What is the meaning of life
Meaning, as in the definition of a term
Life here meaning human existence
Definition of a term, as in what I mean when I say it
When I say human existence I mean the state in which people find themselves
Everyone who lives, lived, will live
The way in which they live
Some happy, some unhappy
Mostly miserable most of the time but with enough ecstasy and joy to make them glad they exist
To make them continue to exist
The meaning of life
Life, as in sequence of chemical reactions involving namely carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen resulting in deoxyribonucleic acid and the means for it to propagate itself
Meaning, as in significance
The transformation of much of the earth’s surface into the waste products of deoxyribonucleic acid’s meanings of propagation, carbon-based organisms
The propagation as such over all of the earth’s surface
Deep into its oceans and earth and high into its atmosphere
The construction of dwellings from non-carbon materials by the most advanced propagator of deoxyribonucleic acid
Permanently altering the shape of the world
The use of such non-carbon materials to carry deoxyribonucleic acid into the void beyond the atmosphere
Perhaps someday to other heavenly bodies
To reduce their stone to earth and to make carbon soup of their seas
The meaning of life, as in a phrase containing a significance wholly apart from that contained in ‘meaning’ and that contained in ‘life’
Something to do with why people exist
A projection of the process of human reasoning, of reason, onto the inhuman world
Often involving consideration of human-like entities, who variably create, control and interact with the human and inhuman world
Why people exist, to please such entities, to serve such entities, to love such entities, to defy such entities, to be the whim of such entities
Alternately, such entities exist to satisfy the projection of reason onto the unknowable, the unreasonable
Why people exist
Why, for what purpose
People, plural of person
Exist, be, possess form
Purpose, the ad hoc construct of human reasoning, variable as human reasoning, relative to the speaker, thinker, reasoner
Dependent upon a reasoner
Why, because of what
People exist because person cannot
Person dies, person ceases to exist
People die, growth ratio of people shrinks, slightly
Existence, measured by the human ability to detect
Subjective to the human ability to detect
People exist because they detect themselves
People continue to exist because upon detecting themselves they do not destroy themselves
Surprising at times
Humans have not yet, but may ultimately, through the manipulation of certain non-carbon materials, namely sulfur, uranium, plutonium, and hydrogen, destroy themselves
Most likely without the intent to destroy themselves, or rather all of themselves
People, upon occasion, in singularities, destroy themselves
With intent to destroy themselves
Such people detect themselves, but do not wish to continue to detect themselves
Do not wish to continue to exist, for a variety of reasons, as a result of a variety of reason
Why people exist, because such people never constitute all of, or all but one of, or all but any number of one sex of, all people
People exist because of a variety of reason
Meaning, the definition of the term
Life, everyone who lives, lived, will live
Mankind
Practical definition of mankind
The world, as it is and has become, product of gravity, nuclear energy, and deoxyribonucleic acid
Carbon based life living life with meanings
Why, because they can
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Assorted Microprose on the Sea
The Dead Sea Lion
There lay at my feet a dead Sea Lion, bloated and burst. Putrid beyond even the taste of a scavenger, gathered to only by flies and sand flees. Either gases or barnacled stone had torn out its chest, ribs exposed and behind them the cavity of its once being. All through the day I heard its kind bellowing their will out on the reefs and isles I was forbidden to approach. Far out of sight their roars carried yet all that we saw of them was this stinking carcass. Approaching upwind I hardly noticed it, lying like another rotting and infested log, dark and worn by the sea, yet to be bleached sol’s whiteness. The sea threw this one back, this and no other. These lustrous beasts make their home in the waves but the sea remembers its betrayers. Those foolish souls that wandered ashore. This lion but died, it is on us that Poseidon exacts his vengeance, upon out paltry flounderings and thrashing about that the might of the ocean is known.
North Atlantic
A white, glimmering cloudscape for which we have not words, plains and mountains and canyons of vaporous solidity.
I marvel that no poet has put this spectacle to lines, to decry this fleeting wonder I am the first. This then is perhaps the last unfixable beauty, ever-shifting storms forever re-forming this panorama.
It is a thing unbound and eternally becoming, no men can ever inhabit this airy paradise. These bodiless lands will never fall into the machinations of realm and fief.
Beneath it and through it the vast ocean shines, ripples blue and capped with white until they crash unto the icebound cliffs of nordic legend. Dark and glaciated mountains chiseled by rime and gail descending into a frigid desert, cracked where wind has worn to the ice the fields and hills of snow.
High above sea and cloud we fly, spanning seas that once seemed to border the very earth. They once said that at the edge of this ocean was a mighty precipice, waters churning into the void. And now we soar over it without a thought to its power, these swells and currents that once girded the lives of men.
No Such Compass
I heard once in a bawdy tale of a compass that points to whatever one wants most. And into my mind came crowding issues of the nature of possession and objective states and the desires of dead wood and the composition of objects but all of this was soon realized to be void for there was no such device, and so its depths cannot be queried. And then from the hours spent in knowing futility, in restless laxity, came another thought. In my core there must be a deepest desire, though I cannot seem to know it. If any such compass came into my hands I would follow it, fix its course by map and divine what I could be seeking and pursue it with all vigor. Neither mountain nor man nor even the chasmic seas would halt me.
But I know not this course for I have not that compass for there is no such earthly field to guide it. Were this even not true I somehow doubt such a device’s analytic powers, if I am so unearthly blank how could iron delineate my being? And thus I am lost. Adrift. Plying my fears and my wares until Ragnarök unbinds the world.
There lay at my feet a dead Sea Lion, bloated and burst. Putrid beyond even the taste of a scavenger, gathered to only by flies and sand flees. Either gases or barnacled stone had torn out its chest, ribs exposed and behind them the cavity of its once being. All through the day I heard its kind bellowing their will out on the reefs and isles I was forbidden to approach. Far out of sight their roars carried yet all that we saw of them was this stinking carcass. Approaching upwind I hardly noticed it, lying like another rotting and infested log, dark and worn by the sea, yet to be bleached sol’s whiteness. The sea threw this one back, this and no other. These lustrous beasts make their home in the waves but the sea remembers its betrayers. Those foolish souls that wandered ashore. This lion but died, it is on us that Poseidon exacts his vengeance, upon out paltry flounderings and thrashing about that the might of the ocean is known.
North Atlantic
A white, glimmering cloudscape for which we have not words, plains and mountains and canyons of vaporous solidity.
I marvel that no poet has put this spectacle to lines, to decry this fleeting wonder I am the first. This then is perhaps the last unfixable beauty, ever-shifting storms forever re-forming this panorama.
It is a thing unbound and eternally becoming, no men can ever inhabit this airy paradise. These bodiless lands will never fall into the machinations of realm and fief.
Beneath it and through it the vast ocean shines, ripples blue and capped with white until they crash unto the icebound cliffs of nordic legend. Dark and glaciated mountains chiseled by rime and gail descending into a frigid desert, cracked where wind has worn to the ice the fields and hills of snow.
High above sea and cloud we fly, spanning seas that once seemed to border the very earth. They once said that at the edge of this ocean was a mighty precipice, waters churning into the void. And now we soar over it without a thought to its power, these swells and currents that once girded the lives of men.
No Such Compass
I heard once in a bawdy tale of a compass that points to whatever one wants most. And into my mind came crowding issues of the nature of possession and objective states and the desires of dead wood and the composition of objects but all of this was soon realized to be void for there was no such device, and so its depths cannot be queried. And then from the hours spent in knowing futility, in restless laxity, came another thought. In my core there must be a deepest desire, though I cannot seem to know it. If any such compass came into my hands I would follow it, fix its course by map and divine what I could be seeking and pursue it with all vigor. Neither mountain nor man nor even the chasmic seas would halt me.
But I know not this course for I have not that compass for there is no such earthly field to guide it. Were this even not true I somehow doubt such a device’s analytic powers, if I am so unearthly blank how could iron delineate my being? And thus I am lost. Adrift. Plying my fears and my wares until Ragnarök unbinds the world.
