Dear Brother
How tender is the night

I write to you urgently, I am afraid of my very being.

My heart of darkness is the fountainhead of this catch 22. As I lay dying, in this brave new world, a sranger in a strange land, a lord of flies, I noticed that I am nothing but a handful of dust.

    A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains for ever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south, and goes round to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness...

                I am full of the very the very same...

The great gatsby once told me of the american tragedy, and I have heard of the animal farm; but what have I when my generation dictates and my mind still circles to altruism. I have but to look to the light house and hope that the sound and the fury give away to the songs of innocence. I have no song of experience on which to rely, but to kill a mockingbird seems to me the same as remembering a dream.

    While I am he eighth leg of the octopus, I cannot help but feel that only I am concerned with Human bondage.


    The day of the locust is nigh, finnegan shall wake, sons and fathers will fall in war and peace, our Anthem shall be the satanic verses and we shall have freedom to love.



                        Farewell to arms

P.S let there be no confusion for I still do not know the truth, I only hope that you, dear brother, can alleviate the pains of such a lonely day

                                                A cruise

                                                           

 

                                                            1

 

The sun has fled the sky, and now the warm spring night parades its black dress across the heavens. She is a welcomed guest; her shining white belt attracts the hot air so that the cool breeze may infiltrate in its stead. Its chilly passing marks a different sort of aggressor, one that endows with a feeling of bliss on the outset, before causing tears of stay.

 

 The khamsin has passed, but the livid winds have not all together taken their leave of us; I give up hope for more suitable weather and order a cab. I enter the cab and instruct the man to drive to the cemetery. He nods, we agree on a price, and I light a cigarette.

 

            Speeding to sixty kilometers an hour, I begin to feel the eve's gale in earnest, opening my eyes, freeing little tears.

 

            I flash the driver a polite smile out of mine own inconvenience, but return to face the wind and think.

 

            In those first few moments of reflection, I forlornly dream that some inspiration would be forthcoming tonight, though I know that along with the muse come these currents of sadness that even now urgently limp towards me. I have invited the spirits of wisdom. I wish to know, to understand, to accept inspiration's tight embrace and bask in her sublimity. And if to suffer, to do so with joy, for even pain can be deemed a blessing

 

                        "How fabricated are my feelings!" screams my quiet reason. Knowingly I have gone through the motions in hope of enlightenment: setting mood, tone, and meter all now ringing the ghost bell of ersatz mourning. Speeding towards the graveyard, a shameless and deeply excited man of words and his Phlegyas, to make use of, two who have done no good, exchanging my folks for insight.

 

While in this frenzy, this mixed state of elation and repressed disgust, I imagine kneeling before the graves as heartfelt tears flood from my swollen eyes, down my glistening cheeks, to my disheveled attire. In my fantasy I fall down before I can fully kneel and put my head, now the host of a pure deluge of pent emotion, on the cold rock that is the grave of my dear father. I cry, but I write, and that is what is most important, in supreme agony I write and produce a fine poem that shall forever be remembered.

 

                        "I celebrate myself

                                    And sing myself."

 

            I mock myself to balance the impure but I shall not dwell within any longer, an epic cannot comprise of pure introspection.

 

                                                            ****

 

            Through the open window, the wind directs my eyes, and in so turning them away from the blasts I notice a woman standing by the entrance of an alleyway. I am amazed by how she shines; apart from the night in her crimson outfit. She is beautiful, struck by the sudden feeling that a prostitute may procure from an upstanding citizen, I hold the urge to stop the car. I imagine the strength of such a woman: she has declared a whole street her office, a complete world her place of work, as she altruistically endeavors to bring a bit of joy to the weaker half of the human race.

 

            Above her the graffiti reads: "Know Hope," a seeming contradiction for this borough of the city, though as the car speeds to seventy I am confronted with this slogan every few buildings. Beneath these two snickering words a woman always stands, downward arching drips of amateurish yellow graffiti indicated her business and location. Divine, she waits adorned by a smile and a willing attitude.

