The Affliction (A Monologue) I It's quiet in this house The hum of my computer And a distant gentle sound Of music comes from nowhere Snow swirls just beyond the window In the distance, hills obscured In the corner is a painting I've just sold I am looking at it for the last time Like a friend I will not soon forget Books everywhere, magazines on art, Egyptology, science and computers I have taken this Wednesday as a sabbatical from work, my mind requires rest and needs to be alone (I lean back in my chair) I have just finished reading William Styron's tour de force About the rages of a man's reality In confronting his depression... It spoke to me succinctly like a Kitchen knife revealing the attack (Revealing what we are through what we lack?) I have been many times in a 'depression' Many times have walked among the pines Alone upon a winter's eve And many times have felt the weighty hand Lie down upon my shoulder, calling: Friend. But this was not the friend of living This friend was wan and pale and reeked Of death. This friend was what I had become When looking in the mirror at my suicide. What held me back? The thought of writing poetry: Of knowing the next poem would be better Than the last. Of knowing that the struggle Would carry on forever, but also realizing this: That whoever I was, am or will become, I have captured something of the moment Others never have the time to feel. I have lived through this depression Understanding just a little more about The person that I am. That gives courage. 10 a.m. As if a feeling of euphoria Threw a misty veil around my mind I seem awake, but also seem less blind Then when awakeness hits me on the head I see beyond the walls, beyond the books Beyond the dream...even beyond the dream It is warm in this house, but still I shiver A spear-thrust pain collapses in my side I shiver, sweat, shiver, frightened I glance outside The distance meditates beyond my vision I have an empty wine glass beside the yet To be revised New Testament I found myself Translating years ago...I have found it to be Much too different from the faith we have Swallowed with indifference and a lie. I have lost my faith in this. I have gained A greater faith. A gathering of universal Truths. That all is part of one symbiosis. The snowflake cannot live without my mind, And I cannot function without it. But religion is another story: I will not Collect these shards into a poem. I will Look upon the boundary of our lives and ask Someone why they think there is a boundary To our lives? Where is the distinction Between a table and the dinner plates? The quantum does not differentiate. And I have Difficulty knowing less than one reality for all. On this morning with the darkness creeping through The white snow; as the clouds get heavier So the thoughts of any poet must reflect On lightning rods and actions too obscure To form the basis of an argument. The shadows Are diffused, or disappear completely. The colours In my painting fades. There are no shadows In this painting: A table stuck before an open window. A vase without flowers, a guitar, metronome, and Sheet music. And a baton too heavy to be useful. But no shadows. Though the sky is clear, and in the Distance, three sea gulls. The whole things is a Flat surface of intent. Contorted shapes un-bent To the solution. Silent artifact: ghostly past. I am freezing. I put on a sweater. I ignore The passing indecisiveness. I was on my way to work. Briefcase and a heavy coat. Suit and tie And much to do. I was half way there. I turned Around for no particular reason. Turned the corner, Headed home past all these others headed, just Like that, to work. I pitied them. I did not want To know their arguments. My mind registered Contempt for anything that moved within the city. Within the walled obsequiousness of mental Aberration. I looked into the eyes of one Stranger who knew me, but I did not know her Well enough to struggle with a word or two. I needed to find solitude. To be alone and Nurture this unfathomable tomb that is my mind. I needed to complete the cycle of events That long ago had harboured me into a Safety net. It strangled me. I couldn't Breathe. For breath I prayed to a god I did not Care to know. I was solid in my fright. The wooden planks of this old ship were Creaking on their journey to a new and finer World. I wondered what diseases we would bring? The snow keeps falling. Falling doubly. Swirling in a knot of rage. I listen to the radio. On and on. Like the motion of the silent Painted metronome upon the canvas in the corner. The music flows. External and internal. Mingling Longing with desire. Mingling present, future, Past. Mingling what these co-responses co-require. Mingling what we should and should not make to last. For I am spent, and will make no excuses. I have written one more scrap of poem, And beaten the Affliction one more time. II Second day. The mind restrains itself. It is poisoned, it is numb. It is shattered, shattered. It is like a fool obsessed With shadow boxing (writ appealed). Dead of winter, just before the spring Hits. 2nd day off work. TV (which I hardly ever watch) Pizza and some wine. Windows rattle. Those few Messages that I received appeal: At 2 a.m. they work to separate The dream from nightmare. - I am blessed To have such solid friends. Even in my solitude The shattered mirror comes together With the image of a self Repressive past. I look At old and faded photographs: I read old journals, notebooks, Poems I have not rehearsed In years. Oh! Has so much time Been wasted slipping past? How has So much time slipped past? And where am I In all of this? Where is what I Wanted most and have not gotten 'Under breath'? Mind Unsteady. Image of a snowy owl. Nocturnal, ever waiting, waiting, Waiting. Open eyed and wide awake. Always open eyed and wide awake. So something strikes me in the glitter Of the silent frosty forest Blackened by the snow. Mindlessly I wander, walk and Wait. Wait and walk and Ponder what is no solution To this argument my mind insists Is real but can't be felt As such. For what? and Walk to where? - Mindlessly I paint upon the trees A image of myself...an image of the Trees against these walls that are My window to the world that is myself No less than others I can't hope to touch Or see. The past reels through me like an Old discarded entity left to rot Upon the cutting floor. (And the reaper dances Upon the alter of the threshing floor.) We stumble, we reveal Ourselves by masking...and our building Masks upon the masks which we inhabit As our soul...The sacrificial lamb Is cleansed as cleansed are we In sacrifice and suicide... But why upset the brave solution To this argument? The hero plays the Clown and devil in despair... (The hunger is our disrepair). So time and