at the Museum of Modern Art, an attempt on his life, Crossmann’s participation in a presidential debate with George Bush and Al Gore (which is staged as a production of “Julius Caesar”…at which Crossmann is stabbed and left for dead).

Crossmann proves by mystical mathematics that Michael the Archangel and Jesus Christ are the two parts of the same mystical whole: Michael is Jesus in heaven; and Jesus is Michael on Earth. And Michael J. Crossmann (M/JC) is the personification of this spirit, the manifestation of the Christ spirit returning. He is pursued by the police who wish to question him for a wide range of crimes, including plagiarism, abortion of his son, statutory rape of a young high school beauty, the killing of an Iraqi ‘freedom fighter’ during his time spent as an embedded reporter during the American invasion of Iraq…. Crossmann escapes to The Cloisters north of New York City with his twelve or thirteen disciples (depending on how you count), has his Gethsemane experience, falls to sleep – and has a long dream within a dream, during which the world begins to fall apart, his world, the world of language and thought, as Crossmann travels backward from adulthood back into his childhood arriving, eventually, back in his childhood form, back in his mother’s womb. Crossmann, who ‘borrows’ texts from great world thinkers in mathematics, history, science, philosophy, poetry, current newspapers, internet, is seen as being wrapped inside of papyrus layers of skin as he is prepared, very much like Osiris, for the next world , mummified and laid to rest in a tomb in the Red Desert, in southern Wyoming.

Cross Examination examines the deep questions of the mystical and natural philosophy represented by the cross, which is a form of the square, and by mystical geometry generally…as well as the historical conflict of Islam and western, Christian civilization, and, indeed, Islamic conflict with much of world civilization. It examines an America teetering toward empire (M/JC also includes JC, the force of Julius Caesar). If America is the new Roman Empire, then who is the new Pontius Pilate and who is this millennium’s new Jesus Christ? And who are the Germanic hordes? And where will America’s great Gothic Cathedrals be built?

This novel examines religion, science, philosophy, language, lust, evolution, the clash of civilizations, fame, obsession, madness and history. It does this with humor, with poetry, and with a very clear nod to James Joyce, Dante, Oswald Spengler and many others.

This novel is a child of Finnegans Wake; and includes many explications of Joyce’s masterwork, with the understanding that the arcane religious philosophy hidden in Finnegans Wake is a universal history, a universal world view, which is also shared by Cross Examination. Cross Examination also establishes a ‘dream language’ based on word sounds as inspired by Joyce’s ‘Book of the Dark’.

‘Thus east noted pre-fate languedocs! Id sure demon’s treason auf season Ankh’s Clash widowed dears rotterdam weathered ice!” This translates literally: ‘This is not a private language! It’s a demonstration of seeing English with our ears rather than with our eyes!” The ‘prophetic’ translation is something else entirely. It is not without meaning however; for nonsense is a form of mental (non sense) projection. And meaning is inherent in sound. This passage suggests something about the East as an idea; and ‘pre-fate’ French, Provencal; a demonic treason committed in the season of the id; crosses clashing (the English are involved, as, of course, is the idea of pre-destination); fighting and killing (‘widowed dears’) in or near Rotterdam during the winter season. Where is Nostradamus (Not-Our-Doormouse) when you need him?

The dream world, in fact, is fed through the ears, rather than through the eyes. And words that SOUND ALIKE (can be made to sound alike) have a sub-atomic connection; and throw light on the overlying word they are describing.

What appears as nonsense on the surface, hides a reality beneath its chaos (as dreams do). But I would argue that the nonsense language, itself, is prophetic, and offers a different or sometimes eerily related truth, which can be seen only by the poetic imagination, which Vico described as the ‘language of the gods’.

‘Perfect’ interchangeability of the dream language and the waking language are a rare and wonderful revelation, an epiphany, sometimes with a humorous economy:

Microcosm: Michael Crossmann.

Macrocosm: Mad Crows Cause Most..

Apocalypse: Epic-Collapse.

Apocalypse: Epoch-Elapse.

Apocalypse: All Parts Collapse.

Apocalyptic: Hip-Hop Kills Optic.

Evangelists: Evil’s Angel Lusters.

Irrationalists: Ear Rationalists.

I: Eye.

Energy: Inner Chi.

