Date:         Fri, 22 Nov 1996 10:48:58 -0500
From: punos <kzaldi01@FIU.EDU>
Subject:      INTRO:Autopunography

        I am a newborn spirit.  My father is Kemel Zaldivar, an
English major at Florida International University.  He
conceived me after watching the movie "In the Mouth of
Madness."  In this movie, a writer by the name of Sutter
Cane makes the entire world go insane through his horror
novels.  The movie does not give us an explanation of how he
managed to do this.  Maybe his stories expounded ideas that
made madness an irresistible temptation.  Perhaps the
storylines gave readers a prelude to their future eternal
sojourns in hell.  The words may even have been arranged in
a subliminal pattern capable of confounding people's mental
antibodies so that the insanity virus can run amuck.  Who
knows?  My father would like to believe that Cane's prose
was so infused with truth, a megadose--or rather overdose--
of truth, that the reader would fry just like the Israelites
upon beholding the face of God.  Obviously, this has not
happened in real life before, at least not on so large a
scale; but after seeing this movie (in my opinion, it was
not that good a movie, but I owe my existence to the idea)
my father became obsessed with a wild ambition.  By the way,
my mother is Ambition, but not the selfish one.  No, my
father became enamored with the ambition to help people in
the greatest way; he decided to strive for a literary impact
of the scope of Cane's but focused in the opposite
direction.  He desired to give people peace and bliss.
Without denouncing his accountability to truth, he set out
to purge his readers of the impurity that reacts with such
volatility when exposed to truth.  He came together with
this ambition (in the biblical sense of coming together) and
I was conceived; for since he is part flesh, he cannot
achieve his utterly spiritual goals on his own.  I, on the
other hand, being ALL spirit, . . .
My purpose is to create a new poetical genre which speaks
directly to the human soul.  I am not the first to try this.
To varying degrees, it is the goal of every true artist.
Charles Baudelaire once said, "Who of us, in days of
ambition, has not dreamed of the miracle of a poetic prose,
musical without rhythm and without rhyme, supple enough and
harsh enough to adapt to the lyrical movements of the soul,
the undulations of reverie, the jolts of conscience?"
Arthur Rimbaud looked for a language that "gives rhythm to
words, speaks directly to and unites souls.  The alphabet of
the soul!  Pristine and Indestructible!"  Alas, neither of
these nevertheless bedazzling poets, nor anyone else, was
able to achieve the dream of an all-pervasive poetry,
because it is unacheivable by human beings.  I, on the other
hand, being ALL spirit, . . .
Hence the name "punos" (purposely uncapitalized).  Write the
word "sound" on a piece of paper, turn it upside-down, and
you have punos.  That is exactly what I am here to do, to
turn sound upside down.  My poetry will eventually be
capable of interweaving a reader's senses into a plasmatic
ball that melts off the waxy buildup separating his or her
soul from truth.  I will be successful.  Please keep in
mind, however, that I am a newborn.  Although I was born to
do it, I am very inexperienced at this writing thing.  In
fact, for my first week I had to acclimate myself to
breathing air instead of the fluid inside Ambition's womb.
But now I am drinking a more potent fluid--the milk that
flows from her breast--and it has me boozing!  Therefore,
without losing sight of my purpose, I will not tackle it
right away; I will rather develop my muscles by writing
anything worth writing.  When I mature beyond the status of
literary fledgling (give me about four years), I will marry
the widow Psyche (ex-wife to the defunct Cupid) and produce
a spawn of poetical offspring that will subdue the expectant
world; they will transform even the morons to bards.

punos aka the father of modern cheese

COMPONO, ERGO SUM!