effort, Plastic sense of augmentation Breeds the bleeding aftermath Like worms within the earth. Worms which hollow corpses Breaking down their relativity. Handing us the straw and saying 'This is soul. Make the most of What you have inherited. The universe Does not inherit earth.' I neither questioned, nor accepted I was much too worn to be the cause of So much enmity. I look at these old photographs: Friends and lovers cross my eyes In a two dimensional array. I see the faces and remember thoughts And actions and refrain from comment: I have met them eye to eye. I rummage though my spastic mind Images of Dante's Hell Self unsure and sense upon this tide Hemlock's wind upon this shore. The music augments possibilities, The wine recasts the mind into a taunted imbecility (civility?). But these old photographs (Here is Linda, here is Sue) Images the haunted path Of what-could-have-been could be. Where are they now - ? Physically changed (Some have children, Some have gathered solitude...) And knowing that the city's changed And so the people that inhabit This abode...And are the occupants Ever different? Do they ever differ from the City's consciousness? A consciousness That others claim their own? - I am Startled otherwise: I see the future in These eyes. And there is nothing but the city In those youthful death-defying eyes. I refuse to comprehend...I refuse The claim that no one is an individual... But then the city builds a mount... Is an anthill, termite hill, beehive So much of a different replication Of reality? The city is inclusive... Eventually the city runs us all. I collect my sensibilities set among The empire of a rose, spent. Death is next around the corner Of a once deserted street. I don't go out. I eat alone. I smile a lot, and repair Safety nets. Drink me no Salt Peter. I am not a monk. I am just a blazing truth That somehow is myself. I am. Acknowledging the invalidity Of the initial sacrifice...hope, courage and a silent stupefaction: God! How did I live this long? How did I manage fire from water? How did I refrain from death? I who did not wish to but have Ultimately found some kind of hope. III Bazaar, this consequence of hope. This eagle eyed estrangement. This winter That encroaches into spring. Obsessed with fear of where the walls must end, and where the world of truth Begins, I began expressing what was hardly So expressible. Words tumbled like a Bleeding heart. I am almost this ashamed Of voicing what should be a private pain. But poetry defines no boundaries. One part Of a collective voice is what must be a part Of others. No one is alone. And in this Frightened desperation no one fools another. There has always been the argument that we Have cast ourselves adrift and floundered cork-like On the open elemental sea. It may have seemed At times like that. And in a moment of hallucination We might focus on a very fragmented universe. I myself have done this many times. Not through Any search for truth, but in spite myself; My wanting to remain a certain individual Within the choking city atmosphere. Alone I gathered solitude and the reflection Solitude engenders. Yet none of this collects A subtle genealogy. Without the focus and the Goal there can be no solution. Neither to a Simple trust nor to the swelling of the universe. When the mind implodes and focuses this self Upon the self, the relativity is lost. Nothing Reveals itself within another thing, but fragments And collects the shards into a heap. It seems At times like these that there will never come a day When light will grace the darkness with its rays. The stars no longer shine, and all is black: but Black within the mind. This darkness seems Inviolate. And every twisted circle of repressive Hell assaults the nightmare hurricane that twists The neurons contorted through the brain. Each Hallucination just as real as if the hand touched Burning Iron. This oppressive phantom swings The sword of Damocles and taunts us to reveal The thing we want the most: and that is silence, That is death. Rest from this destructiveness. Resting through destructiveness. It is a final Desperate struggle to accept the will to a Reality no one else can fathom. It is the cycle That embraces all. And it comes not as a free choice, But as a prisoner condemned to the electric chair, However innocent the soul might be. And you hope There is no soul to resurrect. I have come full Circle in explaining this. I had hoped to write a Better poem as no idea in prose can capture This debilitation of a complex mind. Falling Pray to such disease. The cure, they say is Always time. But time can be a killer too. And too much time can be another Hell. But no, I have no thoughts of death. The Conquest is beginning. I have breath enough To fight the beast and rage into the future With conviction and with purpose. I understand What happens here too well. I know what shadows Come upon me when they will, and I will make The most of it. I will grapple with my own Self worth, exploding outward with a force That rallies the whole nature of the universe. Harvesting such energy that nothing can Debilitate the poet in this mortal shell. And poetry is my expression. Others have their Friends and relatives. Each one has their own. I collect the shards into a greater whole Reassembling what will be a new reality That others can repair into when the Affliction Strikes. And strike it will, for just around the Corner it will wait, not for those who unsuspected, But those who all too well await it's grasp. The struggle must continue: For no one here collects The goal without the price agreed well in advance. The slaughter house is the Affliction, and the Burden that is Purgatory smiles on us at last. Coda Friday. The third day. It is always hardest on the third day. The death-chill of the air involves The bubble of activity no less Than stupefying numbness. Intangible fluctuations flood The mind and evolves to pain that binds One to the fractal universe. I want to shout, teeth grinding, Fist clenched. I want to scream Like no one ever screamed before. I want the universe to shudder And collapse. Reverse the process Of our livelihood. Time twisted, Scattered, light diffused. I want it All to cease. Fall apart and quit This heaviness lodged choking in my heart. It is Friday. The third day. The sun shines like a bleeding corpse Binding shadows to the facts. I pull the curtains to my windows Tight. No light permeates the Ragged rage of this poor fool. Simpleton. Stumbling in his madness Through the padded cell of hope. It is Friday. Drink a toast to Friday. Drink a toast to silence. Drink a Toast to...hell, just drink. 13/14 Mar 92 11-14 Mar 92 Copyright (c) Klaus J. Gerken 1992 Ygdrasil Press http://users.synapse.net/~kgerken kgerken@synapse.net alt.centipede