My Myological Method

Geof Huth, "Myology, Plate XV" (draft made on 3 Jan 2012)
My muscle is me, even if we thought the muscle were the mouse. What rises through the body, in rising and dipping waves, rocking never cresting, are the physical impulses of our minds, but we are that body.

I thought of muscles as I sat at the table, in light not quite bright enough, to color as a child might with pencils, and to write the occasional word or phrase, on a slightly foxed plate removed from a damaged book, the holes where the needle and thread went through it still visible along its left edge.

It is a process I do not like: to create something atop a unique piece of anything that I like, anything that I think is already beautiful. And I think I've already destroyed this sheet beyond salvage, but I'll keep adding to it until I think it is saved or I believe to a degree that I don't yet that there is no chance to save this thing.

The process of creating a poem on a beautiful piece of damaged paper is frustrating for me because I don't trust my hand enough. And on this page I already see many infelicities of the hand, many times when my muscles (or, sometimes, my pencils didn't work for me. Usually, it is where the text I've written is too large, so I've learned something to guide the next six experiments.

For I have seven of these sheets, each different, to work on. The process should take me more than a month. I may give up in between, but I'll keep trying, because there's always the chance of success. And there is something calming about carefully filling in voids with color. Soon this sheet will be shimmering with competing colors. At that point, maybe it will be something.

For now, it is a hope, an inclination. I hope the incline goes up instead of down. But, of course, that depends entirely on which direction I choose to walk.

On the third day of the year 2012, Geof Huth discusses a visual poem he is creating upon a plate removed from a damaged book on anatomy.

ecr. l'inf.