CHORUS:

If far too often fate seems to be fixed
and all for nought, pray you remember this:
of our own choosing are these states of life,
both law and ruler from among us rise.

'Tis in our hands, that much of being free
oft comes to nil, and so our apathy
determines how our democratic state
enslaves us with its silent, civil chains.

So, those who would be wise kings, please take note:
the clever word defeats the sharpest sword;
for those who rule the soul confine the mind,
and conquer silently the heart and hand.

Democracy holds promise great, if freed,
where liberty and justice count for all;
and though expressive right may tax the taste,
the alternate means none may choose their fate:

To choose the gods that suit one's path and place,
may in the so-called pious cause alarm,
but free will gives this choice to each alone;
to interfere is to deny a right.

So tenuous is our hold on the truth,
that some may seek to have their will imposed,
and quench the fire in those who disagree,
while wand'ring lost themselves in faithless doubts.

Let not this trembling thought of fate unknown
breed trust in leaders boasting "sacred right",
or you may silence longing in the heart
for principle, and thus destroy the state.

So stories go, and mine presents a time,
not past, not present, but of both constructs;
A fictioned tale, perhaps, but warning, too,
that our existence faces likewise tests.

For words divine, when jumbled, may distort,
and so confuse the heart and harm the mind;
converting honest fears and hopeful dreams
to damning, pure and simple ignorance.

Maybe a lesson is here to be taught -
that facts can quickly be repressed and scorned,
and that which passes for blessed and devout
may be manipulated and ill-used.

Without a warning, liberties we love
that thrive on the most tenuous of threads
may be no longer granted us from birth,
but lost to mem'ry in chasms of time.

A time when reason, logic and defense,
along with independence and free will,
may lose their place in definition books,
and be unknown to us who live in chains.

from The Trial of Nesorna, Act I, Prologue: Chorus Monologue

1990, 2004

NEIGHBORHOOD:

Lissen up, lissen up, I got a story to tell
It might sell, it might not; if it don't, then oh well
but I'll get right to it, make it understood:
I'm your low-down, funky home neighborhood.

Think somethin's goin' on? Hell, I've been thinkin' for years,
and I'll be sittin' right here when the last smoke clears.
Get the point? I know every inch of this joint,
and every king of the hill you've ever tried to annoint.

You end up disappointed and ya'll come back here,
thinkin' you got the only definition of fear
but I was right here waiting, anticipating your hatin',
race-baitin', matin', creatin' and disintegratin'.

Lissen up, lissen up, now I'll say it again:
close up your mind against change, and you ain't got no friends.
Push comes to shove, and you know how the story ends
somebody dies; and it starts all over again.

So here's the story of a brother and an other:
two boys growin' up thinkin' they hated each other.
Who is the pusher, and who is the shover?
Just sit back and listen, and you might discover

somethin' real, somethin' to make you feel,
somethin' as hard as steel; but hold out 'til the final reel
before makin' your judgments about right or wrong
and judge the singers by the words of the songs;

because who is the weak, and who is the strong
when the river's still flowing, but the mountain is gone?

1992

My daughter graduates from high school tomorrow. This momentous occasion reminds me of the dreadful speeches I had to sit through at my own high school graduation, some 22 years ago. You know the kind of speeches I'm talking about, the ones where the valedictorian or student with perfect attendance or what-not gets up and stammers through some sappy, saccharine set of sentimentalism and invariably ends with some kind of prayer-cum-schoo l fight song-inspirational ditty that's supposed to make this particular nerd somehow respected and/or admired by the rest of the graduating class, if only for a matter of minutes. The speech, and I must say I've heard it in various incarnations both at my own graduation, my younger brothers and sister's graduation, and those of several sets of cousins, goes like this:

But these speeches invariably don't offer any kind of insight into what the real world is like, or what students can really expect once they've left the safety of their parents' nest and tried to find their way in the reality of paying for themselves. So maybe the speech should be more like this.

