Escape (spoken word)
version edited for recording
(original draft is below)

Escape into words and language.

The ideas that can be formed are intoxicating. Can they be real? They need not be possible. Unlike words out loud, echoing, misquoted, fading with memory, the vivid turn of phrase becomes all too concrete - even if a flimsy fabrication, wishful thinking, a dream given substance through shared symbols. This sharing makes our dreams into a revealing of reality.

This is Huw Powell and I feel like... writing! Not just to speak, testing my ideas out, hearing how they "sound", but to make a true tapestry of them, silver tinsel intertwined this way and that, and in the end - a "whole cloth" - a thing of beauty, intrigue, and resonance. Words that "re-sound" - words that bear witness - words that can be repeated, exactly the same way, no nuance lost through accent, style, or situation. FIX THIS

Do you read anything I have written? FIX/REMOVE Randomness, interconnectedness. Ideas that may be lost in the first translation to words - never to be recaptured again. The occasional gem I get right - the words mean what I thought. It is then possible, even probable, that the same idea will be projected on the wall of your cave.

Lovers, families, failings. Passions, dreams, inventions. Fevers.

Imagery, that dark and savage beast. It escapes my brain alive, crawling across the page - dodging the light - its shadows captured by the sharp point of a hurried pen. Only to be a thousand times reborn, in the naked playground of your mind.

How opportunistic and parasitic a little idea can be! It clings to you as try to walk away, unable to return to your uninfected state. The larvae crawls through your brain. Stealing its sustenance from your life's experiences, feeding on your ideas, until it is strong and grows wings and bursts forth - not as words, but as action.

For words become us, they form our thoughts, our dreams, our lives. If the words do not exist, we suffer in silence until they are invented - and then they imprison us, for our love! And what is this love? Is it really two souls touching?

Or just two sets of rampant, compatible hormones dragging their host bodies and the helpless minds trapped inside them through a ghoulishly absurd house of mirrors? Two incompatible ideas drawn from separate lives and forced together into one. An oxymoron of the imagination, a fairytale addiction. We seek our ironclad vows on marble pedestals - we want to pin the butterfly on the wall.

But our demanding gods seek expression and freedom, impression and passion! All we know is how to tame them, to force their submission. With words we try to trap our souls into sensibility. The insane, the absurd, are as real as any drably conceived business plan and a thousand times more interesting. Unknowable myths, exploding from brain to brain, disguised as poetry, as mystery, as stories about our dreams. And they become our world through our actions, our adoption of their sickness.

For life is only a sickness of time, time running backwards. A perpetual rebuilding of insignificant altars and energies, an obelisk that must be erected anew every day. So are our progeny. Ideas? Nothing more than the confused babbling of lonely apes in the night.

Come sit by my fire - I've got something to say.

 

Escape: original draft

Escape into words and language. The ideas that can be formed are intoxicating. Can they be real? They need not be possible. Instead of words out loud, echoing, misquoted, fading with your memory, the vivid turn of phrase is all too concrete - even if a flimsy fabrication, wishful thinking, a dream given substance through shared symbols.

I hate listening to other peoples dreams - especially the sort of people who want to tell me about their dreams... They don't make sense to me - their symbols are not my symbols - without the carefully framing embrace of a story to weave the threads between the images they are just a jumble. When sifted, sorted, laid out in an interesting pattern, they reveal my dreams, they are fantastic and yet my empathy with them, my coincidence, makes them "real".

This is Huw Powell and I feel like... writing! Not just to speak, testing my ideas out, hearing how they "sound", but to make a true tapestry of them, silver threads intertwined this way and that, and in the end (a "whole cloth") a thing of beauty, intrigue, and resonance. Words that "re-sound" - words that bear witness - words that are repeated, exactly the same, no nuance lost by interpretation of accent, style, or sense.

The adventure of living - the best story anyone can write - the story of their passions, their dreams, their failings. Their family, their loves, their boredom. Their fever.

Do you read anything I have written? On the machine, over there - randomness, interconnectedness - ideas that may be lost in the first translation to words - never to be recaptured by the reader - the occasional gem I get right - the words mean what I thought - and it is then possible, even probable, that the same idea will be recreated on the wall of your cave.

Imagery, that dark and savage beast, escapes my brain in flight, crawling across the page - dodging the light - its shadows captured by the sharp point of a hurried pen - only to escape the paper! A thousand times reborn! In the naked playground of your mind.

How parasitic, how opportunistic a little idea can be! A perfect phrase, a fascinating image, that clings to you when you have put away the unfinished book, unable to return to your uninfected state. The larvae crawls through your brain, stealing its sustenance from your life, your experiences, feeding on your ideas, until it is strong and grows wings and bursts forth not as words but as action - as your new and changed reality.

For words control us, control our thoughts, our dreams, our societies. If the words do not exist we suffer in silence until they are invented - and then they imprison us for our love!

And what is this love? This thing... is it really two souls touching? Or just two sets of rampant, compatible hormones dragging their host bodies and the helpless minds trapped inside them through a ghoulish, nightmarishly absurd house of mirrors?

Can I have an ideal lover or is the term an oxymoron of the imagination, a fantasy? Two incompatible ideas drawn from separate experiences and forced together: to make warm this long cold night?

With words we try to trap our souls into sensibility! We seek our vows in concrete pedestals, we want to pin the butterfly on the wall.

Our demanding Gods seek expression and freedom, impression and passion! All we know is how to tame them, to force their submission. They become shadows, compressed and reshaped by talk, by our chatter, by the vacuous language of commerce.

Explode the myth! The insane, the absurd, are as real as any drably conceived business plan and a thousand times more interesting. They are the unknowable, flitting from brain to brain, disguised as poetry, as mystery, as stories about our dreams. And they become the story of our world by becoming our world through our actions, our adoption of their sickness.

For life is only a sickness of time, time running backwards, the waterfall flows uphill - how absurd can it be? A perpetual rebuilding of insignificant altars and energies, an obelisk that must be erected anew every day. So are our progeny. Ideas? Nothing more than the confused babbling of lonely apes in the night.

Come sit by my fire.

Poems and Lyrics: next - previous
guide - random - by date - by name

(notes about the song)

© Huw Powell
printed 29 March 2024

return to escape

file location: www.humanthoughts.org/escape.htm