Solution

The basic problem of philosophy (from Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Plato) has been the mixture (often confused) of cause and effect. Past and present, to be exact -- future has no meaning. Time flows like a river (sage Heraclitus said); life is a long wretched stretch out of which we seek to extricate ourselves (thus Plato). So what do we do?

I have a solution: we kill ourselves. End it all. Who needs it anyway?

She walks

The scent of her hair was in my nose this morning.

Yes, this is a quaint opening to a poem, but no less real for that... The memories of the softness, the silken voice, the love that comes with eggs served at six AM ...

Whispering something soft and kind, like James Taylor said ... Nobody does such things anymore ...

Days of harshness and hardness, days of lax love, people with agendas, the crippling weakness that takes one over ...

I'd like to write a Whitmanian litany right now, but I just don't have the strength

You must forgive me

Deor (translation)

This is a highly interpretive translation of a 10th century (?) Anglo-Saxon poem that I have rendered in my own style. First there is my translation; below is the actual text of the poem as it appears in the Exeter Book (10th century CE).

Deor

Weland, ready for worms by swords’ cruel bite

Experienced a world of hardship

Agony was his only friend.

Friends fierce and heartless,

They wracked him with sorrow:

He nearly fell

King Nithad bested him!

Weland, the better man:

Nithad hamstrung him

And set him on the ground

That is in the past,

Soon will our troubles be.

Beadohild’s mind was tormented

By the death of her brothers;

But knowing she was large with child,

Little she cared for the outcome of that,

So great was her brothers’ burden

That is in the past, Soon will our troubles be

Matilda, too, we have heard of, How her troubles were deep and numerous, Love-pangs deprived her of blessed sleep

That is in the past, Soon will our troubles be

Theodric for thirty winters Held sway over Maeringaburg: Few were unaware of that!

That is in the past, Soon will our troubles be

Wolf-minded Eormanric ruled the Goths. What a grim king he was! Many warriors bound, Beset by sorrow, Prayed heartily for the overthrow Of that tyrant

That is in the past, Soon will our troubles be

In the darkness his soul finds solace, Thinking this is the only place for him. Turning to the Lord he finds That all the world is beset with sorrow: Such is the lot of men. But honor and glory come to some – To him, the question remains.

Now let me speak of myself: For some time I sang songs to the lord of the Hedenings. I was beloved!

Deor was my name. Winters passed in this prestigious state. My lord loyal Until Heorrenda Songmaster Bested me! And my protector no longer wants me. Like a lone warrior, I am left without sword.

That is in the past, Soon will our troubles be

Deor (Anglo-Saxon poem, ca. 900 CE) Welund him be wurman wræces cunnade, anhydig eorl earfoþa dreag, hæfde him to gesiþþe sorge ond longaþ, wintercealde wræce; wean oft onfond, 5 siþþan hine Niðhad on nede legde, swoncre seonobende on syllan monn. þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg! Beadohilde ne wæs hyre broþra deaþ on sefan swa sar swa hyre sylfre þing, 10 þæt heo gearolice ongieten hæfde þæt heo eacen wæs; æfre ne meahte þriste geþencan, hu ymb þæt sceolde. þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg! We þæt Mæðhilde monge gefrugnon 15 wurdon grundlease Geates frige, þæt hi seo sorglufu slæp ealle binom. þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg! ðeodric ahte þritig wintra Mæringa burg; þæt wæs monegum cuþ. 20 þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg! We geascodan Eormanrices wylfenne geþoht; ahte wide folc Gotena rices. þæt wæs grim cyning. Sæt secg monig sorgum gebunden, 25 wean on wenan, wyscte geneahhe þæt þæs cynerices ofercumen wære. þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg! Siteð sorgcearig, sælum bidæled, on sefan sweorceð, sylfum þinceð 30 þæt sy endeleas earfoða dæl. Mæg þonne geþencan, þæt geond þas woruld witig dryhten wendeþ geneahhe, eorle monegum are gesceawað, wislicne blæd, sumum weana dæl. 35 þæt ic bi me sylfum secgan wille, þæt ic hwile wæs Heodeninga scop, dryhtne dyre. Me wæs Deor noma. Ahte ic fela wintra folgað tilne, holdne hlaford, oþþæt Heorrenda nu, 40 leoðcræftig monn londryht geþah, þæt me eorla hleo ær gesealde. þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg!

Wayland never made it

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The bite of Berenice means nothing when there's

Denise

Something I said one night made me worry that she was pissed ... She said NO ...

Music plays in many places, and most often in the mouths of the ones you hope to love

. The one you hope to love.

If that's not poetry, then what the fuck is?

I am the Last (a-la Lord Dunsany)

Whoo-hooing across Lethe

Cries ring out

Some schmuck wanting to board the ship

Getting a paddle to his sconce

If there is a kiss of Death, I want it. She withholds it, like some dominatrix cuckold ...

If I can enable myself to smear my body with the sweat and grime of innumerable sluts,

then please let me!

The Inescapable Part

Dying Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

~ Sylvia Plath, "Lady Lazarus"

There is, I think, a certain art to self-destruction: but only in retrospect. When one is in the midst of destroying oneself (as in the throes of alcoholic delirium tremens, for instance) there is not much in the way of art -- just a lot of painful sing-song voices and dancing about old times waiting for some non-existent savior to bring you another bottle.

However, in retrospect -- after the pain has become a distant, evolutionarily muted memory -- a certain odd beauty emerges, rather like one of those alien hybrid worlds of Lovecraft's work ... The intensity of the moment quiets and the sound of paramedics and sirens and the rush of nurses to get the IV in all become just a part of a tapestry ... that's it.

But the worst part of it all -- the inescapable part! -- is when the people we love no longer see this thing as a grand work of art, but as a simple refusal to live. And now here is where I'll get philosophical ...

Life on life's terms. -- I hate that phrase. It is spoken by the weak who pretend that Life is somehow an entity to be approached with reverence and awe like some sort of biblical manifestation of the deity. No! Life is nothing but a jumble of possibilities crammed into a very small personal space, with nowhere to go unless we drag them along with us on our unpredictable journey into the dark unknown, the boundless night, the pure chaos of non-being -- toward which we are all headed.

When Kurtz cried his famous line, "The horror! the horror!," he was not referring to anything inside or about him, but rather about the life-denying world that he tried to escape! Unsuccessfully, of course. The true artist wants to do two things at once: stay in the world and love it; and escape from it and laugh sardonically at its folly from a safe distance, or height. At worst, of course, the artist is like Byron's Manfred, pulled back from the precipice by the lowly chamois hunter. So what are we to do?

Remember to cry at Christmas (or whatever holiday you observe) for the family you've lost. But rejoice in the fact that you are INDOMITABLE.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware.

Out of the ash I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air.

Sylvia, her last word on the matter