ISSN: 1705-6411
Volume 6, Number 2 (July, 2009)
Author: Patrick Burton
This is a conceptual story, and in construction with the more architechtural sense of the word preceding the comma just past, a sentence. Though I should stress, not just a foundational turn of phrase adhering to certain linguistic conventions. There is a judicial function also (in the story and also the sentence that is), in imposing upon thee certain aspects of thine own ideological astronomy into another one’s experiential gastronomy. The imposition is for a term, both of time and endearment, stemming tellingly from the same “source”, material or otherwise as the case may be. The material or otherwise referred to in the penultimate sentence in this lovely love affair between two temporarily self- enclosed turns of phrase adhering to certain linguistic conventions tragically divorced from their contextuality has been stipulated to avoid just the sort of confounding confusion Confuscius might have felt on locating this conceptual story or the dead sea scrolls for that matter in a brook that runs into a deep stream. Not in the least because of water colouring the ink, though one supposes that would be logical, but “in essence” because time and endearment and by necessity times of endearment, just like the brook and stream perhaps coursing through one’s working memory, will often have points of origin which can be explored adnauseaum in nature (human and or otherwise, that is, as the case may be). My story is conceptual in the sense of conceptual art and its sensibility in text, without prying into the relations between sense and sensibility.
Well Booker, it would appear as though you have a future not only in the medical profession but in literature also. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I love our chats, and precisely for the reasons to which you allude in the “first story” of our conversation, they surely are times of endearment my boy… .
I was thinking more in the line of writing riddles, creating cross word puzzles in padded rooms for dissemination to a desirous public so strikingly starved of reflective thought that a sort of psychic calamity has been wrought. What do you suppose of me supposition Doc? I know it’s rather ad hoc, though ’tis a new epoch, a perplexing period in which I might help the good people take stock.
Take stock of what you might ask?
Please! Someone sound a saxophone, telegram a troubadour!
Why the flowers and all the scents,
our not quite six senses empowers,
that seeking dollars and cents oh so duly devours!
Booker! We’ve other patients outside waiting, and if this raquet keeps up they’ll all need sedating. And then indeed, before the medical review board I’ll plead, at their behest, no doubt, pursuant to legislative request, for an explanation of mines’, concerning prolific prescription of benzodiazepines.
Oh my dear doc, in my mouth you should place a polka dot sock.
You know, perhaps herein resides the source of my complexes, of all these existential vexes. Life’s always becoming shameless performance, with oh so little time for silence and dormance. Does the blame rest with me, or am I a product of society?
Now Booker, in any event, we’ve no time to lament. So for you my dear boy, oh what will it be, t’will be Zoloft 100mg times three, one with breakfast, one with lunch and one with tea, taken daily till next time you come to visit me.
Thank you my doc oh so dearest, ‘tis time to exit as the next hour looms nearest.
Very well my dear boy, then be on your way, and about the bill, if you could pay my lovely secretary, oh I’m sure you will.
As I passed through reception with no dream of deception, the bill I did settle, and we were gone, return no less certain than that of a rose pettle.
On walking outside, I noticed a big old elm tree,
shading and concluding this light elegy.
About the Author
Patrick Burton resides in Brisbane, Australia. He holds an honours degree in Law from the Queensland University of Technology and is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland. Following what he describes as an “ethico-aesthetic awakening”, he made a financially imprudent yet nevertheless enriching decision to escape the creative confinement and accelerated anxieties occasioned by the sometimes dehumanising tide of legal commerce. He now eeks out a relatively bohemian existence, composing music for the futuristic jazz and experimental filmscore band “Sleep D Step E” (audible online at www.myspace.com/sleepdstepe) and enjoys writing prose and poetry with a philosophical and art historical flavour. Patrick enjoys all manner of tasty vegetarian dishes and engaging in intermittent bouts of laughter.