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Boy and the Petrel
There once was a child born in the verdancy of a warm and gentle earth. And he slept on the shore of the sea. There came a time when he awoke and saw that all was askew, tasted that the water was salty and felt that the stones were rough. So did he flee into the woods and vales and dwelt among the people there, who lived their world a simple and unaltering path. He grew fat on their fare, sick with their drink, for he had not been born among them, though in the end of it they too could not stomach their being. So did he flee to the sea, to its wild ferocity and earthgrinding power. And into it he leapt and he swam until he came to a rock and there he rested and looked to the shore and saw that he had gone only a little way, and could have but waited for the tide to bring up a bridge of stone to his promontory. And he was cold and hungry and thirsty and above all else he was afraid, for he did not know where to go.
Seeing him there, so lonely and windblown, Ulmo, lord of the seas, sent to him a petrel, who alighted on the rock and spoke to him,
“Why are you here all alone?” it asked and he answered,
“None of the men of the valley would come.”
“And why was that?” the petrel asked again.
“Because they were cowards, they saw the sea and were afraid.”
“And you were not afraid?”
“I am, but I mastered my fear.”
“The why do you sit and weep?” At this the boy was angry, but he saw the lies of his soul. And he petrel spoke again,
“Did you think them utter fools, and yourself above them that you should search out what they fear? Do you know why they fear the sea? For it is why you too have not strayed from this rock”
And again the boy was angry and he answered,
“I stay only because I have not yet decided in which direction to swim.” To this the petrel said,
“The ocean is trackless, there are no paths for you to follow, swim north, west, south or east and you will either drown or be washed again upon this shore. You, who are young, should not scorn the paths of the forest men, for they live and pass their blood unto the generations to come and fear with good cause the deep waters of the world. you may live among them, or among others, but Ulmo may not spare you again if you cast yourself into the waves.”
And upon hearing this the boy wept one final time and took himself up and walked back to the forest and lived and died among the men of the wood.
And the petrel took flight and soared high above the stormy shore until it could see the light of Arien upon its dark feathers.
Seeing him there, so lonely and windblown, Ulmo, lord of the seas, sent to him a petrel, who alighted on the rock and spoke to him,
“Why are you here all alone?” it asked and he answered,
“None of the men of the valley would come.”
“And why was that?” the petrel asked again.
“Because they were cowards, they saw the sea and were afraid.”
“And you were not afraid?”
“I am, but I mastered my fear.”
“The why do you sit and weep?” At this the boy was angry, but he saw the lies of his soul. And he petrel spoke again,
“Did you think them utter fools, and yourself above them that you should search out what they fear? Do you know why they fear the sea? For it is why you too have not strayed from this rock”
And again the boy was angry and he answered,
“I stay only because I have not yet decided in which direction to swim.” To this the petrel said,
“The ocean is trackless, there are no paths for you to follow, swim north, west, south or east and you will either drown or be washed again upon this shore. You, who are young, should not scorn the paths of the forest men, for they live and pass their blood unto the generations to come and fear with good cause the deep waters of the world. you may live among them, or among others, but Ulmo may not spare you again if you cast yourself into the waves.”
And upon hearing this the boy wept one final time and took himself up and walked back to the forest and lived and died among the men of the wood.
And the petrel took flight and soared high above the stormy shore until it could see the light of Arien upon its dark feathers.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
London Poems
Westminster Crypt
Gothic halls and pilastered colonnades,
chapels cluttered with the tombs of vile Anglo kings.
Visages engraved in stone,
Latin blessings for the tyrants of the centuries.
And through it,
among ancient buttresses and underneath high rib vaulting,
sunlit by high clerestory windows,
a murmuring unholy mob,
faithless and faceless as the moldering.
Blaspheming this place as the dead stone pagans never could.
Cloisters where once walked Benedictines in their meditations
now lined with laymen fat and blabbering,
in whose sight this temple - a mausoleum.
Monument to a dead god and his slaughtered son,
to an age of dim ceremony and rituals whispered from sacred texts.
To a time and a place long since fallen into the earth,
so that this dwelling place of god is made a dripping crypt
Cathedral Light
The land here is flat,
far to the horizon without mountain or sea;
as if for not but the cloud wall my eyes could peer into infinity.
From high atop this byzantine spire I see all the paths of man,
cutting across the earth and sky.
And again, ringed by storms approaching,
sun swallowed up by that grey Olympus above the earth,
unto me there comes a hope.
Some divine love in the dim and reeking chambers,
searching me out and undoing all my barred gates.
That here he should come to me again,
that in this place should I see that by which the world is righted.
Mind and soul rent open and poured into the stone gutter
The sodden candle I was so desperately attempting to light
washed beyond Styx in a bloody flood.
Gothic halls and pilastered colonnades,
chapels cluttered with the tombs of vile Anglo kings.
Visages engraved in stone,
Latin blessings for the tyrants of the centuries.
And through it,
among ancient buttresses and underneath high rib vaulting,
sunlit by high clerestory windows,
a murmuring unholy mob,
faithless and faceless as the moldering.
Blaspheming this place as the dead stone pagans never could.
Cloisters where once walked Benedictines in their meditations
now lined with laymen fat and blabbering,
in whose sight this temple - a mausoleum.
Monument to a dead god and his slaughtered son,
to an age of dim ceremony and rituals whispered from sacred texts.
To a time and a place long since fallen into the earth,
so that this dwelling place of god is made a dripping crypt
Cathedral Light
The land here is flat,
far to the horizon without mountain or sea;
as if for not but the cloud wall my eyes could peer into infinity.
From high atop this byzantine spire I see all the paths of man,
cutting across the earth and sky.
And again, ringed by storms approaching,
sun swallowed up by that grey Olympus above the earth,
unto me there comes a hope.
Some divine love in the dim and reeking chambers,
searching me out and undoing all my barred gates.
That here he should come to me again,
that in this place should I see that by which the world is righted.
Mind and soul rent open and poured into the stone gutter
The sodden candle I was so desperately attempting to light
washed beyond Styx in a bloody flood.
Friday, October 23, 2009
New York – Idiocy, Luck and Caution
Upon arriving in New York I was greeted by the twisting labyrinth of Penn Station. It turns out that two stories up from the platform, in a corner that seems disproportionally small, is the baggage claim. In my defense I’m fairly sure I was not the only one confused. After another 20 minutes of wandering I managed to locate the subway and after only another 10 minutes I managed to purchase a metro card. This was the beginning of my battle with public transportation, which I have proved remarkably obtuse and unobservant in understanding, fortunately I have also been cautious, lucky and well planned, kudos to Google Maps and it’s public transportation function. On the not-so-lovely side my hostel turned out to be right in the middle Harlem, I’m believe at least 40% of the people I passed were laughing at me, my backpack looked pretty ridiculous. On guy I passed asked me how I was doing, seemed incredulous that I was fine, then said something about “we will overcome”, I’m not sure how my New York experience could have been made any more stereotypical.
New York Hostel 99 was very clearly three apartments that had been crudely retrofitted to serve as a hotel; meaning that they threw a bunch of cheap bunk beds is every available room, taped signs all over, turned the closets into “lockers” that appeared as though they had been broken open several times. Pros include the presence of a bed and free breakfast the next morning, cons include the water tasting like chlorine, the rooms being too hot, snoring roommates, having the top bunk, and breakfast not be served until 9:00. Because of the above factors, as well as my bed being slightly too short, I did not go to sleep until about 2:00.
The following events are rather muddled, and several theories will be presented. Sometime after 3:00 I woke up and managed to go back to sleep, to what extent I was asleep is debatable, as I was in a state I would normally associate with having a high fever. At 4:15 I woke up with my sinuses in agony, which faded when I got up and then finally disappeared after I left. My immediate thought was that I was allergic to something in the room, it did smell rather odd and the pain seemed to worsen when I was coved with the blankets, another theory, one which accounts for the hallucinatory dreams I was having earlier, is that I have caught some of the flu Emily and my father had before I left. On the train I considered the same ailment when I felt like complete crap the first morning, which would imply that whatever I’m fighting off I am less able to do so after only a couple hours of sleep.
Regardless of all of this after I left and began to walk downtown toward the Museum of Modern Art I started feeling much better. After a brief moment of panic when it that appeared like I might not be able to check my backpack I proceeded to explore the MoMA for approximately 2.5 hours, I don’t think that I did it justice, but by the end I was very tired of standing up (I had walked 5 miles from the hostel) and was nervous about reaching the airport on time, which I did, as in I reaching it 3 hours before my flight was going to depart. Just as I was thinking that I had finally gotten through security without issue they detected a highly suspect unidentified (soon to be) flying object in my carry-on backpack, which turned out to be my laptop cord and converter/surge protector thing.