 

            My eyes narrow on the daunting words, one cannot help but laugh, for indeed these sly words would seem a joke to most of those who pass, those who usually give things a second's glimpse Usually, the majority of us and this I hear gently putted into my brain, masking itself as though a thought of mine own. So plain are the words that they prevent any realization of their deeper meaning by many foolish men.

 

            In viewing these words I believe that I have understood them: Their irony is not directed at the women, but at the men. There truly is no hope, but the despair is that of the man, he who makes use of them who labor here: he cannot please nor gain pleasure, gain or lose domination, let fall those strains of society, or clear his mind of worry; nothing of substance can happen but still they come and to her who waits here wishing to help. She will pretend pleasure as you rip off her skirt and maul her breasts; she will transmit some of her peace to you as you assault her ass and face with your penis and open hand. You may have her on the walls or on the ground by the filthy cats: shout, beg her, punish her, or do every which other thing that you wish, but the euphoria shall be short-lived, the pleasure infinitesimal, and the good absent. You cannot achieve divinity, and she cannot grant you peace through her femininity and pretended pleasure.

 

            A swelling and my thoughts are adrift again:

 

            Once the act has been concluded, and its product invested, she must seem disgusting a passing realization and a transfer of disgust of one self towards others a wretched and vile thing. But soon enough she shall be enticing: pink panties, matching bra, a wonderful green skirt, a hot red top, and high heels: the foolish man is made ready again.

 

            Here she gracefully smiles, and though she has inevitably failed, she remains unwilling to abandon his quest for fulfillment. She collects from him her symbolic pay: not enough for sustenance, but a sufficient amount to seem ingratiating and a worthwhile encounter. He of course pays her, a disgusted visage outlying his face and a murderous pose enacted by his abominable body. Though, as he makes ready to use her again, she forcefully escorts him out of her gentle utopia, picking another driveling drunk into her peaceful abode.

 

            All these thoughts pass through my mind as oppressively as the wind that lashes through the open window, and like the wind they are a necessary bi-product of my will for self medication.

 

                                    Cigarettes /superiority

                        Dedication            /            Hegemony

                                    Forged : Virile : What a sham

                            Distopic and Grand

                                    Heavenly Fantasies Abound

           

Yellow as the Sun and white as its Light.

 

We pass the last of the yellow "Know Hope" signs, and beneath this one no woman stands prepared and smiling. Maybe the aberration rises out of some pact between the women, so that every man expecting an upcoming last smile as he so hastily passes she who is truly the last girl, will leave empty handed; and the realization of his folly would come immediately: he has missed the last of them, he will not share in their joy. Or maybe and with the maybe I finish my source of happiness, throw it out the window, and shut it so that the wind cannot enter, though I feel a bit the heretic as it lashes against my shield.

 

                                                            ****

 

            A fleeting thought crawls through my mind to the accompanying final swirls of my smoke; slowly the thought moves, like a clever turtle, one that I nearly miss before it leaves my head. I catch its tail, and as a lizard it quickly escapes leaving me with the very end:

 

            "Their minds retain."

 

                                    Swiggle, swiggle, goes the tail

 

                        "thoughts unblemished by work."

 

                                    Swiggggle, the tail slowing down to a halt

 

            "A condition better than our own."

 

                                                Motionless now.

 

                                                            2

 

            We gain in speed to 80 and I close my eyes so that I do not risk exhausting the muse. I know already the street we pass through as I have passed there many times. Its fruit is the exotic dancer and the neon signs that speak so boldly of forbidden pleasures. But the same muse, whispering even when I wish her to save her strength, speaks to me of these women as not being of the same cut as those who I have just seen. They are a strand, a sect, one that has come under the influence of man, relishing in his greedy nature. They have become like us, their only irregularity is the dispossession of a self conscious phallus.

 

            Two hundred meters pass and again I open my eyes, then the window, set a silent prayer to my god, and exhale. I exhale all these wretched wenches from my thoughts and accept the stabbing wind in their stead.

