John Moore

1
I write from fragments. Slivers of place, time, emotion, and circumstance that dont cohere to any
whole. The only physical constant being the glowing void of my monitor. Null space wanting to be
pared down to form.
I write from sleep deprivation. I end each day reaching for more, trying to scrape a fraction of meaning
or comfort to mitigate whatever disappointments Im obsessing about. This might consist of bingereading wikipedia, ordering late night pizza, or just getting self-induced motion sickness from gazing
intently at the rotation of a single blade on the ceiling fan. Eventually I will drift into whatever formless
and shifting chaos amounts to sleep for the night, but it almost always takes a specific kind of
surrender. A visualization of hopelessness or terminal descent to let me to accept the finality of the day.
Not enjoying the warm fuzzies of progressive relaxation, entering the white light, or merging with the
godhead, I find myself more suited to visceral example.
I try to contemplate the speeding blur of concrete as I sit on drivers side of my car perpendicular to
and skidding along the interstate in a fiery wreck. Meditating in preparation for my imminent rebirth
into entrails and dried tar. Sometimes its more scenic, the pleasant stumbling off the edge of a peak or
maybe being sucked out the window of a plane like the climax to a Bond film. The arid rush of wind
mixing with the acidic tang of my stomach acids. The greens of trees and brown boxes of the city grid
transform into a perverse sort of spin art as I descend into its kaleidoscopic maw. When I really feel a
flair for the dramatic, I like to see myself as the victim of a chatty sadist: tied to a mildewed chair one
finds at plasma clinics, disengaged and numb from a series of epidural shots and watching
disinterestedly as he smashes each of the joints of my fingers in turn. Gushing about the wonders of
human extremities and how they will sequentially go numb during hypothermia to protect the bodies
vital organs.
In the end simplicity works best. My favorite is to imagine I am being marched out behind a chemical
shed in some pastiche of a concentration camp or a 1980s sci-fi prison set. Usually the scene has that
hazy and overcast gray light of pre-dawn. There is always dew on the ground. The greens of the moss
seem especially saturated. Meditating on the instant between the trigger being pulled and my body
ragdolling onto its green pillow always brings me joy. I like to insert myself into that moment when I
get to think my last thought. When circumstance allows me the focus and singularity of purpose to

John Moore
2
draw my last breath and let go of racing thoughts.
I like to write from places that live in the wrong context. Aged buildings that have stood for centuries,
painted garish colors in misguided attempts to attract the current set of freshmen with three dollars and
ninety minutes they need to pass. Freshly painted red walls paired against gnarled wooden floors,
Parker bros. board games and Marvel comics stacked between of piles of autobiographies of black
radicals and small pamphlets on natural mind-body integrative hermetic quantum-based medicine. A
lounge with vector art of Malcolm X and the Queen of the Rainbow Tribe, Christmas lights and tin tea
kettles compliment old sofas that probably had a former home in a wood-paneled basement. All of
these things ignored, unmoved,and functioning as inscrutable decor for young professionals
teleconferencing. Its nice to have the contents of my mind externalized into physical space while
enjoying a cup of gourmet coffee. A whole ecosystem of disparate ideas, images, and pop cultural
abridgments slowly fading into entropy.
Caffeine ramps up my nerves and I try to let the visual tension soak into my body. I want the
contradiction and disparate elements to break me. I want the cacophony to drown out any sense of
foreboding in my racing thoughts. If I cant have internal silence or reach a sense of dhyanic insight, I
can at least drown myself out. I can relive an epileptic childhood frothing over neon colored plastic and
frantically paced capitalist memes drilled into my skull at 30fps. I want to reach a state of
undifferentiated nihilism so buoyant and vivid I can regurgitate my nausea into instant egoless genius.
Noise canceling headphones, three shots in the dark, and a 2 hour playlist of Atari Teenage Riot nearly
does the trick. For a sweaty and exhausting five minutes I am a human satellite dish. The room
becomes an animist swirl of dreams, memories, and signs. Plastic kitsch and human flesh, manic
thought and the drone of NPR all congeal for an instant into a harmonious context. Sensory
interpretation becomes upended and meaning is experienced viscerally.
A palmetto bug runs up my pant leg. I quietly repair to the mens room and have a panic attack.
I write from large open space. Relaxing at a drab and remarkably austere picnic bench. No names or
profane etchings anywhere to be found. Not even the geese bother sullying it. Layers of dead pine
provide the ground a suitably bland carpet for the occasional bottle cap or dead cricket to be swept into.

John Moore
3
The real movement and life of this place exists in implication and negative space. The wind pushing the
branches and causing a silent orchestra of leaves in the canopy overhead to shake imperceptibly. A
collective movement and the position of the sun allows for a kind of shimmering silent movie beneath
my feet. A percolating ballet of shadows.
This must be how god feels. Living a static and punctuated existence, gazing on the constant shifting of
form and interrelated coincidence arising and condensing into phenomena only to drift away with a
shift of light. Its here I can throw off the pretense of identity. Become outside myself. I can gaze
without meaning onto forms and listen to sounds without name. I can bask and revel in kairos;
experiencing the whole world through Gods speed of observation. I can stare into the grand and empty
chasm of the sky and try to throw myself into it. Dash my frame onto a larger world. Embracing
emptiness I try to form a gaze that will be able to see things unto themselves. A language without
symbol and a vocabulary that only speaks to essential qualities. To feel a blind and subtle will shifting
and moving the world through me.
After an hour my blood pressure is lowered and I see a squirrel furtively run up a tree.
I write from compressed circumstance. From an overheated and mobile isolation chamber during my
15 minute lunch break and slightly attenuated wi-fi connection. Denied the grace of air conditioning
because I lack the money for a Starbucks coffee and that I need to save what gas I have for the drive
home. I write from anxiety because my focus and ideas cant emerge until the threat of failure or a
deadline outweighs any dread of humiliation or hackneyed ideas. I write in the scant moments of life
not ruled by tedium or exhaustion. I write in times I cannot otherwise remember. I write from emotions
and places of thought I dont want to forget. I write from a place of exultation and momentary reverie,
to be encoded in scant reference and trace detail. I write from everywhere I can think, remember, and
invent. I write myself to a place of respite. I write from the wall of a centrifuge to the center behind the
blur. I write myself to the fullness and the emptiness.