My conclusions from the New York experience are as such, I am bad at figuring out new, transportation-related, scenarios, however, I can combat this effectively my giving myself plenty of time, allowing me to indulge my impulse to be overly cautious without undue stress. Also it appears that walking is far more enjoyable and stress-free than public transportation, what I have plenty of is time and that is the only real difference
New York Hostel 99 was very clearly three apartments that had been crudely retrofitted to serve as a hotel; meaning that they threw a bunch of cheap bunk beds is every available room, taped signs all over, turned the closets into “lockers” that appeared as though they had been broken open several times. Pros include the presence of a bed and free breakfast the next morning, cons include the water tasting like chlorine, the rooms being too hot, snoring roommates, having the top bunk, and breakfast not be served until 9:00. Because of the above factors, as well as my bed being slightly too short, I did not go to sleep until about 2:00.
The following events are rather muddled, and several theories will be presented. Sometime after 3:00 I woke up and managed to go back to sleep, to what extent I was asleep is debatable, as I was in a state I would normally associate with having a high fever. At 4:15 I woke up with my sinuses in agony, which faded when I got up and then finally disappeared after I left. My immediate thought was that I was allergic to something in the room, it did smell rather odd and the pain seemed to worsen when I was coved with the blankets, another theory, one which accounts for the hallucinatory dreams I was having earlier, is that I have caught some of the flu Emily and my father had before I left. On the train I considered the same ailment when I felt like complete crap the first morning, which would imply that whatever I’m fighting off I am less able to do so after only a couple hours of sleep.
Regardless of all of this after I left and began to walk downtown toward the Museum of Modern Art I started feeling much better. After a brief moment of panic when it that appeared like I might not be able to check my backpack I proceeded to explore the MoMA for approximately 2.5 hours, I don’t think that I did it justice, but by the end I was very tired of standing up (I had walked 5 miles from the hostel) and was nervous about reaching the airport on time, which I did, as in I reaching it 3 hours before my flight was going to depart. Just as I was thinking that I had finally gotten through security without issue they detected a highly suspect unidentified (soon to be) flying object in my carry-on backpack, which turned out to be my laptop cord and converter/surge protector thing.
My conclusions from the New York experience are as such, I am bad at figuring out new, transportation-related, scenarios, however, I can combat this effectively my giving myself plenty of time, allowing me to indulge my impulse to be overly cautious without undue stress. Also it appears that walking is far more enjoyable and stress-free than public transportation, what I have plenty of is time and that is the only real difference
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Unpillared
please note that the line spacing is specific to the word document and thus some elements of the poem bellow are not as they were intended to be.
Unpillared
Within some great ox of industry rumbling through the land,
as an earthquake the sleeping forest-
In the night the mountains are black;
men sling lights from their lintels,
attempting to throw sight into the moorless voiding darkness.
These yellowed pools shudder past in a haste,
island ages gone nearly afore they can be sorted from the brightness
Dawn comes a sudden misting glow
Mounds of stone passing in and out of fog as morning dreams of a mind long awake.
Hills settling unto a Teton steppe
Trees dryly twisted and dark as if charred by the unfettered sun in that empty expanse.
Dry grass and sage and crisply browning aspen.
All things etched and cracked,
the chilling wind has leached out their every verdancy.
Eroded ziggurats rise out of the prairie, stained with the blood of the gods of this scrubland.
A metallic groundstone scent.
Dry-rot town in arrested decay.
Heaps of railway slag rusting.
Brackish and muddy seeps cutting - greyly - through the sod and clay.
Salt blight.
Dimming light.
Horizon sky.
Plains open and unpillared far away north until bound by tundra and glacier and sea
Unpillared
Within some great ox of industry rumbling through the land,
as an earthquake the sleeping forest-
In the night the mountains are black;
men sling lights from their lintels,
attempting to throw sight into the moorless voiding darkness.
These yellowed pools shudder past in a haste,
island ages gone nearly afore they can be sorted from the brightness
Dawn comes a sudden misting glow
Mounds of stone passing in and out of fog as morning dreams of a mind long awake.
Hills settling unto a Teton steppe
Trees dryly twisted and dark as if charred by the unfettered sun in that empty expanse.
Dry grass and sage and crisply browning aspen.
All things etched and cracked,
the chilling wind has leached out their every verdancy.
Eroded ziggurats rise out of the prairie, stained with the blood of the gods of this scrubland.
A metallic groundstone scent.
Dry-rot town in arrested decay.
Heaps of railway slag rusting.
Brackish and muddy seeps cutting - greyly - through the sod and clay.
Salt blight.
Dimming light.
Horizon sky.
Plains open and unpillared far away north until bound by tundra and glacier and sea
Amtrak: Across North America at 79 mph
Current Location: New York Hostel 99
I'm not going to post my entire trip log for the time i was on the train because it is rather mundane. it's a train, you sit there and stare out the window. the following is a summary.
it's hard to sleep on a train. it's hard to sleep when upset. it's hard to sleep when nervous. it's hard to sleep while some stupid redneck is bitching about his job four seats up. i got maybe 3 hours of sleep the first night, never for more than 45 minutes at a time.
Cities of the Plain was unusual and unexpected, Candide was hilarious, Thus Spake Zarathustra continues to blow my mind.
total number of words spoken on the train, not including returning a phone call, could not have been more than 20.
I'm not going to post my entire trip log for the time i was on the train because it is rather mundane. it's a train, you sit there and stare out the window. the following is a summary.
it's hard to sleep on a train. it's hard to sleep when upset. it's hard to sleep when nervous. it's hard to sleep while some stupid redneck is bitching about his job four seats up. i got maybe 3 hours of sleep the first night, never for more than 45 minutes at a time.
Cities of the Plain was unusual and unexpected, Candide was hilarious, Thus Spake Zarathustra continues to blow my mind.
total number of words spoken on the train, not including returning a phone call, could not have been more than 20.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Blood of the Age
Who shall now fight the Idiot God,
who shall fall into the fiery abyss?
Who shall be Cain and Kucheláen
and hate the will of creation?
Be thou removed from this garden verdant,
bastard and villain,
a shade among men.
Be thrown from the land that was given.
Who shall know the path of man;
see the hunter and his son,
see blood pass through the age.
Deny the mind of the jealous one.
Yet icy doom shall rind this earth
those un-elect must know but fear,
the archon of the most hallowed legion
shall bend all who of the voice of man may hear
Why now hate the will of god,
why now stand unbent?
Why abandon the kingdom of gold
for the flaming seas of Valkolpynt
That man, in a fool’s instant, might,
ascend the thrown of the earth;
don the helm of vile Ek’n
and wreck bloody war on he who would rest his heel upon us.
who shall fall into the fiery abyss?
Who shall be Cain and Kucheláen
and hate the will of creation?
Be thou removed from this garden verdant,
bastard and villain,
a shade among men.
Be thrown from the land that was given.
Who shall know the path of man;
see the hunter and his son,
see blood pass through the age.
Deny the mind of the jealous one.
Yet icy doom shall rind this earth
those un-elect must know but fear,
the archon of the most hallowed legion
shall bend all who of the voice of man may hear
Why now hate the will of god,
why now stand unbent?
Why abandon the kingdom of gold
for the flaming seas of Valkolpynt
That man, in a fool’s instant, might,
ascend the thrown of the earth;
don the helm of vile Ek’n
and wreck bloody war on he who would rest his heel upon us.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Plan
After a weekend of rest and reflection (no, I didn't spend the whole time playing Warcraft III and re-reading Harry Potter 7, really) I have finally decided on a course of action.
On October the 18th I will be departing Seattle on a train bound for New York, upon arriving I will board a plane for Dublin, Ireland, where my trek will begin. I will then walk as far as my savings allow or until I reach Israel (probably utilizing Europe's cheap commuter airlines for the crossing of the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas, should I get that far), which ever comes sooner; at which point I will either A) return to Seattle and find a job to save money for my next venture or B) find employment where-ever I end up and do likewise.
subsequent trips may include
- joining the French Foreign Legion
- backpacking through Scandinavia and/or the Alps
- wandering into the wilderness of the Mackenzie Mountain lowlands and living as a hunter-gatherer
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Review pt.2 - Prose
On Choice
In the false statement ‘you have a choice’ the problem is not ‘choice’ but ‘you’. There is no you, separate from the process of causation, to make a choice. The issue is not whether one has a choice but whether there is a choice to be had. Even if there was a portion of the human consciousness set apart from the biological aspects of determinism that entity would be useless as a decision maker without a data source and could not construct choices on any other basis. Given constant data any ‘you’ will always make the same ‘choice’
Do you have a choice? Yes, but only one.