 

            But now that I have been led to see a bit clearer, their image is the one that cannot escape my mind: They have gained power in our world for they are given to our impurity, though it is clearly not of their nature but of our own, of man what drives them?

 

            Again my Lord and the wind cast their naked image from my mind, and I detest my overseers for but a second, realizing that they wish me only to have a taste of that truth so that its mysticism remains a constant threat rather than its rationale becomes understandable.

 

 

            And so they set a different scene before me. They set the scene before me with the wind whispering gently as a mortar, that I may now exercise my free will to think.

 

                                                            3

 

            I grow tired of thinking; instead I enjoy the euphoric weariness that comes after much thought...

 

            The wind blows harder on my face, chastising me with the ever-present reminder that these thoughts are not really mine own, that I have not created a thing but only accept the natural interpretation given to me as a gift. I grow depressed for a moment and my face becomes numb with the cold.

 

            I feel unable to continue,

Blessed are you Father, who hath created us in your image and given us your commands; redeem me from this preternatural assault. I am between worlds; I know not the route

 

            My feint heart lets slip the cigarette from my fingers, burning the seat behind me. As I turn backwards to pick the butt I cannot help but laugh at what I see: A notebook, a pen, and The Consolation of Philosophy where wisdom in her torn robes speaks so plainly. I lift the butt that has remained lit, as if through magic, but in truth only through the other god, inhale, take the notebook and the pen and ponder what to write, lamenting my inability to bear fruit. Instead, I transcribe what I have so far seen.

 

            Here I am, now writing, now thinking, and surely no good can come of this.

 

                        I have entered the present.

 

            In the present I behold many groups of soldiers all adorned by the same green garb that symbolizes their bondage to the state. The wind brings to mind Jacob, but I recognize this as only a taunt in order to cause me to leap back again, if only momentarily, into the futile past.

 

            They are nothing like the willing servant, questing for a lovely bride, but more the ancient bastard that must make do with the meager servile existence he is given.

 

            Yet even among them are a proud few, maybe one out of eleven, brandishing luxurious swords. They are the pride of the land and the embodiment of ethics.

 

In no other times have weapons been so magnificent, even the swords of the Knights Templar pale in comparison. These warriors adorned their cherished weapons through carvings, elastic cloth, and various symbols of identification relating to their troop. Their grips are strengthened, so that when needed to shoot many rounds there will be no burn to the skin; their barrel reinforced, so that the rifle will not explode after several hundred rounds of rapid shot; their stock is closed; in additional to the regular grip, they may have an assault or battle grip; Finally a clip is carried by them at all times, twenty nine bullets to put down a foe of the state.

 

            The most veteran of them hold possession of all these extravagant decorations if not more, while the young settle only for their plain black staves.

           

            I think now that I am one of these and laugh at mine own sad existence.

 

            But no revelation is to be had here, I have left my instrument at home and I shall not venture to pluck those of others.

 

            The wind pushes me to greater and more sublime moments yet I decline its invitation. Paying homage to my deity, I hope to alleviate nature's press against my mind for clearer conclusions.

 

                        As a final joke I hear the words sung:

 

            "One I know, One, I know

            One, our god, our god, our god, our god, our god

            Who is in the sky and in the earth."

 

            You achieve love through hate, peace through war, and brotherhood through oppression. You the soldier, no longer a free man, have more balance than the free

 

            These words are not mine own, and I shall even bother to respond, but will look forward where looking straight did not do.

 

            I put my head down to rest.

 

                                                4

 

            A soldier, indistinctive from the other twelve resting in this steadily speeding vehicle, sits besides a sleeping officer from the artillery brigade. He possesses no markings that would indicate a specific unit of much import.

 

            He sits, eagle eyes scouting every which person about him knowing that every man or woman may be a potential terrorist, knowing that soon one would come. With the grace of a pickpocket, our soldier inserts the clip into the rifle of the man beside him, undoes his weapon's belt and slips the pale blue barrette from the officer and reinstates the cloth on his shoulder. He knows that he must be as indistinguishable as possible from the man, and indeed the chosen officer held some resemblance to him, he had picked him well he thought.