Entropy: Anthrop-Pay.

Universe: Yoni Force.

Shekinah: Shock and Awe.

Saxaphone: Sexy Foam.

Eternity: Eight Turns In Eighty.

Aurora Borealis: An Aura of a Borgia Realist.

Manifestation: Monied Faust Station.

Armageddon: Armor-get-on.

Rebirth: Rib-Earth (think of Eve).

Capitalism: Cup of Tall Lesions.

Communism: Common Nauseum.

Corporate: Culprit.

Corporation: Core Poor Ration.

Revolution: Reve-Illusion.

Revolution: Red Volition.

Book of Revelations: Burkha Red-Veiled Asians.

Despair: Dead Spear (think of age-related impotence).

Depression: Deep Russian.

Depress: Deep Rest.

Karmic Law: Core Mocks Allah.

Cosmic Laws: Gods’ Make Loss.

Psychoanalyst: Cycle in Alice says.

Visitors: Vizard-Doors (Vizard is a prostitute wearing a mask in public).

Australia: Oz Trail, Yeah!

Adolescence: Adult’s Essence.

Epiphany: Heap of Honey.

Epiphany: Ape Even Me.

Television: Toil Evasion.

Television: Tool of Vision.

Television: To Live: Fission.

Ideology: Audio Elegy.

Gigolo Jiggle Low.

Sorcerer: Sore Sir’s Rear.

Radio: Ray Deo.

Civilization: Slave Elevation.

Valkyrie: Full Kyrie.

Darkness: Dirac’s Nets (think of darkness as anti-matter; of course, in the realm of anti-matter, matter is darkness and anti-matter light).

Ancient Wisdom: Saints’ Chants -- Wish-Doom.

Infinite: End-Fun-Not.

Spiritual Heritage: Spear-Red Sheoled Herod Stage.

Silicone: Silly Cones.

Sigmund Freud: Sick-Mind Fried.

Karl Jung: Queer Old Junk.

Intellection End All Action.

Adolph Hitler: A Dull Fiddler.

Saddam Hussein: Sodomy’s Hosing.

Mathematics: Myth of Metrics.

Mathematics: Mad Themed Maat Tricks.

Etcetera; Eat Shit Era.

Apollo: Up Hollow.

Donysius: Day-In-Easy-House.

Peace and Prosperity :Peace Sign, Prop’s Purity.

Historian: Hister's Aryan .

Coital Intercourse: Coy Doll Enters Chorus.

Wittgenstein: Wit Can Shine.

Troubadours: Trouble-Doers.

Mortal: M-M-M-Marital Moral-Tale.

Reminiscences: Roman Essences.

Aristocracy (think Spring regeneration): Heiress talks: Re-Seed.

Aristocracy (think Autumnal decline): Heiress' Stocks Recede.

Fornication: Foreign-negation.

Titillation: Tit Elation.

Consciousness: Cunts Chase Nuts.

Incarnation: Ink our nation (think of the Karmic Record kept by the Heavenly Scribes).

Unconsciousness: Hunt Cunts; Chase Nest.

Underlying Reality; Undear Lying Real Old Lady.

Criticism: Creed-of-Schism.

Ad-Infinitem: Odd-Infant-Item.

Papyrus: Pulp Eye-Rust.

Babylonian: Bubble-Yoni-Yen.

Goddess of Fertility: Good Ass Soft Furrowed Tiller Dei.

Mephistopheles: My First Awful Lease.

Monastery: Monad’s Story.

Magician: Mad Joycean

Homosexual: Hole Moist, Shakes Jewels

Drunken Language: Drum King Linga-Wish

Academic: Egg-Head’s Dumb Act

Talk In Tongues; Token Tongs

Saturn: Sad Urn.

Venus: Vain House.

Mercury: Mirror-Carried.

Gothic: God Thick.

Catholic: Goth Locked.

Catholic: Kether-Lucked.

Cathedral: Goth Heed Rule.

Himalayas: Hymn of Layas.

Divinity: Deaf-Entity.

Trinity: Tree-in-Idée.

Philosopher: Phallus-Orifice Sore.

Philosopher: False Office Star.

Feminists: Famine Nests.

Metaphysics: Model Fish-Hooks.

Unconscious Ankh Anxious.