If the biological makeup of our parents is considered an aspect of environment, all that we are is a product of the psychological ‘nurture’, nature is but a part of that.
Or more concisely, we are the product of that past, brought here by an irresistible current.
Will of God or whatever you want to call it.
If you trust God then don’t worry about it, if you don’t then forget it, there’s nothing you can do anyways.
There is no rebellion, no existence apart from the will of God. But given what exists, and ergo what is the will of God, this statement does not have the significance that might be assigned to it.
I keep waiting for this to mean something but it never will, my premise states that there is no ‘I’, therefore this can have NO practical significance.
End conclusion – go, live you life. fuck this kind of questioning
In the false statement ‘you have a choice’ the problem is not ‘choice’ but ‘you’. There is no you, separate from the process of causation, to make a choice. The issue is not whether one has a choice but whether there is a choice to be had. Even if there was a portion of the human consciousness set apart from the biological aspects of determinism that entity would be useless as a decision maker without a data source and could not construct choices on any other basis. Given constant data any ‘you’ will always make the same ‘choice’
Do you have a choice? Yes, but only one.
If the biological makeup of our parents is considered an aspect of environment, all that we are is a product of the psychological ‘nurture’, nature is but a part of that.
Or more concisely, we are the product of that past, brought here by an irresistible current.
Will of God or whatever you want to call it.
If you trust God then don’t worry about it, if you don’t then forget it, there’s nothing you can do anyways.
There is no rebellion, no existence apart from the will of God. But given what exists, and ergo what is the will of God, this statement does not have the significance that might be assigned to it.
I keep waiting for this to mean something but it never will, my premise states that there is no ‘I’, therefore this can have NO practical significance.
End conclusion – go, live you life. fuck this kind of questioning
On Art
These are several, somewhat unrelated statements about art and its modern presentation.
- Every artist (and quite a few people who are not but somehow still think they are entitled to) have there own view on the relationship of art, purpose and function (and probably a number of related subjects I have never considered); their own way things make sense. I don’t care about their views, I see nothing wrong with my own and until I do I refuse to consider and will attempt to avoid any other view. This is a, probably in vain, effort to maintain sanity.
- Art does not relate to function in a direct way; every man-made object has a degree of art and a degree of function. The average card table has a great degree of function and a very small degree of art, the average post-modern sculpture has a large degree of art and a small degree of function. I will reiterate in case the point has not been made, no object is either artistic or functional; every object has a degree of both. This is most clear with architecture but requires some explaining with other forms of art. The essential, historical purpose of art is decoration, self-expression and “making a point” came later, therefore the ‘object’ that has a degree of art and of function is always more than just the art. For example a painting is a decoration of a wall, the wall is the essential object, it has structure (framing, plaster, etc.) and art (a painting). In the case of sculpture the issue becomes even more complicated. The origin of sculpture was bas-relief (going back to mud stuck to the walls of caves next to the chalk drawings of nude women and cattle, therefore sculpture too, is essentially part of a wall. In the case of bas relief and the caryatid this is quite simple but as sculpture became more free standing and ultimately in the round the principle becomes highly abstracted; for this theory to be maintained non-bas-relief sculpture must be thought of as bas-relief without the wall.
- Modern art is all well and good until one encounters something with such a difference of tone that it nearly brings one to tears. The modern museum is dead, both literally and figuratively; for a museum to display the art of artists and patrons long deceased is logical, it functions as a history museum, the history of art instead of the history of politics or science. But for contemporary artists to place their work directly into a museum is disgusting, it is a welcome admission that their art has no place in the world, that it is so dysfunctional that all that can be done with it is put next in the line of the art of the past. But of course if this is all one knows it is simply standard, modern man experiences art in the museum, it has no other realistic context and therefore causes no distress. To illustrate why I have been so repulsed I will share an experience. At the Museum of Glass in Tacoma there is currently and exhibit on the work of Preston Singletary, a Tlingit glassworker whose work, though using the European techniques, imitates traditional Tlingit art in both its subject and texture. Because of his use of human hair and other fragile materials with the glass the whole exhibit was dimly lit and I was struck at two points, one in an alcove with several masks, enhanced by small, lit screens behind them and the other in a room with a video montage of the natural world and ambient sounds and music playing, with how the exhibit felt more like a temple than a museum. The whole place had a life, a deep, ancient reverberance that was completely unmatched by the cold, sterile world of modern and post-modern art. Historically this is perfectly logical, art has always began in the places of worship, private patronage has never been enough to fully sustain an artistic community, what has occurred in the last few hundred years as the church has increasingly failed to support art is that museums have flourished but art as a trade has died, successful modern artists are those whose work functions the best in museums, work that is shocking, unique, and thought-provoking, in short – what people will pay to see. This explains the abrupt decline of respect for tradition in art, the self-centeredness and pretentiousness of artists and, quite frankly, the unpleasant appearance of most contemporary art. The difference is akin exactly that as between an art film and a major motion picture, one is art for the sake of art (essentially meaning art for the sake of the artist), the other is using art to achieve a goal – entertainment, which is not as shallow a thing as might be implied. End personal conclusion – I need to find somewhere to put The Whips and Scorns of Time (this huge work of art I did for a school project), I used to fantasize about some museum wanting it, now I hope I would not give to them for a million dollars.
These are several, somewhat unrelated statements about art and its modern presentation.
- Every artist (and quite a few people who are not but somehow still think they are entitled to) have there own view on the relationship of art, purpose and function (and probably a number of related subjects I have never considered); their own way things make sense. I don’t care about their views, I see nothing wrong with my own and until I do I refuse to consider and will attempt to avoid any other view. This is a, probably in vain, effort to maintain sanity.
- Art does not relate to function in a direct way; every man-made object has a degree of art and a degree of function. The average card table has a great degree of function and a very small degree of art, the average post-modern sculpture has a large degree of art and a small degree of function. I will reiterate in case the point has not been made, no object is either artistic or functional; every object has a degree of both. This is most clear with architecture but requires some explaining with other forms of art. The essential, historical purpose of art is decoration, self-expression and “making a point” came later, therefore the ‘object’ that has a degree of art and of function is always more than just the art. For example a painting is a decoration of a wall, the wall is the essential object, it has structure (framing, plaster, etc.) and art (a painting). In the case of sculpture the issue becomes even more complicated. The origin of sculpture was bas-relief (going back to mud stuck to the walls of caves next to the chalk drawings of nude women and cattle, therefore sculpture too, is essentially part of a wall. In the case of bas relief and the caryatid this is quite simple but as sculpture became more free standing and ultimately in the round the principle becomes highly abstracted; for this theory to be maintained non-bas-relief sculpture must be thought of as bas-relief without the wall.
- Modern art is all well and good until one encounters something with such a difference of tone that it nearly brings one to tears. The modern museum is dead, both literally and figuratively; for a museum to display the art of artists and patrons long deceased is logical, it functions as a history museum, the history of art instead of the history of politics or science. But for contemporary artists to place their work directly into a museum is disgusting, it is a welcome admission that their art has no place in the world, that it is so dysfunctional that all that can be done with it is put next in the line of the art of the past. But of course if this is all one knows it is simply standard, modern man experiences art in the museum, it has no other realistic context and therefore causes no distress. To illustrate why I have been so repulsed I will share an experience. At the Museum of Glass in Tacoma there is currently and exhibit on the work of Preston Singletary, a Tlingit glassworker whose work, though using the European techniques, imitates traditional Tlingit art in both its subject and texture. Because of his use of human hair and other fragile materials with the glass the whole exhibit was dimly lit and I was struck at two points, one in an alcove with several masks, enhanced by small, lit screens behind them and the other in a room with a video montage of the natural world and ambient sounds and music playing, with how the exhibit felt more like a temple than a museum. The whole place had a life, a deep, ancient reverberance that was completely unmatched by the cold, sterile world of modern and post-modern art. Historically this is perfectly logical, art has always began in the places of worship, private patronage has never been enough to fully sustain an artistic community, what has occurred in the last few hundred years as the church has increasingly failed to support art is that museums have flourished but art as a trade has died, successful modern artists are those whose work functions the best in museums, work that is shocking, unique, and thought-provoking, in short – what people will pay to see. This explains the abrupt decline of respect for tradition in art, the self-centeredness and pretentiousness of artists and, quite frankly, the unpleasant appearance of most contemporary art. The difference is akin exactly that as between an art film and a major motion picture, one is art for the sake of art (essentially meaning art for the sake of the artist), the other is using art to achieve a goal – entertainment, which is not as shallow a thing as might be implied. End personal conclusion – I need to find somewhere to put The Whips and Scorns of Time (this huge work of art I did for a school project), I used to fantasize about some museum wanting it, now I hope I would not give to them for a million dollars.
