RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,247
(melding a psychotic nation)
Unsettling dreams for sure are
one thing, but an unsettling reality
is far worse. That's where I find
myself now. Essentially it's been
55 years since I first set foot out
and into my own 'New' World.
Antonin Dvorak couldn't have
written it better; my own theme
song to something - rattling
and wafting past me as the new
pictures beckoned: realities of
glass and steel, the fast-talk
of NYC bullshit and Orwellian
double-speak. 1967, in most
aspects, was my watershed
year. Before that, yes, all the
signs had been pointing to
destiny for me, in portents and
manners I couldn't recognize,
or nor fully. I had phantom
recognitions of something that
was headed my way, though I
never knew what it was. The
'Spirit' part of me - that really
old hunk of my cosmic, eternal
make-up, was the only part that
actually knew. I had to learn
how to read all that - which
in my case has developed into
my 'other' language of words
and poetry exclusive to myself.
It's my translation. All I ever do
when I write my weird junk, is
try to break through to that other,
almost translatable, side (of me?).
-
Two trails had led me to 1967,
and quite nicely - first, the 1958
train wreck, through which I was
introduced to, shall we say, 'other'
aspects of being. Mine, and the
world's. I awoke from a long coma
and was immediately, yes, 'another'
person than the one who'd gone
into it. The second was the self
imposed exile years of seminary,
chosen specifically by me, to get
away and seek a necessary, personal
solitude through which to develop
the chrysalis of 'me.' That all rolled
up into something. Something I
could never get in order, nor put
my finger on. I'm still confused
by it all.
-
Yet, in one sphere, that brings
us to today. If it's the responsibility
of each individual to own up to
their own 'todays', each and apart,
then I guess I'm admitting to doing
a pretty good job of all that, albeit
in my own way only. No markers
of which the world notes. I leave
as well as I entered - an abject
entrant who never pulled a win.
-
'Footfalls echo in the memory
down the passage we did not take,
towards a door we never opened,
into the rose-garden. My words
echo, this, in your mind...' That's
T.S. Eliot, something from 'Four
Quartets.' I always liked those
lines; they sounded so old and
noble. Important, even. When
you're young, as I was, and you
run into things like that - Eliot
winning the Nobel Prize for
Literature (1948), it can act,
first, as a mysterious entryway
into something you're not sure
of, but attracted too without
knowing why. I was like that
at about the age of 12. Eliot,
in my seminary years, was
allowed in, as a library item,
because he had 'saved' himself,
in their eyes, by turning so very
Christian in his later writing.
I went at him from the other
direction; which was quite
strange because if one starts
out that way with him he's an
entirely different writer with
an entirely different worldview
and approach. Or at least it
seemed to me and I was OK
and satisfied by that. I think it
all gets internalized as a person
grows along, into their own
fated destiny; about which,
pretty much, there's not much
you can do. Some guys, reaching
the right age, find themselves
deeply in conflict with their
own personal directions, fated
and destined, and their soul and
spirit knows that. So they, say,
go and join a military, with the
subconscious motivation of
getting out of all that by being
blasted to smithereens or killed.
Which 'intention,' always lurking,
then transforms the rest of their
lives and they lead fanatic pushes
into other realms - police, stocks,
business, and the rest. Hoping
thusly to sort out their otherwise
lost lives. The subconscious rules,
always. 'The personalized version
of good and evil usurps and
individualizes the more archetypal
concepts...a hero becomes one who
safeguards his or her individual
integrity at almost any cost.'
Victory has nothing to do
with happiness.
-
That same Nobel Prize, by the way,
can now be given out for mostly
nothing at all (see 2016's Prize).
The fixability of referentials has
been shifted now so far that any
ideas of tradition, learning, and
interpretation no longer really
exist. Everything is different now,
and in a world without values
there simply are, well, no values.
-
I always (and, yes, I mean always),
viewed the USofA as a captive nation.
Any connection to what are now
glibly called 'Founding Principles'
have long ago been cut and thrown
out - the only public role they
play is in the glib mouths of
diuretic political types who think
nothing of dredging from the muck
to pull out their kernal of defecated
corn to hold up to their audience.
Which audience is mostly deaf,
dumb, and blind anyway. We've
somehow slid into a soft totalitarianism
(contradiction, yes, but it works),
by which the bottom layers of people
are laughed at and disregarded, while
the corporate and statist levels have
been thrown a sort of National Welfare
Bone of their own - subsidized to the
hilt, every endeavor of Science, Medicine,
Education and....yes...even Arts, is
supported by tax dollars and lobbied
funds and programs, to line their own,
bottom-line protectorates. But the
common-man aspect of all this, in
turn, is curtsied to with lies and
misrepresentations and, of course, a
complete fantasy-world commentary
still using base-statistics to prove we
are 'free individuals exercising all
rights and privileges unto ourselves.'
America hasn't had a free month since
about 1810. Thanks.
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