Copyright © 2009 Ernest Bloom.
Ragged remnants of black clouds lie
Against the graying sky at dawn, when I
Already know what grim news will come
From the vantage of a colorful 21st century slum.
All the world's a stage for brainless puppets
Whose false steps spin my head unto final nausea
And limitless false steps and upsets.
Suspended between the animal and divinity poles,
Faith was once the root of our low happiness. But
Subsequent to the horrors these eyes have swallowed, I find
The meager fruits of a questing mind are sorrow and grief.
No wise man discovers truth.
You detached souls,
Twisted and manipulated down too many careless generations,
Your monopolistic manipulators have themselves forgotten that
This manner of I-as-One life was never meant
For living. No philosophy has yet been invented
To do more than paper over all that's hollow in a
Hollow, desiccated beetle carapace world, and now our heads
Are late discovered left stuffed with straw as
The last wise man left standing alone on the strand
Long ago predicted.
The arts may be utilized in youth,
For a few brief moments at a time,
To transcend communal misery:
Eat, drink and be inefficient
Thermodynamic machines aching to inter all this
Pain between the piecemeal assembly
And indecent decrepitude and death. Love is a buffer
Against universal pain and suffering, perfect
Moments of shared heat and the beat of hearts,
Not in harmony, but in armistice accord:
Pitiful bastions against the assaults of time, and then,
Liberated from opinions and the foolish beliefs
Of lesser men that were never one's own, we
Enter into the black forest wilderness of
Unbroken terrain, rattling mouth parts like grasshoppers
To jabber, to shake teeth and jawbones,
To let these strange, unfamiliar words fly, free! While we
Stand here gaping in surprise and shock,
Penniless and friendless, alone.
Interesting imagery. Unbroken, pristine terrain and the wilderness resemble the pilgrimate to the New Land but the New Land here is on another level, obviously. Although I find the pessimism here almost crushing. Philosophy can't go farther than paper, hmm, I don't know. Perhaps, perhaps. Language is the limitation, I suppose. But if the wilderness is discovery of any kind, I'm not sure if I find it likely that we would be alone then. I more for the I-as-one philosophy right now, I think, at least that one seems both plausible and optimistic. Funny of you to say that faith is low happiness. I agree, faith is deceit. But a philosophical theory is far removed from religious faith etc. I wouldn't compare these two. This piece is quite powerful and frightening. Not sure if I find the theme itself agreeable but surely in form it's quite efficient though sometimes almost too dry, too detached, to heartbroken. Penniless- I don't think one needs to worry about money at all in such circumstances as you describe and even less so when one is alone. Money is quite useless if you are an Adam without so much as an Eve in the world, I should think.
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