 

            The bus stops, a man walks up the steps, this will not be a suicide bomber he knew but a shooter. He appears nervous and our soldier (whose name none know but allow me to disclose it to you in secret: It is I, Shai.) moves the gun from his lap to a vertical position which would facilitate the shot. He wishes now that his look alike had a Trig, but one must make do with the provisions given. The man whips out a gun, a pistol more specifically, the words MEANS and INTENT flash through my mind, as I rise from my seat with gun in hand and execute a perfect hit to the center of his head.

 

            Madness now rules the bus, and this is where I make my exit back to the headquarters, but a crying woman catches me, and through tears thanks me. "He Saved Us!" her words breaking as she screams and all turn their eyes to me. Its just part of the job I want to tell them however I know that I cannot for the job is not one that can be known. I shall lose my place in the unit for this, this seems obvious; but as the women outline my neck and the reporter flashes its star spangled camera I cannot bring myself to mind.

 

                        I wake from the dream and smile at this farfetched fantasy, one that I have entertained since my entrance into the army world. I know its place, and its mocking tone but I do not mind this ring of the inferno, I do not mind its torturous quality in the least.

 

                                                            5

 

            We slow down and are in reach of our destination, but not before we hear a shot fire, and a figure - seemingly Arab- laid bleeding on the pavement. The smells of the scene are many yet they form a syndicated stench: of smoke, and of death, of pride and caution, of arrogance, greed, hatred and love, of lust and disgust, of longing and fear almost smut, nearly fetishile in its presence. I inhale and turn from the view.

 

            But what now?

                                                Where have we gone?

 

            Shall I pretend to say that we must now venture into the future?

 

            If the future be death, then we surely head this way.

 

            But let it be said that this is no great attempt at foreshadowing, simply a destination of my cruise in a plain white cab.

 

-         I detest graveyards.

-         And who doesnt? and hospitals? eighteen members of my family rest here: my mother and father, both sets of grandparents, uncle and aunt on my father's as well as mother's side

-         Convenient?

-         When we come here, we stay many hours.

-         I bet.

 

I take a cigarette from the cabbie, it is a Kent 100, an exact replica of the one which had killed my father. Its taste turns vile, and I plead with my Father for the ability to have it, and as I flick it outside the car in exasperation the cigarette breaks and is carried off by the wind.

 

-Why do you come here? If I may ask.

- To see some people I knew as a child.

- You know, It has been five years since my father died, and two years since my mother has died, and let me tell you cherish them because they are all you have

 

            I close my eyes before the gentle wind that lulls me with understanding.

 

-         Nothing is the same; no action holds any worth when your parents have died. Everything you do after, everything you are is hollow and empty remember this son, honor them

-         I know.

 

I close my eyes for the remainder of the ride, anticipating some orgasmic revelation that would put my life in order.

 

                        We arrive.

                                                I pay the man.

                        I open the door

                                    Move my gun from between my legs

                        Arrange my pants

                                                Secure the clips to my belt

 

            I walk, and at first I cannot find their grave, and as the wind grows stronger around me, assaulting parts it could not while I was in the comfort of an enclosed car, I realize that I could kneel beside any which grave and the impact would be similar.

 

            But I finally find their grave, its build so distinct, like that of royalty among the dead.

 

            I take off my gun and put it beside her grave.

            I put my clips on his.

                                   

                                    I rid of my shirt.

 

            Now being led by the wind, I am pushed ever stronger towards a grave unknown. I kneel beside it and whisper a silent prayer. Why did she die? Such a beautiful name Lahan, a ghastly tune. I shed a final prayer from my tired bones to this anonymous damsel and return to the cab.

 

-         You finished?

-         Yes. Lets go.

-         These people must mean a lot to you

-         Why?

-         Look at you, you forgot all your things. Your gun. Go fetch them and I will wait

 

I return to their graves, replace my shirt, then clips and finally my gun and kiss their graves.

