Echolalia

Book 117

EROS AND THANATOS
(“If you reveal your secrets to the wind you
should not blame the wind for revealing them
to the trees.” Kahil Gibran.)

We are governed by the needs of love and death,
and both are needs I fear. We are bordered on all
sides by the time which is lost to us,

bordered also by the loves too long
denied us. And we cry out to all things and all
things cry out in turn, and thus it is that Eros and

Thanatos are born, not by their being but by our
cries that they must be. And if no words were
spoken nor thoughts imagined

there would be no love nor death, there could
be no love nor death for any created thing. June 17/11.

ABANDONED (“In a time of
universal deceit telling the truth is
a revolutionary act.” George Orwell.)

1) A man without a country to call his own
abandoned the fields of war, took no part
in battles and struggled no more.

He said nothing but truth for he had
nothing to lose. He needed say nothing
at all for no one listened to him, not once.

2) And the thought came to him of freedoms
lost and the question galled at him, for what
price freedom is? And asking himself

the question found no answer, and asking all
others the question found no answer either.
And seeking even to deal with the devil

upon the crossroads one night he asked
that old liar what the price of freedom is.

3) And the devil tried to answer, in hedonism
or vice, but the words all knotted wickedly
in his throat and no answer could be

found. Instead the devil offered a deal
but the man said no, for what need did he
have for a deal when he couldn’t find freedom

to break all contracts by? He left the devil by
the road to deal with himself alone.

4) And he looked through all things, through
all possibilities, but had no nation to tie himself
to, no loves, no hates, no not even the

indifference of a shallow passing fancy
at the thought of his superiority to all who gathered
themselves around such meager things as nations

or loves or hates or jealousies. And so abandoned
thus he went into the woods, but found nothing
there, then went into the cities, but found no

one there, then went into the fields ripe for
war, but found only corpses there, and he
was alone of all he’d ever done.

5) So he asked about what price freedom is
and the answer came to him upon the wind:
“the price is surviving when all about

you dies and abandoned you become to
everything, even freedoms you’ve tried to hide.” June 18/11.

WITHOUT MEASURE

Without measure, without number,
without any boundaries at all
humanity left with nothing to hold it back
becomes not gods nor angels, nor demons
either, becomes but humanity
all again. Take to your wildest
imaginings my friend, envision whatever
you seek to envision and humanity will
be there, just as it was before,
just as it will be again. And whatever
sins we made we will make, and whatever
crimes we are we are, for
without measure we are no greater nor less
than who we were before when we had no
power nor grace, nor imagination at all. June 18/11.

THE WYRM (A worm is both
a man and a woman combined.
A minor point of biology.)

She called down a curse upon me
for the death of Dahlia Wintercross,
and my name was changed to
Cassandra, and I forgot who

I was. I was Cassandra
Marsden and I lived in a little
house, married to an average man
who almost loved me. I’m sure the

point had been to give me a feminine
form because the witch assumed a
woman more cleaner was, but
when the police arrived I had

wiped the blood from off my
hands. My husband was dead of
course; I had killed him all for fun. I
wonder what the witch will turn me

to now, as if it matters at all for
anyone like me. As if it matters at
all for anyone else really. June 18/11.

THE SPIDER-WEBS, A PLANETARY ROMANCE

Prologue
Nathan Raleigh Pritchard, the prisoner of two worlds,
raised to be a minister, raised to hold some things
sacred, and never breath, not once, the lustings of his
heart. And there’s his daughter there and he tells her

all he can, but can never say he loves her, for it is not
the way of things. And then one day while walking
he stumbles upon a path he did not notice ever walking
once upon before. And so he turns his step, and so

the forest darkens, and so all at once he finds himself
where he never was before. And the ground is grey
and the ground is barren and high above him seems
a thousand threads, a glimmering spectacle of spider

webs which half blot out the sun, and a strange sun
it is, half crimson, half gold and half some colour
he’d never known before. And not knowing what
to do he does nothing at all.

1) And suddenly the world shifts and he understands
a few new things, hears the grasses singing and talking
amongst themselves. And he asks if they know God but
they’ve never heard the name, and when he tries

to preach to them they mock and laugh and say
they have no need of such a thing, and does he have
a need? And thinking momentarily that he is in some
stranger hell he prays, but they ask why he prays

as if he were afraid of grass, or twigs or stones? And
the spider webs cower lower and he prays he were
somewhere else. Then he sees a few souls walking,
and their legs are thin as twigs, their bodies dessicated

and thin as dry-parched trees, and their skin is grey
as parchment, and their eyes as wide as their bodies
are thin and empty; who they were he could not decide.

Some seemed to be men, and others women, and others
simply he did not know, but was too polite to ask and
simply asked where they must go. And one of them
responded and said she did not know, but

they were walking that way, the way that the sun was
pointing, and if he wanted he could journey with them,
or stay amid the grasses. And so he decided to
walk with them, and see the world beyond.