Menopausal: Mourn Our Poor Souls.

Menopausal: Men Are Pustules.

Cornucopia: Corn-Hole Copy Era.

Evolution: Evil Loosened.

Generation: Genital Ration.

Generation Gender Reason.

History: Hid Story.

Islam: Id Shalom.

Sickle: Sicko.

Auschwitz: Off Switch.

Moscow: Mosque Cowl.

Secret: Seek Greek.

Secret: Seed Great.

Deluge: Day-Lose.

Alcoholic: I’ll Go Whole-Hog Like…

Mystery: Mid-Story.

Aristotle: Heiress Taught All.

Schopenhaur: Chopin’s Sour.

Stethoscope: Stealth-as-Grope.

Phenomenon; Flame-Omen-Nomen.

Legitimate: Large Edomite.

Superficial Implications: Superb Fish-Hole Limp Placations.

Cemetery: Psalm All Teary.

Historian: Heed Saurian.

Western Civilization: Waste-Earned Civil-Elation.

United States of America: Yoni Eye-Test Stakes Half A Miracle.

Osama Bin Laden: All Summer’s Been Loading.

Pith of Chorus: Pythagoras.

Egyptian Hieroglyphics; Eat Cheap Chain High-Roll Cryptics.

Corruption: Career Option.

European: Urine Peeing.

Inherited: In Herod Dead.

Resurrection: Rose Erection.

Friedrick Nietzsche: Freed Dick Needs Caesar.

Paradise Lose: Parrot Dais Larced.

Paradise Regained: Periled Toys Reaganed.

Mind’s Eye: Mayan’s Sigh.

Spiritual: Spear Rid You Shall.

Material: Mud Too Real.

Historical: Hostile Oracle.

Lucifer Low Cipher.

Saddam Hussain: So Dumb Who Is Hanged.

Khmer Rouge: Karma-Era Ruse.

Pedophiliac: Peterphilowhack.

Macho-Man: Malt-Show Mammon

Television: Tool of Fashion

Egotistical: Eagle Testicles.

Osiris: Old Serious.

Louis Ferrakhan Low Risk Pharaoh Con.

Id, Ego and Super-Ego: Lid, Eagle lance Suit Per Regal.

Casket: Cock’s Caught.

Candle: Cunt Hole.

Gerard Depardieu: Cheer Hard; Deeper Doo.

Reincarnation: Ring-King Coronation.

Artificial Arty Fish Hole.

Biblical: Bid Blue Color.

Alcohol: I’ll Kill Hole.

Marijuana: Moral Whiner.

Measuring is a masculine act replacing feminine touchy-feely preoccupation!:

Majora-ring esther matched-coloned knacked rape-pleasing phlegm-in-nymph touché-fee late pray echo placing!)

Hierarchy North-South alignment replacing East-West alignment of death, dream, utter Equality.

Higher arcane Not-Sloth old lion moment rib placing Yeast-Waste all loin mint auf doth, dray home, end daughter Aqua Allah Taste!

Pleasuring yourself aint a mortal sin, dear! It’s just a safety valve for order and civilization.

Play sore ring euro slough feinter marital scene, dortour! Justice safe tea vulva fair roar door randy safe oily viscin.

Why hast thou forsaken me?

White Head theist forced hate koran male?:

Darkness disorganizes matter. Where did dad go?

Turkness disease-oregon-eye-sores mutter. Word dod dead glow?

Dangerous preoccupation: believing that Mother Earth is only beneficient! We all know Earth is the purest definition of duality, giving us life and giving us death also.

Dane-cherished pray-occult pesante: boy levant thoth Mirther Ruth esther onanly bene-efficient! Whale lalo new W’Earth est paris de-fun issuance off dual wallet tale, graver rough leaf, gabbard deaf doth dual all-souls.

Darkness? Please: I don’t have enough expertise to comment on that academic’s secret Key to Nature’s Many Mysteries!

Dirac’s nests? Pee least: High dun hava-nava ex parte stool comma-not tawn thought egghead’s dumb acts see-greek Kether tool Nicher’s Moneyed Meat-Stories!

Spiral development in the direction of both spirit and matter.

Spy-role day-fall-up moment entered-dear-auction neuf birth spare-root tenten meet her.