G is for groveling ... which is something you'll need to learn well, in order to make your way in a society that discourages genius, looks down on free-thinking of all sorts, and uses social and peer pressure as a means for ensuring conformity with a standard you probably will never live up to.

R is for retirement ... which is something you'll be looking forward to for the next 30 or 40 years.

A is for assholes ... who you will encounter not only as employers, but as co-workers, neighbors, roommates, professors, on the commute to work, at the gym and even occasionally in your own home.

D is for debt ... which from this day forward you will be encouraged to live with.

U is for underappreciated ... which reflects the way you'll feel, particularly if you are not a white male, but even then on occasion.

A is for aging ... the process of which you have already begun, but like "no payments due until next fall" will not recognize for the ballooning mortgage on your life it is until you are too far gone to recover.

T is for time ... which you have, until this juncture, taken for granted, thinking in relative terms that in your short lifespan, 10 years is more than half your life, and thus a long time. Ten years from now, you will be wondering where the hell the decade went, and why most of your dreams are yet to be achieved. That, my friends, is relativity.

I is for intimidation ... the method by which most employers, co-workers, neighbors, roommates, professors, and other individuals classified under A above will attempt to coerce your vote, support, volunteer labor, hard-earned cash, and yard maintenance equipment.

O is for overworked ... a state which you have yet to fully experience, having to this juncture most likely not been responsible for producing food, or the wherewithal to purchase food, for yourself or your dependents.

N is for never ... the point in time at which you will be able to sit back, reflect on your laurels, and feel better than you do right now. So enjoy it while it lasts. Once you're old enough to drink legally, there's not much excuse to do so.

23 MAY 2005

Once upon a time, although since as a dimension, time is a relatively unstable paradigm and cannot often be trusted to remain in the tense that one would expect, in a land far, far away [and distance too would seem but an illusion that our physical bodies must endure, but that our minds can easily dissolve with a modicum of effort], there was a very small planet that circled its medium density star - one tiny speck of dust in a mighty dustbowl of a universe.

It was a planet of contradictions. A planet of unusual propensities. A planet that called itself a world sometimes, but at other times felt like a planet.

The inhabitants of this strange planet who had an interest in such things at one point unanimously named it. Those who did not require a name for it seldom acknowledged such activities, regardless of how much circumstance their participants conferred upon them. They may have been thinking, "What's in a name?", but they also might not have even noticed. In the seventh-most widely spoken language of the inhabitants who populated (either by chance birth or through destiny motivated relocation) the most diverse range of climates, the planet was known as Arthel - well, the name was not actually a word in that language, but in a language that was used by a majority of the dominant inhabitants, a language no longer actively spoken on the planet, but revered as a way to escape the need to define things to the non-dominant inhabitants. You may already have begun to guess at some of the unusual propensities to which this planet was inclined.

The inhabitants of this planet, Arthel, were fortunate enough to have been able to develop, propagate and thereby populate it, thanks to a remarkable compatibility between their requirements for survival and the resources available from the environment in which they did these things. The significance of this fact cannot be overlooked - there were many other planets that would not have nurtured these inhabitants in such a successful manner. Many of these inhabitants marked this significance by embracing a sense of their own uniqueness, their innate skills; many others did not. Some of those who chose not to mark such things?were among those who had no "name" for their home - at least not one that was widely circulated or shared.

As one might typically expect on a planet that embraced contradiction and an air of "mystery", the species of inhabitant that was most abundant on Arthel did not "control" Arthel. It may be that they did not wish to control it, or it may be that they simply had no conceptualization of control with which to apply that construct. In either case, the primary inhabitants of the planet were not the most vociferous planetary residents. There was far too much planet, it can be assumed, to cause much of a reason for worry about which inhabitants got which resources. Think locally, you can almost hear them saying. Work with what you've got at hand. Of course, many of the majority inhabitants did not have "hands" - hands were an evolutionary development that concerned only a small number of Arthelans. Most Arthelans enjoyed other physical traits that more than compensated for opposable thumbs.

