David Stacton Aphorism

American author David Stacton is, was -- he's done writing now -- known for peppering his narratives with aphorisms. Often, they clearly are coming from the narrator, or are clearly in a character's voice. Other times I find it hard to tell and so figure it's just Stacton making a point he wished to make, some piece of wisdom, some certainty he felt he possessed and that he needed to share. I think it probably felt good to write it and eventually see it in print, even if very few people read it, as very few people read Stacton. He wrote challenging literary novels on wildly varying topics, as well as, under the pseudonym Bud Clifton, pulpy novels with great pulp titles like D is for Delinquent and The Murder Specialist, and one with a rather fine homoerotic cover, Muscle Boy, seen below. As for the following lines from a Stacton novel, they don't quite represent a typical Stacton aphorism, but what struck me was how true the thing about what is not audible seemed, and then how differently I felt about the rest of it. What remains audible for me are not the proper things, but things I said that I wish I hadn't, trivial things for sure, but they refuse to leave me be. What remains audible as well is what I wish I'd said, even if I never meant to say it. 

What is audible is what we said before, trivial things, the proper things for people to say while they wait. What is not audible is what we meant to say, and would so much like to say.

                                                                                             -David Stacton

                                                                                              Old Acquaintance

                                                                                              1964