http://www.collateralmurder.com/
I don't usually post things like this, and I know I'm a bit behind the times, but having just started to re-read Blood Meridian for the umpteenth time I could not help but see a similarity.
The kind of death and devastation that everyone knows took place in the ancient and medieval worlds and McCarthy shows in our own country (Blood Meridian is based on actual, historical, events in the 1840s), goes on today. There is no stopping it. We are no better than our parents and they no better than theirs.
Everyone knows Vietnam was just as bad but you are a fool if you think WWII was any different.
I have said before that governments are evil, and that if we could get rid of them things would be better. This is foolishness, there is no improving humans, there is no advancing the species. This is our heritage and we have to find some way of dealing with it, some way of escaping it.
popular methods include: alcohol (Blood Meridian), drugs (every rock band ever), sex (just about everyone, ever) and Tolkien (my personal favorite).
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Boy and the Tower
There once was a boy who swam in the ocean and saw the fountains of the deep and gazed into the sky and saw the windows of heaven and walked through the city and saw the bright glory of man and the flaming beauty of woman, and then perceived his childish ways and despaired. For all that life was to be was beyond him and he desired only to possess it.
No matter to what he put his mind these things drew his gaze and he looked upon them until their sighted sickened him with longing. So he sought to throw himself from a high place and see if in death the world was any more tolerable.
He hated himself for his weakness and he hated himself for his pitying of his weakness, his whining and his pretensions. And though he looked to be a man he was a child and all who spoke to him knew it and he hated this above all else. And he thought of it as he climbed the stairs of the tallest tower of the city.
In his waking mind he dreamt of the highest room, its windswept floor, its metal railing, and he dreamt in it a girl. A child like him to whom he would be a man, a wise child who would see in him his pain and his longing, but also his light and his glory, a child who would love him. They would speak as he descended from the tower and she would not seek to be apart from him. When the time came they would marry and he would know her and she would bear him a child to carry his blood into eternity. And that child would grow to be a man and find a wife of his own and beget children to the delight of his parents. And he, the boy that was the man, would die in peace with his beloved and his descendants would number as the stars of the sky and his line would never fail.
But then he reached the door of the highest room and opened it and saw the city beyond and felt the wind and knew that the place was empty, and that his waking dream was false.
A long time he stood at the edge of the tower and fought with himself, with his hopes and his despair. The air was cold and the place was barren. In him curled fear. Fear and longing, desperation and apathy. And so he did nothing, chose neither life nor death, and went from that place not for the last time to live all the years of his life in fury and loneliness.
No matter to what he put his mind these things drew his gaze and he looked upon them until their sighted sickened him with longing. So he sought to throw himself from a high place and see if in death the world was any more tolerable.
He hated himself for his weakness and he hated himself for his pitying of his weakness, his whining and his pretensions. And though he looked to be a man he was a child and all who spoke to him knew it and he hated this above all else. And he thought of it as he climbed the stairs of the tallest tower of the city.
In his waking mind he dreamt of the highest room, its windswept floor, its metal railing, and he dreamt in it a girl. A child like him to whom he would be a man, a wise child who would see in him his pain and his longing, but also his light and his glory, a child who would love him. They would speak as he descended from the tower and she would not seek to be apart from him. When the time came they would marry and he would know her and she would bear him a child to carry his blood into eternity. And that child would grow to be a man and find a wife of his own and beget children to the delight of his parents. And he, the boy that was the man, would die in peace with his beloved and his descendants would number as the stars of the sky and his line would never fail.
But then he reached the door of the highest room and opened it and saw the city beyond and felt the wind and knew that the place was empty, and that his waking dream was false.
A long time he stood at the edge of the tower and fought with himself, with his hopes and his despair. The air was cold and the place was barren. In him curled fear. Fear and longing, desperation and apathy. And so he did nothing, chose neither life nor death, and went from that place not for the last time to live all the years of his life in fury and loneliness.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Five
And I’ve no tongue and
I’ve no ears, and I
Cannot hold your eyes
Let them fall, let
Them die
Go and see no more
Do not lie and do
Not stand and do not look away, burn where
Once your eyes hung wet and
Forget the sights you've slain
For you’ve no tongue and
You’ve no ears and I
Will not lift you up
Walk, my friend
And fall, my friend and
Close the eyes in your palms
I’ve no ears, and I
Cannot hold your eyes
Let them fall, let
Them die
Go and see no more
Do not lie and do
Not stand and do not look away, burn where
Once your eyes hung wet and
Forget the sights you've slain
For you’ve no tongue and
You’ve no ears and I
Will not lift you up
Walk, my friend
And fall, my friend and
Close the eyes in your palms
Monday, February 7, 2011
I Hold Four Hydras IV
I hate
Have I never
Found is the word
Hers is a cruel gaze to see my eyes but not their fear
I, the whole of hell within
Have you, Catullus
Found such a bullet in your ventricle for
Her to parse?
I write on air flowing into the four winds
Have you, Catullus
Found such waves filled with the promises of the Lethe
Her image failing even as it is composed?
I fear all things unpromised
Have fictions unturned
Found I never
Her name
I hold four hydras
Mythic beasts that never bred upon the earth
And their poison runs within me
Special thanks to Dr. Andrew Tadie, the concept of patience, and the irreconcilable unity of envy and disdain.
Have I never
Found is the word
Hers is a cruel gaze to see my eyes but not their fear
I, the whole of hell within
Have you, Catullus
Found such a bullet in your ventricle for
Her to parse?
I write on air flowing into the four winds
Have you, Catullus
Found such waves filled with the promises of the Lethe
Her image failing even as it is composed?
I fear all things unpromised
Have fictions unturned
Found I never
Her name
I hold four hydras
Mythic beasts that never bred upon the earth
And their poison runs within me
Special thanks to Dr. Andrew Tadie, the concept of patience, and the irreconcilable unity of envy and disdain.
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