2) Sometimes he preached of sheep and goats and
how the two must part their ways, and trying to describe
as best he could described the sheep and goats. But
they all added details he had not thought

of before, and suddenly blue sheep, or red, or purple
or green were striding up to heaven to find the place
deserted, and the goats were coloured all the
same, but hell was empty too. And asking

why they explained perhaps this God he spoke
of had made a simple mistake, and only the sheep
and goats went there, and nothing else but them. So
no creatures like him were there, which made

an empty world after the world was spent of
anything and everything at all. But he tried to
explain the metaphors and they all went to sleep,
standing in the middle of greying, barren fields. And

having no audience he went to sleep as well. And he
dreamed of the next year and the next war, of the
poison gas and the lost young men, and his words
fell like leaves and he tried to pick them up,

but couldn’t remember what he had said or why
they needed so desperately to be saved, while the
young men died around him and he couldn’t save
them at all. And suddenly it descended to a comedy,

to a pantomime of children pointing sticks at one
another, and suddenly he saw figures all hollowed out
as twigs in camps and camps and camps that went on
forever; he woke up with a scream.

3) The spider webs kept getting lower and he asked
some being what they were, and they said it was a
city made in the image of some heaven, but
perhaps they were just mocking him;

he could not be sure. He asked the names of
continents, the names of those black moons, and they
answered all his questions but the words rang
jaggedly along his tongue, and sounded strange

and alien and he wanted to go home. And they
asked him why and he answered because it was
his home, and they asked him whom he loved but
he could only love God he said.

Well God is everywhere they answered, so
just stay where you are. And they said the sheep
must love it here, and surely he is more than just
a sheep. But now he knew that they were

mocking him, or at least he suspected such.
And they came, or rather the city came to them,
great lumbering stones and monoliths which seemed
to stride before them, and he asked them what it was

and they answered it was the city of Remalidus Endurom,
where the Slithering God still lived. And he said his
God alone deserved that name he loved so well,
and they just said enter in, and find out for

yourself. And he passed the gates of ivory
carved from beasts that had no shape as he could
ever dare imagine, and walking along the colonnades
he notices the spider webs drop lower, and standing in the

temple of the Slithering God he made the sign of the cross,
but nothing was there. He half imagined blunt sacrifices
of innocents, evil all displayed in terrifying manners
or some depraved religion of priests intoning

blasphemies, but there was nothing there. He walked
away and asked the beings beyond the city walls why he
had seen no God, and they shrugged and said because
he expected it It desired him not. And

one of them named Xalajrim explained and then replied
was not his God the same, when tempted by one’s pride?

4) The spider webs touched him and he died. He came
to a heaven and it was empty even of a name. He went
to hell and found it all the same.

He cried to God and realized that time had passed him by.
He sat by the shores of uncounted worlds and strummed
on nothing but lost and lonely lullabies.

Eventually he came home, a changed man at least. Don’t
ask me how, I do not care, and he never cared to tell. The
first thing he did was tell his daughter

that he loved her and the second was tear down all thoughts
he had had before, and then started all over again, the great
Edwardian hero thrown into the modern age. June 18/11.

KETHYREN

Tarbaby promises of mine to be at last left
behind, and Kethyren shall weep for me
no more.

Dead legs
beneath me buckle as if I were dead
and Zhou Truffet upon her flute leads me

on, my broken legs carrying me upon the
broken road I tread. I cast a promise,
a tarbaby promise

to be tangled in
conceits and misunderstandings,
and Kethyren shall weep no more for me. June 18/11.

THE BALLAD OF ALFRED BULLTOP
STORMALONG (An American folk hero.)

1) Born too large to ever be confined
Stormalong set sail and his head touched
the silvered tinge of the moon;

born of the size of a giant the young man grew.

2) He built the ship Tuscarora to go out
upon the waters. He found the Kraken waiting
and he hunted the monster down.

3) He gripped the beast with hands that
could have gripped the mountains and tore
the stones asunder;

out upon the waters he tore apart the Kraken.

4) When age had almost claimed him he passed
the Keys of Florida and saw the hurricane

tearing down the ships to splinters, bearing down
the timbers to splinters cast upon the waters.

He dragged the ships aboard the massive Tuscarora
whose mast could touch the other side of sky.

They weathered well the storm and after the
ships were laid out upon the water Stormalong
tended to his boat.

A wind, last gasp of the hurricane caught up the
sails of the mighty Tuscarora and he found himself
transported to the other side of sky.

5) Who knows but that he’s sailing still
beyond the corners of the moon, the sails
unfurled forever to catch the winds that forever

run and flow outward from the world we know
to all the ones we don’t, like the worlds
that children make when the wind sings
of where she’s been. June 18-20/11.

THE BALLAD OF JOE MAGARAC
(An American folk hero.)

The final curtain fell and a sword slung
in his hand, no, not a sword like some
tarnished knight but a hammer

to drive the steel with. Joe
Magarac upswings the hammer
and brings all labour down; man of
iron building an iron world about,

patron saint of the iron workers who
dream in steel, who think the thoughts
of metal. Yes it is a final curtain

for what is left about when all is rendered
rusted, even Joe Magarac’s last and final
triumphant shout. June 18-20/11.

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