But it is the Arthelans with opposable thumbs that concern us in this story. This is their history, more than the history of Arthel, although the two are intertwined so closely that few can see light between the threads.

2003

To be a cynical writer is to never have been in love...well, to never have been in love and have it endly up other than badly, I suppose.

To be a romantic writer is to forever be in love - not so much with a person, or even an ideal, but more or less with the "idea" of love.

To be a "political" writer, one need only suppose that the ideal of love, while perfectly described in the theoretical world of legislation, has never been capable of reaching its ivory tower notions.

To write action and adventure, the required modus operandi for the scribe is to capture the impossibility of eternity, save through a well-placed legend or two.

To contemplate science fiction is to see love for what it is, a means to a more harmonious future, or the chaos that engulfs the order of probability.

To be an historical writer, one need only remember, with love, the periods of time with which you have no natural connection, or have imagined a connection of such magnitude that it engulfs any such intellectual advancement that may have occurred between the idealized era and the current one.

To be a motivational writer is to disregard the spirit of the times, to insist that love is to be found and described as you find and describe it, that it is to entertain your minds and not your hearts, to make by the "power of positive thinking" the lessons to be learned by losing seem the source of all true evil.

To be a nihilist writer is to never see love at all. It is to experience rejection, but not hope. Fear, but no courage. Reason, but no faith. Grounding, but no earth.

1991

We sit in circles, crop circles, like silver-clad heroes at Arthur's table, dark knights of the soul of verse, our words colliding in the jousts of wit and criticism. Is it the flame that draws us moths to it, and so we dance in the flickering candlelight, hoping to stay entranced and yet remain un-scorched? Like ashes on the forehead can remind us of our lone and bitter days, days when we thought "if I could only be accepted, if they would only listen" and so drank ourselves silly in the inconsequentiality of the moment, we titter, stumble, laugh and tumble against the cold, hard steel of our truths, our realities.

And in the end, we want of wealth, of fame, of power, of "don't I know you from somewhere" and "weren't you with...last seasons" and "oh, I thought your last...was simply marvelous" and so on and so forth and furthermore and insofar and even if it mattered, even just one smattering of an insignificant jot of ink that spilled on blotting paper or stained the index finger rather than died its immortal death on the crucifix of watermarks and typesetters' thorns - yes, even if that could save our tortured souls from waking in a world we could not evade with our descriptions, make light of in our comedic stances, would we want to pass it by, relinquish our hold on that which makes us realize how much we need to simply create, to form, to place under our power that experience of living, of dying, of falling down drunk in an alley watching our world crumble in half empty tea cups?

Written, it seems so concrete, so decisive and bold - yet it is the journal of a hallucination, created in our minds and carried out on the gurney of the flesh into the streets we barely recognize, and the stones in the pavement do not glint or glitter as we remember them, nor so brightly as they can.

An in our drunken haze we drop our curtsies and highballs half-full of the contraband elixir we consider our inspiration - and we ask for it by name in the password prose of prayer: give me three or four rounds of Dark (and often cloudy and thick swirling dark it is), and then a couple of clear and crystal Brights for the road, the road I must trod down in inebriated, lucid celebration of my inhibited yearnings. I want, I announce to the "wicked and expedient stones," the world of my choice, of my creation: a world where one can morally possess a mind and venture to speak it, a world where social conventions are gatherings of gregarious and yet not sheep-like folk who know not only which fork to use with the salad, but which one to take at the bend in the road that leads to funny or witty, separating dull chortles from mirthful laughter.

Laughter, yes, and tears that come from excess - these are the signs by which we will be known; and they shall sing our praises while they curse us, hound us for mementos while they scour the tabloids for our inadequacies, and read until the wee hours of morning each drop of saccharine and strychnine we draw from our veins with the prick of a vengeful pen.

