Lampblack pg. 4242 Lamprey
Fire and night are held in the skull.
Melted fat, lit rushes and bone:
the first lamp. Capillary attraction of the wick
(the sticks) for the grease, keeps the flame
burning. For twenty-seven years, Webster wrote
the first American dictionary by candle,
with light reflecting off highly polished tin.
Before this, music ended with a k.
Now the u is lost in color. Paint
and printer’s ink came from crude lampblack
(See: soot). At the bottom of the ocean,
the lamprey, lowest of vertebrates,
possibly the ancient ancestor of all animals
with backbones, attaches its teeth to fish,
scrapes a hole in the flesh, and sucks
out blood. Death from diseases
like rheumatic fever or mathematics,
the recurrence of certain numbers. 42,
repeated twice for this page, is 21 doubled,
which is 12 mirrored. 12=2+3+7. Room 237
is the room in The Shining where
the lights stay on. Stay away. Spine:
appendages of bone, the hinged back
of a book, shiver down the.
It’s All Forgotten Now is the 13th song
on this LP soundtrack. Electricity replaced kerosene
replaced oils replaced candles replaced
grease. The Guttenberg Printing Press,
next typewriters. 9-to-5s are now 8-to-6.
All work and no play…Burning the midnight…,
the candle…the ash at the end of a cigarette
doesn’t drop during a long take under blazing
studio lights (See: sun lamp). A fire
reduced the set to cinders. Cut for the night,
for morning keeps gold in its mouth.