Two Hundred and Ninety Four

We resort to poetry when ordinary language fails us.  And it always fails us.  So does poetry, but in a different way.  There’s no way we can tell the truth if we don’t know the truth.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Whenever I read this, it makes me think of that spring day my mother first took me from my crib and carried me outside.  It’s not a memory, but the memory of a memory.  I wrote it down when I was old enough to write—but first I drew it, in stick figures—because I knew memories were all my family had left.  

A new child, born into an old family, stirred those dull roots with the desire for a new beginning in a new land.  But all families are equally old, and this new land is just as dead as the old.   

Two Hundred and Ninety Three

All I know, I knew in the beginning.

I knew my life would be bad, but not as bad as it could be.  Most people’s lives are bad, and pretending they aren't only makes them worse.  I was determined never to make mine worse by lying to myself. 

I knew there would be times when my life was good, but not as good as it could be, because I wasn’t willing to do what I’d have to do in order to make it better.  I was determined never to do anything for which I’d have to be ashamed.

I knew I’d always be alone.  We’re all alone, but not all of us admit it.  I was determined to live without illusions.

   So I've lived an ordinary life.  Bad, but not bad enough to kill myself.

Two Hundred and Ninety Two

Love makes the world go round, says the old song.  Freud said the lover needs his beloved as the predator needs its prey. 

The predator needs its prey because life feeds on life.  We feed on each other as a dying body feeds on its own flesh; and every body begins dying the moment it's born.

The body politic is a sadomasochistic game in which the rich pretend they govern and the poor pretend they are governed.  They need each other because only a god or a beast can live alone, without the company of its own kind on which to feed.  But only by lying to ourselves, and each other, can we live together without admitting we're killing each other.  

Society's the macrocosm, and the family the microcosm.  In most families, parents use and abuse their children because they were used and abused themselves when they were children, so they never learned what love is.  

Most children never admit their parents abuse them.  Not because they're innocent, but because they're afraid of admitting they're helpless, powerless.  Thus adults can abuse children without fear of reprisal, just as the rich abuse the poor.  

Children should eventually grow up, but most never do because even as adults they remain powerless.  They only grow older, struggling to believe the lies they were taught when they were young.  Most adults want good masters for the same reason most children want good parents.

Society is dying now because we're realizing those we’re taught to worship as gods are no better than we are. 

Adults abuse children, men abuse women and the rich abuse the poor.  Most of us despise ourselves and/or each other for abusing other people and/or allowing them to abuse us.  But we can’t or won’t admit what we do to them and/or allow them to do to us, because we need each other as the predator needs its prey. 

   We're sadists, abusing the people we claim to love so that we can comfort them, soothing the wounds we ourselves inflict.  When they're wounded and helpless, we no longer need fear those we love—fear they’ll find out who and what we are, and despise us as we despise ourselves—so we can love them safely, without fear of reprisal.

Two Hundred and Ninety One

Last night's dream.

I’m in the city hall plaza.  People are everywhere, and none of them are wearing masks.  Neither am I.  Is the pandemic over?  We’re behaving as though it is.

As usual, I’m lost.  I can’t remember where I parked my car.

As I walk across the plaza, I see a parked motorcycle.  It looks like the one I had when I was in college.  But how can that be?  That was half a century ago, in a city half a continent away.  Nevertheless I get on, and try to start it.

It starts, so I ride it around the plaza, getting used to it again.  But then it stops.  I try to start it again, but I can't, so I get off and walk towards city hall.  I go inside, intending to telephone a friend (apparently in this dream I have friends) and ask them to come pick me up.

The building is full of workmen in white coveralls.  One of them tells me I shouldn’t be there because they’re going from room to room spray painting every surface white. 

An overhead loudspeaker announces the sequence in which the rooms are being painted.  Just as I open the door marked 6, in order to leave, the loudspeaker announces that room 6 is now being spray painted.  I quickly close the door, just in time to avoid being spray painted.  The workman tells me I’ll now have to wait inside the building until the paint dries.

Two Hundred and Ninety

Is it life, or just my life, that disgusts me?  That’s a distinction without a difference.  Most of us live the life we have to live.

At least we’ve finally gotten over our odd delusion that eternal life is what we want.  Any reasonable monster would have accepted that it’s a monster by now, and destroyed itself.  But although we are destroying ourselves, as usual we’re doing it wrong.  We’re destroying not only ourselves, but every other living thing on this planet as well.  If only we took a moment to think, we’d realize we should all just lie down and never get up again.  But who am I to judge?  I’ve often lain down with that intention, but I always got up again.  So much for good intentions.