and it is a brave old thing, even if
it is unreal
and gasping against the glass
partition between the seasons
of a doubt-
less would it be or has,
a past and present future
where lives breathe easier
and slower for god’s sake
and even if it is
real, it is still brave-
er than not being
because it is always somewhere fear
has been and always returns when
it leaves for a season
though it may be
Raining.
A deviated Glose of E.E. Cummings, 2010
Since feeling is first
what more could those forms do for you?
That you have never seen such
skin drawn out, been no
longer, lastly
in doubt.
Who pays any attention
that any another man
could be just another synaptic
pause, and for once it
somehow does not make
sense to categorize
his affections.
To the syntax of things,
never wholly matter, never
seen so many flowers before
that line came to a point and yet
I am careless to your words.
…it’s almost as if in a dream. There are times I rise so physically above my suffering, above my doubts and fears, that I am outside of me and somewhere off beyond the hill. At those moments, when all is almost lost, when the seeds of betrayal come close into contact with the soil, I am free. I could forgive anything, even myself. In my wildest aberrations of loss, the will to choose becomes my only fortitude, the only gain I have against the void. And it is not all a choice of hand that can condense to a fist; even my rage loses itself to the startling lightness of my exile. I can see, from this place where I am not in myself, every possibility of betrayal, whether it be by the world or by myself or by my loved ones and this sight, being superior to my human eyes, can look so far beyond their choices and mine that everything dissolves into that omnipresent singularity which has already lived. And if I had seen it all, I do not remember the consequence of any of it, but I do with utmost certainty, at the critical moment of everything, know, I can survive it.
Best album of 2012
Susan Sontag’s In America.
Menton Matthews will always be the soundtrack to my life.
The Dinner Party, Part II
Am I not a sound man for seeing a rainbow in the void? “If anything, it is absurd.” Well, Reason I can’t argue with you, in fact I agree! If it is foolish then let me be foolish; perhaps even mad. For I might as well throw all my cards on the deck and start anew. If I am to be shamed then let me be the most shameful creature, the most ignoble slime. I have been wrestling with this notion, yes; it has been shoving my frail little arms against the medicine cabinet for quite some time! But I refuse to succumb to the doves opus, as fated as its song may be. No, I will find another way. And perhaps I will become a king because of it.
“A king of fools breaks bread alone” Yes! They do, Fear, but let it not oppress you. A king needs only a kingdom to rule, and if these four walls are to be my only disciples then I will rule them benevolently, as any king should. A dungeon is a palace for the oppressed you see, we do not need much to strike a fancy. A place only holds so much for the soul, for the mind determines all our freedoms. I may very well suffocate in a great dance hall filled the gentry but will breathe effortlessly in any containment insofar as I am alone. “A fool has always his contentment, even a king of fools, but a lonely fool has little patience for happiness.” You are splendid Reason! Truly a gem of a guest, if I may so refer to you as. Patience is life in despite, an arch of the void that promises more than it keeps; she is a thief, my friends, and we have all been her victims. And yet for a time she was the oracle, sacred as Dodona. The illusion of serenity! Oh what a life of deceit. I prayed at her alter, in fear, in hope, in wild ecstasy and harrowing pain, and to what avail? I bound stars of Bethlehem with marigolds and orchids (even poppies!) for her; the prayers of my diligence and naiveté, my blind hope. And here I am, time to the cloud of her arms, a fool.
“Virtue not only comes with choice, my friend. If it does come, it must come with faith.” I am no longer believed of blindness, Reason. And how peculiar you are to delight in such absurdity! Such myth! Are you not so built of causation anymore? Do apples no longer fall from trees? H’m! What a scam. “Patience is only a thief when you beg her to steal from you, in which she is no longer. A man could not be more justified in waiting for something uncertain if he is active to the limit of his certainty” Oh what nonsense you are, Reason! There can be no patience under the circling of the doves; can you not hear the piercing screams? It is the call of action against all better judgments, the last end from which all actions circle down the drain. And you ask of me to act according to the nothingness on the other side? Be damned! If am to act it will be in spite of all things on this side of belief-where all certainties have become stone. I will meld a crown out of Rage and encrust the facets with Passion. I will wear ermine and waistcoats of tyrian purple. Yes, the coronation is upon us my friends! It will be a grand event, the bonfire of the sanities! Come let us mark all paths to the transfiguration, let us fashion ourselves a prophesy. Yes! And to burn all things a remembrance of this shell, the human stain; this soul, it will set the sky aflame!