1995

Speaking hypothetically [which might mean communicating virtually by forcing directed bursts of recently inhaled oxygen-nitrogen-miscellaneous ethereal non-visible compounds to rise from within the air sac viscera through the windpipe and past a discerning set of vocal chords (say, a G-major-minor-7 flat 5) under the epiglottis and over the taste buds the river and somewhere behind grandmother's house oh what big teeth you have and then out into the void where someone is waiting patiently -- and here's the first occurrence of doctor-patient confidentiality, isn't it? Doesn't it seem like being someone's patient shouldn't mean waiting for 45 minutes for an 80 second consultation? -- and fortunately, you've got an attention span of more than 4/1000ths of a second or you never would remember what you wanted to say before you launched into it per the preceding description], which might be to orally transmit similitudes or other such drivel (and as Isaiah once said, "I have used the little suckers!"), please turn and spit. Thank you.

The Twenty Percentists represented (do they sign their correspondence "Periodontically Yours"?), the proverbial four out of five -- and using the word proverbial here does not refer to the fact that Solomon, although long in the tooth towards the end of his reign, was probably not working with a full set of choppers -- would like you to rinse, please? Incidentally, if you'll pardon the tongue-in-cheek (a little drill-side humor) do four out of five of the leading figures on the Caspian Sea and the Crimea -- where Tartar control was at one time a little on the drastic side -- feel that the ever-loving Constantinatives went a little overboard (and of course, that's where they got the fish that had the taste that prompted the sauce that the Tartars built!). And on that same wavelength (a little fisherman's' humor, and as Charlie Mingus said, the shoes of the fisherman's wife are some jive ass slippers) why eat fish that doesn't taste fishy? Isn't that like saying you want a tomato that tastes like an apple, or "Let's have a misteak and Vidalia not-onion?" That's all fine and dandy if you're one of those that thinks that whiting tastes like haddock tastes like code tastes like scrod tastes like talapia and it's all so much better drowned in a cream sauce, but why eat fish at all? Why not put a little salt and a few bones in some tofu? Anyway...

My relatives, with little regard for the medicinal benefits of scotch, get gin-give-itis around the holidays. Here all this time I thought they were talking about Tartan Control - and that suits me fine, because there are just too many Scotsmen and not enough single malt for my liking. Throw the Highlanders (including Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert) overboard and pour me a shot of Laphroaig or Glenfiddich. Four out of five Gaelic practitioners of the orthodontic arts recommend Tartan Control Plaid Remover. And while we're talking about dentists, please remember that the Listerine will never get into your mouth if you're sitting in front of your mirror like the Quiet Man and that little bottle is swinging across the treetops yodeling like Johnny Weismuller. Oh, those crazy Scotsmen. Our Father, who art intoxicated, hollow J & B thy brand. Perhaps the fifth (not of scotch, this time, but of those irrepressible dentists) doesn't work with patients who chew gum -- then again, if all the world were bread and cheese and all the sea were ink and they told their friends and so on and so on how would we ever find time for sweet chewy nasty unwholesome foods that without which there might be little need for the man in white smock who sounds like a golfer ("You've got a hole in one on the back nine there, my friend," or "Nurse, I'd like the putter, please," or whatever it is they say). Is there a little stamp that goes on the Doctor of Dental Science certificate that indicates membership in the Four Out of Five Club? Do associate members get discount rates on green fees, or just on those neat sharp pointy instruments the use of which inevitably brings the remark, "That didn't hurt a bit, did it?"