 

            The wind stops.

 

                                    Aimless, I return to the car.

First installment

 

What a madhouse we live in... but I have now had a fabulous idea floating about. One that would surely raise me to the highest echelons of Babel.

Eight days have passed since I first stumbled upon that fragile piece of divinity, and four since I have told my, as of yet, only friend.

    Jude, a name he took upon himself, this beacon of proverbial intelligence, does not approve of: "such idiocy. Lacking in its set rhythm the preternatural rite of the creator."

    But, then, he is a sardonic fledgling of a poet: "you are too grandiose for your own good," he tells me, "and what of beauty?" He repeats such fragments, with minor alterations in tune with the consistency of an impassioned lover.
    ...
        ...    
            ...
                ...
 

   Inconsistency.

...
    ..

        What is there?
    But I have calmed down and sadly I cannot erase that which I have so far said, excommunicate it from this synagogue of god fearing words: "words etched in history, we must analyze every last for they are imperative to our understanding of you, the genius."

And to this I answer: though a thing cannot be effaced it surely can be forgotten, and to the human mind such an effort is at times far easier.

        And now that my tempers are at bay, I shall round up what I must, with dreadful necessity before I produce my tale.

    What moves thee?
        What thoughts have you before the moment?
    What methods?

    I shall tell you all, you dreadful sods.

            ---

    It has been eight days now since that particle of brilliance collapsed as a comet into the nether regions of my mind. An entity beyond my control, that has thrown this vessel into ruin.

    Four days since I related the peripherals of my mind's minsconstruities of the thing to Jude.

    And on this day I write to you what you wish to hear:

    Eight: Eight: EIGHT
    
        a
       
            {plebian : adjunct /meridian : superfluous : unabashed }

                    Time

Such a disdainful number, one that I glorify only for fear as I lack the fort (as the old French would say) to do otherwise. Toodle dooing, and scuttling before my cataract eyes. T'is the number I link most with my pain, with my inner death over decades of tortured existence. a lifetime of pain and that number will plague me on my death bed. And this I certainly know for as I sit here and write of it that I will one day lie on the eighth epoch of some period in my life and enter the terminal stages of death. But how do I explain? How do I bring forth with the blunt reality of words, so inadequate, that which is so subtle? Ah, my madness, my irresolute madness.

    And now I wonder, what a conversation of such proportions would come to with jerry... so I am forced to imagine, though I do not lack in a better sort of conversation, and shall transcribe what nuisance it shall become. and why? you must wonder, or lead me to think that you may wonder with these never ending questions. well, two reasons come to my foolish mind: the first is to free my writing of his being, as a tantric master who has fucked for a third of his life, and the second is simply to give an accurate portrayal of what loons you keep in this place. what loons and fancied playthings:

- Hello, jerry.
- Who now speaks?
- The walrus.
- ah, yes. it is you my dear friend, and how shall the poet aid thee my dear boy?
- By answering a certain question.
- But of course, but of course. and the question be?
- How does one transform the subtle nature of life into the blunted daggers of literature?
- Ah, a question most forthcoming for I have been pondering the very subject.
- And what revelations have you stumbled upon?
- Ah, yes, yes, yes. the writer seeks some answers with such avarice, SUCH wretched avarice that one is left to wonder...
- To wonder?
- Yes, to wonder. to wonder if he is worthy of the answer..
- And am I?
- That is for some heavenly figure to decide, but if one is to count thee worthy, there could be but one reason...
- Tell me then, for what reason?
- Ah! some modicum of humility; that is well, so very well. But by the virtue of our friendship of course! for that remains your only apparent worth.
- If it is so, then I shall accept it happily and as such I await the answer...
- Tsk,tsk,tsk, shylock, I beg thee weep, repeat some holy words and repent, oh my dear friend repent! But no I shall skedaddle.

    And so it lies, and appears that I must search for truth in solitude... it appears as such, and as such appearing, so as it may, I shall write for myself a gentle little story to explain these mad passions and prepare for the upcoming period of lucidity.