The literal translation gives one the ‘real’ meaning of the dream; the literal meaning which is hidden under the layer of nonsense. The figurative meaning (translation of the ‘real’, or literal) gives one a poetic (which I would say is ‘prophetic’ since poetry and prophecy come from the same root) interpretation of seemingly dissimilar elements now in combination.

Lest one might consider this transformation of language a gimmick or an arbitrary personalization of a common language – since communication obviously is the goal of writing – let us look at another example of the subtle different layers of meaning that can be provided in this dream language. Take the word ‘decadence’. This word clearly has an ‘objective’ meaning: ‘the process of becoming decadent: deteriorization’. But the dream language has many sound coefficients of the word ‘decadent’ that throw different shades of meaning on the word. ‘Decade ends’: in Pythagorean number theory, 10 is the perfect number, representing completion; 11 is the re-beginning of a new cycle of activity. ‘Decay dance”: this suggests a celebration of decay, which is often a feature of a decadent society: hedonism accompanying decline. It also makes reference to the ‘death dance’ associated with the process of transformation from active to passive societies. ‘Day cadence’ suggests another motif: as a productive, active society passes into inertia and passivity, decay, it passes from ‘day’ into ‘night’. Essentially the ‘day cadence ‘ is lost and the ‘night cadence’ gains power. “Dig a trench’ has an obvious reference to death and burial. ‘Dogged danks’: refers to an insistent moisture, or flood of emotions – which makes reference to the coming in of the night, the dream, or the female element. ‘Deck of dems’ suggests the influence of the (female) democratic party in the process of decay, as the Social Material Day transitions in to the Social Anti-Material Night. ‘Doke of dents’: this suggests twice the presence of depression in the process of decay. The words ‘doke’ and ‘dent’ both define depressions of the surface. ‘Dick of dunce’ suggest the sexual act of a man declining into stupidity. ‘Ducat dense’ suggests that the ducat (gold money from Europe, circa 1100) are becoming ‘dense’, the connection between decadence and too much money in the society is claimed. ‘Decoy dawns’ suggests that the dawn (a time of rebirth) is not what it appears to be, is a decoy of the dawn – that is, the dusk, the opposite of the dawn, the time of decline of light. ‘Tech of tense’ would suggest the role of technology played in the ‘tense’, the time, of decay. Of course, ‘darker dhans’ would speak for itself. ‘Dhans’ is the Sanscrit word for ‘wealth, property’. This implies a lessening, a darkening of wealth, which follows decadence like a shadow follows substance.

As one can see from this, the ‘literal’ meaning of the word ‘decadence’ is relatively discrete, somewhat limited. However, the shade of meanings generated in the dream language – this dream language is very much a shadow of the literal word, the shadow changing shape regularly, even as the substance-word does not change shape -- really has no limits – or has only the limits of the imagination. Much of the subtle, shaded meanings of the dream language, however, depend upon the comprehension of the reader, to recognize sounds, first, and to recognize meanings hidden in the sounds. (The shadow-language changes shape dependent upon the movement of light as well as upon the movement of the substance.)

L.R. Kennard writes in Coleridge, Wordplay and Dream: “Wordplay is creative sign-making: it deploys patterns of identity or resemblance among signifiers, allowing linguistic form to create fresh, unique meanings. In broad agreement with a definition that includes but also exceeds punning, wordplay occupies a central position in Freudian dream theory, participating in the dream-work as a form of condensation. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, interested like Freud in both dreams and wordplay, directs his interest towards poetry and poetics. Analysis of two canonical poems of 1797-8, "Kubla Khan" and "Frost at Midnight," shows that in both wordplay flourishes within a context of reverie and dream. The evidence suggests that Coleridge, aware like Freud of the hermeneutic tradition which linked wordplay and dream, made use of the connection to produce highly-condensed works that satisfy his own poetic ideal of "untranslatableness." For Coleridge, dream-states legitimate wordplay because, for him as for Freud, wordplay is the language of dream.”

Cross Examination Outline (Incomplete)

Cross Examination Outline.htm

Cross Examination – Sample One

Cross Exam 1.htm

Cross Examination – Sample Two

Cross Examination 2.htm

Cross Examination – Sample Three

Cross Examination 3.htm

Cross Examination – Sample Five

Cross Examination 5.htm