Review pt.1 - Poetry
A Child in the Verdant Hills
or
17 Poems on Ice, Night, the Forest and the Sea
God Intended Darkness
I am.
Within those words is the assertion of my existence to a skeptical race. Offering no deduction I proceed to live, sleep, eat and drink and carry on in misery.
In the industrial brightness of night I now contend with this fallacy. The fleshy spheres that compose my rectified mind fail to fully intersect and so my doubt persists.
Consists.
Unfists its gauntlet and releases the rods of my pretension.
Though in the sunlit hours I walk from misty peaks to vales dull and warm in the deep and silent nocturne, when all about me are in the throes of regeneration, I forget the taste of dawn. All the earth is metallic and ticking and lit.
Lit when God intended darkness.
Lit when all is to be lunar and stardomed and forged of cold shadow.
I recall hating the night for the leering void of its blackness yet always I knew that in this fiendland’s greatest glory from the east salvation would come.
But for this most autistic of nights there may be no breaking. Each dim and fetal sun is stillborn afore its fiery depth may be reckoned.
Like all our milking kind men are a communal animal, and thus this fearful isolation is most unnatural.
Where is my tribe that I would run in gaiety?
Where is my mate, the one creature to whom I am free?
Where are my children to carry my blood into eternity?
Lost or fled or never were.
We are a strange people, holding our lonely pleasures above the lives of our offspring.
Who am I to be among them, these persistent ghosts of pre-war flounderings?
Wherefore did I come to be placed here in the curled soul of the race?
Why am I to be, to think?
To carry on through the steely night.
Spasm of Mind
I circle around some endlessly repeating idiot thought
The notes call,
a flowing of the layers piercing sediment mind.
Lash out strict spasms.
Voice contorts into sounds never heard
so familiar.
Detritus about,
bits of existence strewn.
Through the walls they talk on, fragmented lines only a madman could follow.
I taste disgust in my mouth,
elemental repugnance.
The future bears down a horseman suddenly upon me,
cringing cower he passes.
Joy a gangrene limb and all happiness bleached away;
contentment running out like blood I wish I could bleed.
Like emotion I swallow.
No comfort yet no agony.
Splinters I never saw imbed.
Only forgotten.
A desperate plea a stupid outcry,
a boy too blindly slow to see the paths in multitude.
All others root out some life to live but he is too weak,
too pitifully weak.
And they tire of him,
depart from him.
And are right to, he will never move from his sole-worn crossroads.
Die stupid boy
See this stone – swallow and die
See this knife – slash your vein and die
See this cliff – leap, fall and die
Anything and but die
And at hearing this they come running, spewing retorts.
Saying much without saying a thing; altering nothing.
I resolve that the boy may live,
but only from fear
No cause for this extension, no reason
Parasite of a paradox burrowing deeper,
sowing its poison,
sapping both will and mind.
I do not know how to wrench it from me
I do not know how to be free
There is no escape
No way out
Run boy, and die
I am coming
Child
I, a child
in the verdant hills?
Nostalgia and spent grains,
it was -
A terrifying place.
Agony and shame,
it was red lights in the long night
Child, fearful child,
thank God you did not see this
before you.
Child, oh child,
how can you run?
Your home is so green,
paradiso of rains,
purest of elixirs pouring from the sky.
What beast have you found
at the heart of the river
that you would flee with such vitriol
and set your footprints alight?
What horror must you see
at the corners of your vision?
What fear of mighty fiend must consume you?
Alas for you, Child
Alas for your dreadful fears
Alas for the dreams of your fathers
Child in his arms
So safe
Forgotten world -
now so dangerous.
Towering walls like ill-begotten
grave’s end
road’s end
valley’s end
hell’s end
child’s end
Chronometric Cannibalism
Dull horror fades,
life creeps back in
Roots entwine charred earth
“sucking life out of death, the forest eats itself and lives forever”
The water of burst roots has put out the flame,
but time is the only healer
Shame may fade,
but only time can cool the embers
Where is death but now?
The plant in the broken pot cannot live long without a master
The water flows away
and the sun desiccates its roots
What is love, this wall?
What is joy, an illusion?
Misinterpreted words of the mystical haunt me
Haunt him
Haunt us
Haunt them
Haunt the informal you standing behind my shoulder, peering down
What do you see?
Life has never been better, never been worse
A boy in a freefall,
afraid to grip the edge of the chasm
A tiny shoot gazing at the giants,
not seeing that they are beyond the walls of probability
A man born a thousand years
too late
Tired yet so very young
Time comes and goes
despair, anxiety, joy
all of these pass away
shoots bleach pale in the sun
Each leaf withered
Broken
Falling
Rotten
Nutrient back to the root
I eat myself and live forever when all I wish to do is pass in a flame of glory
To flare up, glimpse the sun, and die before time can work its slow decay
Slow asymptote to mediocrity
Time sweet time
Go now,
and leave me in peace
My Eyes
Slow assault of history bears down.
A wall so vast I can but scream that throat jarring silence as I gaze into the terrible minutia.
The voices I have trusted have yet to show their colors,
but I know the contrast I will see when at last the disembodied voices are made flesh.
And some eerie cymbal tears my thoughts, replacing them with naught but itself.
I know not what it is I have heard,
from where that melting began,
whence that beautiful harmony struck that I should be so laid open.
I watch, as if from afar, as my mind turns toward a candle
and finds a flame so bright nothing can be seen.
My eyes seem to flicker, as if to open as never before,
and see a structure in the entropy,
some new sight uniting these snapshot sensations.
But my mind settles, the erratic searching falling into a steady beat,
vision sinking back into greyscale normality
disgusting sick slime monotone allowing for none of these dreams.
And the rules of science prevail.
Until another set of eyes is found to gouge out these would be blindness –
in the absence of sight the mind reigns free,
calling forth images to suit its every fancy.
And thus this animal must be purged from me,
all anesthetic bled out.
For these scales must be torn from my eyes,
these lids opened.
And perhaps then –
perhaps I shall see.
Skies Roll By
Suspended as I leap
Caught, as it were
Time decays
Memory distant -
Far flung from me
Drones of dilemma emanate
A shake of the head and a laugh-scream circling above
Inexplicable irreconcilable irrational buzz
swept aside
A bubble in time
Skies roll by as I turn my head and ponder
To what end, any end - no end - blasted fuck void end
end this, end that, end everything
no don’t dare
endocrine never-the-less despondent
end end
end
Is there such a thing as a beautiful insanity?
The man who thinks himself a bit of glass may still laugh and sing at his own idiosyncratic eclecticism
Vision snaps back
Tor rising from the long grey sea
At last on the shore of the
Socratic inchanted Veil Of Israel
sea sea
sea
craven crow clamor
To the sea I come
To the sea I go
What’s the difference I for so
Jokers laugh
Jokers scream
Jokers leap and fall
fall and die
but not I
Frozen, as it were
As it always was
One day she took a chisel and told me spring would come,
but perhaps it was all a trick of the ice
A crystal in my mind
A bubble so quickly burst
First, durst, worst
Cursed
Curse a day, curse a god
Curse a leg with which I jumped
But would could not die
Never die, never peace
Piece of mind, piece of soul, piece of heart
Cut out and tossed
Fumbled and dropped in the muck
A city is far beneath my feet
Yet it draws not closer
So I rhyme and reason
Play the maestro and the poet
Just trying to scratch out a simple tune because I cannot break my neck
Olympian Tempest
Grey ocean, grey sky
Songs flit in my mind amid the crashing of the sea.