    (and if you must wonder, such a story can bring you to a far better understand of myself, then any autobiography that I may write.)

    : :    : :    :    :

Little Johnny was born on the 16th of august, 1990. he was blessed with an ill advised happiness during his childhood that would have surely engulfed the poor boy if not for his aching maternal grandmother whose habit it became to weep from dawn to dusk over the death of her beloved husband eight years prior to Johnny's birth.

Fortunately enough, if one may say without sounding offensive, the innocent little love of a boy held no conception of death in his early age and regarded his grandmother's stead wail as if it were an oddly colored head of hair or some other distinctive but lovable feature.

She passed away, as all men and women do, when Johnny was but four; presumably she drowned the apartment, and herself, in tears.

 

Now, the death of both Johnny's grandparents plunged his poor mother into a stream of hypochondriacally induced sickness that struck shy of reality. Finally her determination had won, mind over body as it were, and all her worrying had achieved for her a terminal state of cancer from which she died when Johnny was only eight.

 

As Johnny became John, and entered his twenties he thought much of his mother, and as he cut his wrists in the shower after taking a bottle of Robatussin he thought fondly of the only complete memory he possessed of her. In the memory, he and his mother visit the local mall where she buys him a beautiful white belt. He loved that belt because mom had made the effort to walk and go with him to get it. He wore it daily until another boy kicked him in that gentle area of which all men crouch when they injured and Johnny took the belt and smashed it over the boy's head. The hilt broke and Johnny did not want mommy to see her lovely gift broken so he gave it to some blind beggar on the street.

 

When mommy died, Johnny's dad promised he'd be with him forever and that Johnny would never lack in care or love. Four years later daddy's mommy died, she been living with them while his grandfather was in the old folk's home. Daddy's daddy was senile. She worked hard, trying to replace mommy. She scrubbed and scrubbed and cooked and helped with Johnny's homework for close to four years. She was found dead going up and down the elevator with the family's groceries still in her hands. It took three hours to find her once she had been declared missing. You see, the problem was that Johnny's apartment  building had eight elevator and though grandma remained immobile for three or so hours she did not sink to the floor nor was that polite smile ever erased from her accepting face. As people came and went, she was issued that general disregard given to a pleasant plant. No one knew she was dead until Johnny's daddy came back from work in his son's anguished behest and entered the very same lift his mother expired in.

 

When Johnny was in eight grade his last grandparent died, he had a heart attack. It was quick; they said, the best way to die.

 

When Johnny got to high school he became John. When Johnny became John there was a lot of hoopla and John started smoking. First it was cigarettes and then marijuana. Daddy missed Johnny as he screamed at John.

 

Meanwhile John's daddy received much news about their extended family and he would share it with the young man frequently, but his son did not care much and didn't bother to speak with the family, or what was left. They were irritating fixtures in John's busy life, but luckily they called only once a year so that for an hour every sunny august morning he'd spend a boring eternity on the phone being congratulated for becoming even more of a man on this magical day.

 

When John moved he became Jon, dropped the nasty black clothes and got himself a girl. He didn't want or expect much and behaved accordingly. They were together for eight days only, eight boiling days that taught him how to kiss, caress and fuck. He really liked to fuck

 

His next relationship was a tumultuous even, it lasted eight months and there he learned to feign love before himself. He was so good at it, everyone would believe it. He wrote love songs and recited them before all. But as with all, that came to an end as well.

 

The next relationship was three months; they got together the day after Jon's heart had been broken by the paragraph above. It began as a rebound, but Jon developed some separation anxiety throughout his obviously arduous life and waited for the relationship to expire of its own.

 

The next became a rebound from the rebound. It lasted five days.

 

Jon then finished high school and moved on to college, there he vowed to be the poster child of hedonism and did such a good job of it that he continued the exhausted practice for ten years.

 

Finally, our story can come to an end having satisfied itself. On April 1, 2051, now at the ripe age of thirty two John meets a lovely woman who would become his wife. They dated for four years before they were married. They had no children. She heated on him after seven years and they divorced the next year, divorced at forty-four.