Speaking hypothetically (which in addition to being next to impossible with all this stuff in my mouth), turn and spit (I almost forgot, that's better). It's the next best thing to being there and take it or leave it, it's all we've got, because my dentist (who happens to be one of the four looking for a fifth on the isle of Islay where they make Laphroaig in copper kettle and age it for ten years and that's why it tastes like heather and peat moss and shag tobacco and has a little quaint mist about it but still doesn't explain why it has to cost at least thirty-five dollars a bottle) is out of town fishing. I hope he's got a bottle of Tartar sauce with him, because I tripped on the Col Gate and have Crest fallen and I can't get upper bicuspid. Somebody left their Trident on the lawn and I've got a lump on my jawbone that feels like a sermon from the Molar Majority. Feels like I've just Neptuned in and caught the end of Poseidon's Misadventures (edited for television).

Gives a whole new meaning to brushing up your MacBeth.

1995

Introduction to a Poem Requested by a Dear Friend. Please note: dear friend is somewhat of an ambiguous phrase, which should not be misconstrued to mean that I have anything against any deer, elk, moose, springbok, or other non-horse, leaping, running, jumping herbivore - which is like a vegetarian except more boring in conversation - because I like woodland and veldt-dwelling creatures of that sort because they never try to talk to you when you're on the phone with someone else).

Anyway, here goes: It's a never-ending story, a pit without a toppus or a bottomus, a continuous saga, or at least a tale that seems to be sagging ever closer and closer to the ground: it's the ending of the end-all, the creme de la creme of something that was once was soft and pliable and oh so very pleasant to the touch, smell and sight but now has hardened into a plastispasmodic dessert tray offering that shows signs of oxidation, sugar viscosity breakdown and overall loss of morphologicality and appeal. What is it? Or rather, what was it, what could it have possible been, from whence did it come and will it return at end of day to close our eyes and minds to deprive us of the burden of imaginative recompense? I don't know.

I'm milking this one for all it's worth: I feel it's my udder responsibility. What I have attempted to attempt here is an introduction, a prologue, a pre-initialization segue, an opening monologue, to set the stage, give you the background, or sort of give you the "in last week's episode" synopsis of what you might have missed if you had been out having some sort of a mid-life crisis experiment consciousness awakening mind-bending good old fashioned get up and go something going on last week and between the sound bite politics and other mindless trivia that have been sandwiched in between your neurons and synapses in the intervening time period instead of paying strict attention to the events, actions, and their separating moments of extreme boredom (don't you just love those peaks and valleys?).

WHAT IF:
Money actually grew on trees?
You actually had more than one once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
Your face actually stayed in the guise of some hideous scowl you made when you were six?
Things were easier done than said?
What was up never came down?
The birds and bees got together and planned the assassinations of Drs. Ruth Westheimer, Sigmund Freud and Benjamin Spock?
The lamb beat the shit out of a couple of lions?
Evolution is really de-volution?
You died, got younger, and then were born?
Apples and oranges are really the same thing?
Square pegs fit into round holes?

WHAT THEN?

Homespun and Gravity look at each other, the two sailors, the sun setting swiftly in the southern sky.

"Well," Homespun begins, "now what?"

"War Stories!" the sailors shout, lifting non-existent mugs to their dry, cracked lips in anticipation (although they were not actually in Anticipation, Pennsylvania, but in the suburbs of America, nowhere near the non-friendly skies of Philadelphia, and were not actually in Anticipation, burning in Effigy, waiting in Limbo, or doing anything else that might be construed to be happening in any other place, bated breath notwithstanding).

"Why is it," Gravity asked, "that whenever people get together to talk about their past, they call it telling war stories? Is it all that bad? Why not, for example, tell peace or love or fond memory stories, instead of war, horror, experience done taught me a lesson that I would not have learned or had taught to me but I shall drill into your head the validity of my sorrowful life by sharing it with you tales from the crypt of crap that has somehow accumulated in my pointed little worthless head of a pin understanding of what it takes to not only convey a moral message but stupid story simultaneously?"

"I say," Homespun answered, "that we share intimate stories from the pursuit of the wild and furry frubbit."

from The Secret Undertown Ministry, 1993

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