Grey waves, grey stone
Memories of a future that never occurred,
like a madman I awoke and found the world I had created immaterial,
had never been, will never be.
I have seen a thistle on a hill,
common enough, yet utterly beautiful,
noble, yet so bitterly unreachable.
Thorns sink deep as I tentatively reach,
neither can I grasp the flower nor withdraw my hand,
forever imprisoned by a memory that could never be
A grey wall forms,
long and slow advance from the horizon
I, alone on this thistle-ringed tor, wait.
Wait for the storm to come and the earth to renew itself,
to bring life to this monotone –
Life abundant.
But though this forest will live eternal in the harmony of cannibalism
I will never breathe even a particle of that peace.
For like some fairy-tale cursed anti-hero I pain and wail,
pledge vengeance and bring a ready sword.
Yet in truth –
bitterness is a callous to dull this life, grating and grey.
The odium of the hated cannot bring agony,
so to this world,
this life,
this God,
I give my loathing;
for a grey world may be blackened by fire but light can never bring purity.
Still Human
So I bled myself out,
drained the anesthetic,
woke up and looked around me;
cold and shivering,
clammy and pale,
faint but conscious.
I stand and see again the desolation,
remember why I laid myself down
why I took their medicine,
put their needle in my arm.
I reach back for the numbing fluid
but recall the nightmares that engulfed me.
The horror that followed the ecstasy
spread thin to a slow and deep ache
I once saw a web ad for a pain-inducing drug
marketed to those who wanted only to feel, feel anything.
I almost laughed.
It was almost a joke.
It is an incomplete thought I have voiced,
a cave to whose end I have not crawled.
My purge is incomplete, needles still within reach
and when I near sleep I long,
nearly cry out.
Still human,
damn it,
Still human
Gelid Maiden
Walking through an ice-bound forest,
rimy snow crackles like frost-bitten earth,
vapor flows low among the trunks and mounds.
Silence of winter, breathe fills my ears,
alone in this razor beauty,
cold and dry, gelid tendrils reaching.
In my dream you walked beside me,
your wire-frame body close.
Shake my head, clear the image, and repeat the incantation
…a human’s biological response to beauty…
is of no avail
Awareness cannot numb hope,
though a twisted hope it may be.
I wish and pine as I wander,
Desiring but that I have described -
a body nearby
Breeze whisks frozen mist from the treetops,
shiver and shudder, alone in muted silence.
Apparitions dissipate;
an unspoken desire echoing into nothingness.
The Knifing Sun
Haze before the mountains,
sun burning through,
burning beyond all eyes can see.
Burning into the mind it’s dim morning knife.
Piercing deep through fog its rapier strikes jugular,
spills my blood on the frost
Knife and then the crushing mace
The unknowing elegance,
splinter ghost,
icy hammer smashing any sane skull to pieces
Tear out my eyes, sever my ears
Maim me that I would be numb
Destroy me
Destroy them
Destroy her
Send me farther than all pain can follow
Send me to that knifing sun that I might be flayed open and burned to cosmic ash
Come oh chasm of Sol, and swallow me
Let me taste your sweet oblivion
Botticelian Thaw
Oh you ice-bound girl,
I see you in the garden, chisel in hand.
Through the rimy haze I make out a ghost,
a splinter of you I have conjured up;
formed out of air to shape this frozen flesh.
Years ago a woman I loved told me spring would come,
foolish child,
the glancing light may drive me mad but the earth will never right itself.
In this storm-ringed place I see your shadow a star below the horizon;
whether you intend to arise or sink away out of vision
you have turned the clouds all orange and fiery.
A memory of warmth from a bygone simple age.
The fractures in my mind all point to your image,
All that an onlooker can see.
Though where your soul resides, I cannot know.
Oh vision of Botticelli,
all I can tell of you I adore.
Dredge up my soul from a thousand miles east and let it feed on this fantasy.
All that he wanted was moisture for the garden,
and he gave me naught but the depth of winter.
Would you bring a torch and be my spring?
Thawing fire liberating,
glacial prison melting upon you;
oh gelid maiden, be my spring.
I Have Walked
I have walked a hundred roads waiting for chance to strike in my favor,
for the hand of God to move.
Sol has decended on my search and I pass from pooled light into white beams and panning shadows.
Sky, once ashen, then lit up into a lonely exaltation, now a murky charcoal,
no moon shines upon me as I trudge -
dredge on,
pledge never to return but watch my words decay.
The roads fan out into a wide world but somehow I always…
Relent.
Repent.
Wander back to the house of my parents and collapse amid the sickening memories.
Listen as they gesture toward a blank wall,
can’t I see the open gate?
I have walked until I can face the long dark no more;
I have walked until all hopes have fallen and shattered on the wayside,
until there is nothing left to see or hear,
until I have screamed my voice hoarse and cried my eyes dry,
until I have whipped my mind senselessly numb,
until the dark and silent houses call out a mockery:
Oh you most despicable of boys, go home.
The unlikely will never occur,
the coincidences are all against you;
be gone from our world of shallow havens.
You are a cursed man,
leave us before we catch your disease.
Bedrock at the Edge of the World
Fearful beauty of my dreams in prismatic cratered eyes.
A sunset moonscape in crystal irises.
Together,
marching a road to the horizon whilst the somber hymn rings
“Thou my best thought,
by day or by night
Naught be all else to me
save that thou art”
Serenity evanescent as the sun rises,
crumbling like bedrock
at the edge of the world.
Fading as I awaken,
blanched by dawn sunlight,
cross-bled into incantations and premonitions
and tears, water for those not yet dead
Sheathing the Knife
Run, leap and hack
Never stop fleeing
Shiver, shake and cry
Never until I take flight
What can I eat,
here in the wastelands.
What map can I follow
through this bleak land
What am I to be,
among an alien people
What can I die
if all is bloody ashes
Where can I sleep,
here in Gomorrah
Where the manor that I seek,
a watchman to receive me
Where is the Duke
with horn, axe and mighty wind
Where might my search conclude
if I wander into the tundra
Why do I stand here
on the ice and the mountain
Why must I balance
on this knife ridge
Why can my eyes
pierce pumas cloud mist
Why not I fall
and imprint on the dust
Fix my eye
on a tower beyond the stratus wall
Rinse off my adolescence
Pass into ambivalence
Sheathe the knife
and let the wounds heal
I’m Glad
I’m glad,
eye of the gale or riven vale before the assent.
Terrors somehow washed clean.
Life humming abundant in the nest of spring.
One day I ripped the needle from my arm,
but now it has run dry.
In a robin egg dawn I awaken,
scent of cool morning,
fading incubi leering though the nightmare has shattered.
And amid the painted visions and child dreams
I am glad.
Through the detritus of a world not to be put right,
through crystalline tears and rimy veils
I see -
In the dark and billowing ash
the sun broke upon my glacial remains,
and into the rich earth I fell;
yet in my grave’s end
a mangled heart beat still
- I cannot say what brought me forth
upon what wind this vernal warmth came blowing
but I am glad,
glad to be.
Saturn, Herald of Autumn
Like chalkless night there stands before me a time of all lurid dreams.
The glimpsed surreal destiny has utterly fled.
Deafness descending in mute terror,
winces and gasps and flitting about,
delaying
defying
defining.
Shall I lay myself down on this undoctored bed?
Prostrate myself before my nemesis, Saturn, the herald of autumn?
Fall into lucid sleep and march on,
awaiting the never for to be.
Here in the evening,
amid sundown, all despair becomes westward desert winds.
In crazed light I halt afore the fiendish torridity of a promised lone weeping destructor
And in faithless abhorrence
I fall unto the end.
Forthwith the dawn will come,
sunbeams knifing a rift in the very desolation of the sky.
Some dawn will come
and I shall awaken anew.
Ants and Tide and the Axes of Men
To the sea I come,
to the sea I go,
what’s the difference, I for so?
The ocean, in its rich salt lechery,
pulses an eternal rhythm and its feces lies ripe on the sand and the stone.
Its tempestuous fury rips the forest’s might from their soil,
vomiting them on some foreign beach for ants and tide and the axes of men to bring to dust
Here again, with grey skies approaching,
at the very edge of the world, I wait.
In Artemis’ wandering the waves recede and what terror must grip those left to scurry.
Yet the blessed waters shall return,
the driest of sands may bring forth a wealth of infant life when the desert rains fall.