 

And now at forty five, here I am

 

 

   E I H T,          8                                                4+4

 

8                      GT                             

                      Ay                                        t!

4*2

 

 

 

Imitation, what a marvelous standard for achievement.

 

A bloody nonsensical jumble, and I am a proud writer and why not? When I can so very well hide iridescent incompetence with loquacious habits and methodology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second Installment

 

A most stunningly simplifying dream has come and possessed me. Withdrawing from me, as one may in picking some wild fruit, every bbit of self importance that remained, and granting me that fine juice of lucidity.

 

I must say that the works of the mind are of a grade superimposed on divinity. And as I rest here in aw, this self effacing Narcissus, I must again seek to tame beauty and enter the mammoth of existence through the needle's eye of my own inadequate expression. I must prepare to record this abysmal revelation so that even in the greatest moment of pride I hall never again forget the simple truth that has appeared before me this night. This great truth that has come to coincide with my most fated of decisions. And how stupendously ironic? Such a marvel of destiny seems disproportionately surreal and systematically credulous.

 

Now the dream was sparked as all dreams are by an exhausting meal, a ceaseless banter, and a euphoric cigarette that left my eyes emaciated and aching for the sweet leisure of rest. I left the guys as they were, talking of existence and meaning and pilfering ancient books from which to display even older clichés, and went back to my room to lie down and sleep

 

            And so it began.

 

                                    Why do I wake so? All is a blur.

 

                        " hundreds flew."

            "thousands"

 

It's so warm and gentle in this bed.

 

            "Rivers of honey"

                                    "Of dreams defiled"

 

            Jerry still wails.

 

Shut up mutt. You have stolen a line. Your poem a lie. Shut up

 

            He should stop.

 

                        Ah, silence.

            Now I need to work. Where's the page I finished last night?

I need some coffee. I had a good rest. I wonder. Where did Jerry go?

Where is everyone?

 

I should check the cafeteria.

           

Cafeteria

 

Ah, my good friends.

 

(Hemingway) : Good morning

(Kafka) :

(Keats) : What a glorious sight!

 

Good morning fellas. I need some coffee.

What were you (at this point some pause occurs that I cannot now elucidate) talking about?

 

(Keats) : We spoke of greatness in literature.

(Kafka) : What have I to do with greatness? What have I to do with myself?

(Keats) : Negative capability

(Hemingway) : Obssession.

 

And yet for each it is different while all your books are grand

 

(Keats) : oh you shall now make me blush. As are yours.

(Hemingway) : Kafka is terrific.

(Kafka) : the Grecian urn is a favorite.

(Keats) : thank you sir. And I loved your metmorphosis.

 

Yes. Yes. The metamorphosis drove me to writing.

 

(Hemingway) : dont be modest. Your volume of short stories was marvelous.

(Keats) : yes. Yes it was.

(Kafka) : that is true.

 

Yes. Yes. It is the tip of the Iceberg as you say. Thank you.

 

                                    But How could you read it? You are all dead

 

            (Echo) : WE ARE NOT!

 

My room. My room. What wretched filth they are. My gentle room.

 

                        I must calm down.

 

Euphoria. What is this? For whom the bell tolls. Filth. The Trial. Filth.

 

                                    Fire.

What a sight. A fire. I should throw those books in. how marvelously they burn. Ah. But I feel so rude.

 

                                    I should return to the cafeteria.

 

                                    Cafeteria.

 

My friends. My friends.

 

                        Why do you sleep on the table?

 

But they are all dead. The blood pours from Hemingway's head. Black boils cover Kafka. They are all dead. They don't matter anymore.

.

 

Even the night's Green liqour could not keep from mind that day, sitting in an M113 and rotting till the sun fled the sky and the moon set sail. Through swirls of intoxicated lucidity my mind flashes past the lullaby the motors sang on that day.

