MESOSTIC ON JOHN CAGE'S PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY (Indeterminacy) [2010]

                                   Now giving lecture on Japanese poetry.

                                          I was never psychOanalyzed. I’ll tell you how it happened.

     One day while I was composing, the telepHone rang.

                   Before studying Zen, men are meN and mountains are mountains.

                                  Generally speaking, suiCide is considered a sin.

         In Zen they say: If something is boring After two minutes, try it for four.

                                            When I was in hiGh school I went out, as they say, for oratory.

             Music and mushrooms: two words nExt to one another in many dictionaries.

      Two monks came to a stream. One was HIndu, the other Zen.

         What was it actually that made me chooSe music rather than painting?

                                             A mother and soN visited the Seattle Art Museum.

                                        I am not a good histOrian.

                                 Then we had to go back To New Haven to do the TV class over again. 

                                   I have a friend whose aCtions resemble overwhelming inspirations.

            A Chinaman (Kwang-tse tells) went tO sleep and dreamt he was a butterfly.                                                             I was arguing with Mother. I turNed to Dad.

        Two wooden boxes containing Oriental Spices and foodstuffs arrived from India.

                                   Well, since Darmstadt, I’ve written two pieces.

                      Dorothy Norman invited me to Dinner in New York.

                                        Have you ever noticEd how you read a newspaper?

                             Merce Cunningham’s fatheR delights in gardening.

                                                      He is a largE man and falls asleep easily.

                        Schoenberg always complaineD that his American pupils didn’t do enough work.

                       Peggy Guggenheim, SantomasO, and I were in a Venetian restaurant.

       Four years ago or maybe five, I was talkiNg with Hidekazu Yoshida.

       I never had a hat, never wore one, but recEntly was given a brown suede duck-hunting hat.

       When the depression began, I was in EurOpe. 

                Morris Graves used to have an old Ford in Seattle.

                                                            Artists Talk a lot about freedom.

                  One evening I was walking along Hollywood Boulevard, nothing much to do.

              Standing in line, Max Jacob said, givEs one the opportunity to practice patience.

              I was twelve years old. I got out my Bicycle and rode over to KFWB.

                         Once Bill de Kooning gave a Lecture in Philadelphia.

                                                    Tucker MadAwick is seventeen years old.

                                                      I went to a Concert upstairs in Town Hall.

    Sometime after my father’s death, I was talKing with Mother.

                                  Mr. Romanoff is in the Mushroom class.

                                       Betty Isaacs went shOpping at Altman’s.

       During that Greensboro concert, David TUdor and I got a little mixed up.

                       Ramakrishna spent an afternooN explaining that everything is God. 

                                             Xenia never wanTed a party to end.

               An Indian lady invited me to dinner And said Dr. Suzuki would be there.

 I once had a job washing dishes at the Blue BIrd Tea Room in Carmel, California.

                                             Once I was visitiNg my Aunt Marge.

      Earle Brown and I spent several months sPlicing magnetic tape together.

                       Muriel Errera’s house is next tO the Royal Palace in Brussels.

            On the way back from New Haven wE were driving along the Housatonic.

        David Tudor gives the impression of noT being overly fond of mushrooms.

                       However, to come back to my Story.