All the world’s a vengeance, shaped by its seekers;
those with ready swords only bloody the blood-soaked ground.
All who wail join the multitudes,
mothers riven from their children,
husbands of slain wives.
The peace lies in the wildly cycular spasms of terra,
in its daysprings and starfalls,
in its tannin rivers and sacred isles,
in the falls of its sons and the abandon of its daughters,
in the tears and the trout and Arien’s chariot circling above.
or
17 Poems on Ice, Night, the Forest and the Sea
God Intended Darkness
I am.
Within those words is the assertion of my existence to a skeptical race. Offering no deduction I proceed to live, sleep, eat and drink and carry on in misery.
In the industrial brightness of night I now contend with this fallacy. The fleshy spheres that compose my rectified mind fail to fully intersect and so my doubt persists.
Consists.
Unfists its gauntlet and releases the rods of my pretension.
Though in the sunlit hours I walk from misty peaks to vales dull and warm in the deep and silent nocturne, when all about me are in the throes of regeneration, I forget the taste of dawn. All the earth is metallic and ticking and lit.
Lit when God intended darkness.
Lit when all is to be lunar and stardomed and forged of cold shadow.
I recall hating the night for the leering void of its blackness yet always I knew that in this fiendland’s greatest glory from the east salvation would come.
But for this most autistic of nights there may be no breaking. Each dim and fetal sun is stillborn afore its fiery depth may be reckoned.
Like all our milking kind men are a communal animal, and thus this fearful isolation is most unnatural.
Where is my tribe that I would run in gaiety?
Where is my mate, the one creature to whom I am free?
Where are my children to carry my blood into eternity?
Lost or fled or never were.
We are a strange people, holding our lonely pleasures above the lives of our offspring.
Who am I to be among them, these persistent ghosts of pre-war flounderings?
Wherefore did I come to be placed here in the curled soul of the race?
Why am I to be, to think?
To carry on through the steely night.
Spasm of Mind
I circle around some endlessly repeating idiot thought
The notes call,
a flowing of the layers piercing sediment mind.
Lash out strict spasms.
Voice contorts into sounds never heard
so familiar.
Detritus about,
bits of existence strewn.
Through the walls they talk on, fragmented lines only a madman could follow.
I taste disgust in my mouth,
elemental repugnance.
The future bears down a horseman suddenly upon me,
cringing cower he passes.
Joy a gangrene limb and all happiness bleached away;
contentment running out like blood I wish I could bleed.
Like emotion I swallow.
No comfort yet no agony.
Splinters I never saw imbed.
Only forgotten.
A desperate plea a stupid outcry,
a boy too blindly slow to see the paths in multitude.
All others root out some life to live but he is too weak,
too pitifully weak.
And they tire of him,
depart from him.
And are right to, he will never move from his sole-worn crossroads.
Die stupid boy
See this stone – swallow and die
See this knife – slash your vein and die
See this cliff – leap, fall and die
Anything and but die
And at hearing this they come running, spewing retorts.
Saying much without saying a thing; altering nothing.
I resolve that the boy may live,
but only from fear
No cause for this extension, no reason
Parasite of a paradox burrowing deeper,
sowing its poison,
sapping both will and mind.
I do not know how to wrench it from me
I do not know how to be free
There is no escape
No way out
Run boy, and die
I am coming
Child
I, a child
in the verdant hills?
Nostalgia and spent grains,
it was -
A terrifying place.
Agony and shame,
it was red lights in the long night
Child, fearful child,
thank God you did not see this
before you.
Child, oh child,
how can you run?
Your home is so green,
paradiso of rains,
purest of elixirs pouring from the sky.
What beast have you found
at the heart of the river
that you would flee with such vitriol
and set your footprints alight?
What horror must you see
at the corners of your vision?
What fear of mighty fiend must consume you?
Alas for you, Child
Alas for your dreadful fears
Alas for the dreams of your fathers
Child in his arms
So safe
Forgotten world -
now so dangerous.
Towering walls like ill-begotten
grave’s end
road’s end
valley’s end
hell’s end
child’s end
Chronometric Cannibalism
Dull horror fades,
life creeps back in
Roots entwine charred earth
“sucking life out of death, the forest eats itself and lives forever”
The water of burst roots has put out the flame,
but time is the only healer
Shame may fade,
but only time can cool the embers
Where is death but now?
The plant in the broken pot cannot live long without a master
The water flows away
and the sun desiccates its roots
What is love, this wall?
What is joy, an illusion?
Misinterpreted words of the mystical haunt me
Haunt him
Haunt us
Haunt them
Haunt the informal you standing behind my shoulder, peering down
What do you see?
Life has never been better, never been worse
A boy in a freefall,
afraid to grip the edge of the chasm
A tiny shoot gazing at the giants,
not seeing that they are beyond the walls of probability
A man born a thousand years
too late
Tired yet so very young
Time comes and goes
despair, anxiety, joy
all of these pass away
shoots bleach pale in the sun
Each leaf withered
Broken
Falling
Rotten
Nutrient back to the root
I eat myself and live forever when all I wish to do is pass in a flame of glory
To flare up, glimpse the sun, and die before time can work its slow decay
Slow asymptote to mediocrity
Time sweet time
Go now,
and leave me in peace
My Eyes
Slow assault of history bears down.
A wall so vast I can but scream that throat jarring silence as I gaze into the terrible minutia.
The voices I have trusted have yet to show their colors,
but I know the contrast I will see when at last the disembodied voices are made flesh.
And some eerie cymbal tears my thoughts, replacing them with naught but itself.
I know not what it is I have heard,
from where that melting began,
whence that beautiful harmony struck that I should be so laid open.
I watch, as if from afar, as my mind turns toward a candle
and finds a flame so bright nothing can be seen.
My eyes seem to flicker, as if to open as never before,
and see a structure in the entropy,
some new sight uniting these snapshot sensations.
But my mind settles, the erratic searching falling into a steady beat,
vision sinking back into greyscale normality
disgusting sick slime monotone allowing for none of these dreams.
And the rules of science prevail.
Until another set of eyes is found to gouge out these would be blindness –
in the absence of sight the mind reigns free,
calling forth images to suit its every fancy.
And thus this animal must be purged from me,
all anesthetic bled out.
For these scales must be torn from my eyes,
these lids opened.
And perhaps then –
perhaps I shall see.
Skies Roll By
Suspended as I leap
Caught, as it were
Time decays
Memory distant -
Far flung from me
Drones of dilemma emanate
A shake of the head and a laugh-scream circling above
Inexplicable irreconcilable irrational buzz
swept aside
A bubble in time
Skies roll by as I turn my head and ponder
To what end, any end - no end - blasted fuck void end
end this, end that, end everything
no don’t dare
endocrine never-the-less despondent
end end
end
Is there such a thing as a beautiful insanity?
The man who thinks himself a bit of glass may still laugh and sing at his own idiosyncratic eclecticism
Vision snaps back
Tor rising from the long grey sea
At last on the shore of the
Socratic inchanted Veil Of Israel
sea sea
sea
craven crow clamor
To the sea I come
To the sea I go
What’s the difference I for so
Jokers laugh
Jokers scream
Jokers leap and fall
fall and die
but not I
Frozen, as it were
As it always was
One day she took a chisel and told me spring would come,
but perhaps it was all a trick of the ice
A crystal in my mind
A bubble so quickly burst
First, durst, worst
Cursed
Curse a day, curse a god
Curse a leg with which I jumped
But would could not die
Never die, never peace
Piece of mind, piece of soul, piece of heart
Cut out and tossed
Fumbled and dropped in the muck
A city is far beneath my feet
Yet it draws not closer
So I rhyme and reason
Play the maestro and the poet
Just trying to scratch out a simple tune because I cannot break my neck
Olympian Tempest
Grey ocean, grey sky
Songs flit in my mind amid the crashing of the sea.
Grey waves, grey stone
Memories of a future that never occurred,
like a madman I awoke and found the world I had created immaterial,
had never been, will never be.
I have seen a thistle on a hill,
common enough, yet utterly beautiful,
noble, yet so bitterly unreachable.
Thorns sink deep as I tentatively reach,
neither can I grasp the flower nor withdraw my hand,
forever imprisoned by a memory that could never be
A grey wall forms,
long and slow advance from the horizon
I, alone on this thistle-ringed tor, wait.
