Complaint to Intellectual Beauty

Edward Moore (c) 2014

God is a concept, by which we measure our pain

~ John Lennon

The heart of the atom with electrons: what is humanity in this cosmos? For him, the last

~ Robinson Jeffers

I.

Minds never connect ... always an obstacle ... Minds run rampant, wild, rigid in their ideas, variable in their notions, exempt from criticism because we just do not criticize anymore.

Heartsick at these demons of slavish love, greasy children in tow, using the most abominable grammar and pretending that this glorious Earth that feeds us all was forced into being only for them! ... Tired to the depth of my slowly decaying being at the track-marked teenagers who never discovered the equivocal beauty of the bottle ... Tired and sore over the men who sleep, drug, fuck, and sap the souls of everyone but themselves ... Tired and complacent at my own lack of desire to change any goddamned thing ...

Awake! at the sound of my own voice creeping in ... Statement to the contrary, from Shelley himself:

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers

To thee and thine -- have I not kept the vow?

~ Shelley, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

I vowed, so long ago, to devote my life to that which I thought (and now know!) was being stripped from me: my love of Beauty, my idealism, my belief that AGAPH OUDEPOTE PIPTEI (1 Corinthians 13:8) ... my devotion to a woman for whom my entire essence rallied -- only to be defeated, at the end ... Only I did not recognize the end when it came ... such was the source of my sorrow, my self-loathing, defeat ...

II.

But a sunrise on a day with no demands ...a spirited romp into a bad part of town ... a kissing of the toes of a lovely female drummer of a punk band after a long & sweaty concert ... a howling and dismal descent into a bottle of bourbon, to rise again, pistol in hand, awaiting all comers ... Making the name known ... being the one who ... who .... who ...

Only to wake up and say, in a frothy voice: This is not me! To remove the clip, drop the piece, walk, walk, walk ... walk ... to a place of security. ???

No more horse. Freud likened sexual desire to an unruly horse, which one must control. I think of a poem by Jeffers, "The Roan Stallion" ...

III.

I want to be the horse.

IV.

Beauty is momentary in the mind, but it lasts a long damned time in the loins.

Overpopulation, ignorance, dances of death, foul music with no tonal center, escapes that cost more than they're worth ... broken promises that were made at diners at 2:00 AM after a night of feasting on ... Lordship over the vast landscape of life that one perceives when young ... Concerts that bring delight, and others that bring nausea and contact high: difference between Perlman playing Beethoven and Page & Plant ...

The mind is indeed its own place, and makes of life what it will. My complaint is simply this:

I IMAGINE A LIFE THAT I KNOW TO BE IMPOSSIBLE, AND YET I STILL MUST LIVE.

Suicide, of course, is for the courageous.

I am a coward.