It's may, and on this may's romance we sat beside each other and sang:

Old Pirates,
Yes they rob I

We sang aloud, brothers in war and in lust; we thought of our woman, or future wenches, fillies to fill the thirst

Sold I to the merchant ship

The words rang so loud that our officer began to wonder as to our state

Minutes before they took I

And here comes the crescnedo:

From the bottomless Pit

The screams of my brothers are deafening, we can no longer stand to hear anything but the virtue in our own words and so accentuate each word as if it must last an eternity in our smug filled lungs.

"Come." He tells me and I rise ambivalently, remembering my crazy role in this charade. Its just an excercise I tell myself.

"We need someone who can really operate this piece." Refering to the M2 browning that has been given to me as a speciality. But what can I do? I remember nothing of the tool as I've had little apart in practice from the week back in Basic training.

"You see those two dark skinned men?"
"Yes?"
"Kill them."

The words rikushed through my head, I could not percieve what he told me. We were in the middle of an exercise, we should not be shooting.

"Kill them."

I load the chain and prepare to shoot, cocking and insuring that the Sharshir is inserted properly.

I shoot, and my first two kills are inserted into my cognition

A word on Art

Imagine the scene I shall inadequatly set before your eyes: a grim street, the evening has set, and the darkness of the night is apparent though one can still see about him. The alley is simply a straight path with some openings on each side, narrow points of faded light. These points seem to the casual observer as a wonderful escape from the dark stretch. We can find comfort in these regions however it is because we are drawn to them that we should not venture towards them.

Now, being incomplete as we are, we will seek those regions of light in hope that they may fill us though we have already been instructed as to the folly of obsevering them. Are we not lucky then? for as the observers of this tale we may indeed look inside. Now, without much fanfare or fulfillment we observe a false light covering the immediate path after which there is an unparallelled darkness.

But ignoring the light for now, we shall return to the alley:

The alley is littered with trash, one cannot step for fear of trodding on some nasty heap. And as such is the alley: a straight path with various niches of light to the sides and an inexorbitant amount of garbage lying on the ground.

Now, the man in question (our allegory for an artist) stands at the opening of the alley. He is faced with this abominable road that he must now walk and ponders his options. He must walk it, for he was born into it, however what does he do with the garbage? and does he continue along his original trail, straight through the dark corridor or does he take one of the escapes from the side? Does he cleanse the muck as much as he can? or does he step carefully on those tiles with less filth in an attempt to cat-walk the alley?

The first conclusion we shall arrive at together with our poor gentleman is that no creature could tred over the muck without filthing himself along the way.

The second conclusion we may arrive at is that cleansing the rundown alley would require much more than one man's dedication, and would entail within the task a total submersion in the filth.

The third of the initial conclusions or judgements regards the side paths: though they seem inviting and easily allow escape from the rancid smells, there's no indication as to where they lead and if they would ever converge with the original destination offered by the main road.

Now the man must accept a decision,and as we observe him we see a determined look strike across his features as he bends to pick up the first piece of trash.   

Knowledge begins with experience, and as the man gathers the garbage he is filled with the woe of the smell, the unpleasant touch, and horrible feeling caused by a general submission to filth. As he continues along the path, picking all the garbage that he can: stuffing cans and cigarette butts in his bag, and pockets he is weighed down. The weight becomes so unbearable that with time he comes to a new understanding: he must rid of some, in order to carry more. Though this does not seem a reasonable conclusion, it is the only way in which he may continue along to the end.

He first rids himself of the worst of it: the smelliest of the butts, the raunchiest of the items (here is the youth) and is already made light by the symbolic unburdening of his body. with time
he begins to strategically unload heaps along the road (maturity), though after some time of
exhaustive calculation he simply throws piles every which way so that some of the road could be
cleansed following his original methodology.  

                    ---

A simple explanation follows the allegory: the artist walks along the avenues of life where he stumbles and the trash of experience. Once he is overwhelmed by all he encounters he begins to create the frantic pieces of youth, then the great pieces of maturity, and finally the divine pieces of age. and such is Art: to dislodge the sum of all experiences into various assimilations that are art.