Wait for the storm to come and the earth to renew itself,
to bring life to this monotone –
Life abundant.
But though this forest will live eternal in the harmony of cannibalism
I will never breathe even a particle of that peace.
For like some fairy-tale cursed anti-hero I pain and wail,
pledge vengeance and bring a ready sword.
Yet in truth –
bitterness is a callous to dull this life, grating and grey.
The odium of the hated cannot bring agony,
so to this world,
this life,
this God,
I give my loathing;
for a grey world may be blackened by fire but light can never bring purity.
Still Human
So I bled myself out,
drained the anesthetic,
woke up and looked around me;
cold and shivering,
clammy and pale,
faint but conscious.
I stand and see again the desolation,
remember why I laid myself down
why I took their medicine,
put their needle in my arm.
I reach back for the numbing fluid
but recall the nightmares that engulfed me.
The horror that followed the ecstasy
spread thin to a slow and deep ache
I once saw a web ad for a pain-inducing drug
marketed to those who wanted only to feel, feel anything.
I almost laughed.
It was almost a joke.
It is an incomplete thought I have voiced,
a cave to whose end I have not crawled.
My purge is incomplete, needles still within reach
and when I near sleep I long,
nearly cry out.
Still human,
damn it,
Still human
Gelid Maiden
Walking through an ice-bound forest,
rimy snow crackles like frost-bitten earth,
vapor flows low among the trunks and mounds.
Silence of winter, breathe fills my ears,
alone in this razor beauty,
cold and dry, gelid tendrils reaching.
In my dream you walked beside me,
your wire-frame body close.
Shake my head, clear the image, and repeat the incantation
…a human’s biological response to beauty…
is of no avail
Awareness cannot numb hope,
though a twisted hope it may be.
I wish and pine as I wander,
Desiring but that I have described -
a body nearby
Breeze whisks frozen mist from the treetops,
shiver and shudder, alone in muted silence.
Apparitions dissipate;
an unspoken desire echoing into nothingness.
The Knifing Sun
Haze before the mountains,
sun burning through,
burning beyond all eyes can see.
Burning into the mind it’s dim morning knife.
Piercing deep through fog its rapier strikes jugular,
spills my blood on the frost
Knife and then the crushing mace
The unknowing elegance,
splinter ghost,
icy hammer smashing any sane skull to pieces
Tear out my eyes, sever my ears
Maim me that I would be numb
Destroy me
Destroy them
Destroy her
Send me farther than all pain can follow
Send me to that knifing sun that I might be flayed open and burned to cosmic ash
Come oh chasm of Sol, and swallow me
Let me taste your sweet oblivion
Botticelian Thaw
Oh you ice-bound girl,
I see you in the garden, chisel in hand.
Through the rimy haze I make out a ghost,
a splinter of you I have conjured up;
formed out of air to shape this frozen flesh.
Years ago a woman I loved told me spring would come,
foolish child,
the glancing light may drive me mad but the earth will never right itself.
In this storm-ringed place I see your shadow a star below the horizon;
whether you intend to arise or sink away out of vision
you have turned the clouds all orange and fiery.
A memory of warmth from a bygone simple age.
The fractures in my mind all point to your image,
All that an onlooker can see.
Though where your soul resides, I cannot know.
Oh vision of Botticelli,
all I can tell of you I adore.
Dredge up my soul from a thousand miles east and let it feed on this fantasy.
All that he wanted was moisture for the garden,
and he gave me naught but the depth of winter.
Would you bring a torch and be my spring?
Thawing fire liberating,
glacial prison melting upon you;
oh gelid maiden, be my spring.
I Have Walked
I have walked a hundred roads waiting for chance to strike in my favor,
for the hand of God to move.
Sol has decended on my search and I pass from pooled light into white beams and panning shadows.
Sky, once ashen, then lit up into a lonely exaltation, now a murky charcoal,
no moon shines upon me as I trudge -
dredge on,
pledge never to return but watch my words decay.
The roads fan out into a wide world but somehow I always…
Relent.
Repent.
Wander back to the house of my parents and collapse amid the sickening memories.
Listen as they gesture toward a blank wall,
can’t I see the open gate?
I have walked until I can face the long dark no more;
I have walked until all hopes have fallen and shattered on the wayside,
until there is nothing left to see or hear,
until I have screamed my voice hoarse and cried my eyes dry,
until I have whipped my mind senselessly numb,
until the dark and silent houses call out a mockery:
Oh you most despicable of boys, go home.
The unlikely will never occur,
the coincidences are all against you;
be gone from our world of shallow havens.
You are a cursed man,
leave us before we catch your disease.
Bedrock at the Edge of the World
Fearful beauty of my dreams in prismatic cratered eyes.
A sunset moonscape in crystal irises.
Together,
marching a road to the horizon whilst the somber hymn rings
“Thou my best thought,
by day or by night
Naught be all else to me
save that thou art”
Serenity evanescent as the sun rises,
crumbling like bedrock
at the edge of the world.
Fading as I awaken,
blanched by dawn sunlight,
cross-bled into incantations and premonitions
and tears, water for those not yet dead
Sheathing the Knife
Run, leap and hack
Never stop fleeing
Shiver, shake and cry
Never until I take flight
What can I eat,
here in the wastelands.
What map can I follow
through this bleak land
What am I to be,
among an alien people
What can I die
if all is bloody ashes
Where can I sleep,
here in Gomorrah
Where the manor that I seek,
a watchman to receive me
Where is the Duke
with horn, axe and mighty wind
Where might my search conclude
if I wander into the tundra
Why do I stand here
on the ice and the mountain
Why must I balance
on this knife ridge
Why can my eyes
pierce pumas cloud mist
Why not I fall
and imprint on the dust
Fix my eye
on a tower beyond the stratus wall
Rinse off my adolescence
Pass into ambivalence
Sheathe the knife
and let the wounds heal
I’m Glad
I’m glad,
eye of the gale or riven vale before the assent.
Terrors somehow washed clean.
Life humming abundant in the nest of spring.
One day I ripped the needle from my arm,
but now it has run dry.
In a robin egg dawn I awaken,
scent of cool morning,
fading incubi leering though the nightmare has shattered.
And amid the painted visions and child dreams
I am glad.
Through the detritus of a world not to be put right,
through crystalline tears and rimy veils
I see -
In the dark and billowing ash
the sun broke upon my glacial remains,
and into the rich earth I fell;
yet in my grave’s end
a mangled heart beat still
- I cannot say what brought me forth
upon what wind this vernal warmth came blowing
but I am glad,
glad to be.
Saturn, Herald of Autumn
Like chalkless night there stands before me a time of all lurid dreams.
The glimpsed surreal destiny has utterly fled.
Deafness descending in mute terror,
winces and gasps and flitting about,
delaying
defying
defining.
Shall I lay myself down on this undoctored bed?
Prostrate myself before my nemesis, Saturn, the herald of autumn?
Fall into lucid sleep and march on,
awaiting the never for to be.
Here in the evening,
amid sundown, all despair becomes westward desert winds.
In crazed light I halt afore the fiendish torridity of a promised lone weeping destructor
And in faithless abhorrence
I fall unto the end.
Forthwith the dawn will come,
sunbeams knifing a rift in the very desolation of the sky.
Some dawn will come
and I shall awaken anew.
Ants and Tide and the Axes of Men
To the sea I come,
to the sea I go,
what’s the difference, I for so?
The ocean, in its rich salt lechery,
pulses an eternal rhythm and its feces lies ripe on the sand and the stone.
Its tempestuous fury rips the forest’s might from their soil,
vomiting them on some foreign beach for ants and tide and the axes of men to bring to dust
Here again, with grey skies approaching,
at the very edge of the world, I wait.
In Artemis’ wandering the waves recede and what terror must grip those left to scurry.
Yet the blessed waters shall return,
the driest of sands may bring forth a wealth of infant life when the desert rains fall.
All the world’s a vengeance, shaped by its seekers;
those with ready swords only bloody the blood-soaked ground.
All who wail join the multitudes,
mothers riven from their children,
husbands of slain wives.
The peace lies in the wildly cycular spasms of terra,
in its daysprings and starfalls,
in its tannin rivers and sacred isles,
in the falls of its sons and the abandon of its daughters,
in the tears and the trout and Arien’s chariot circling above.
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