Eidolonguage

"For every language that becomes extinct, an image of man disappears."

Octavio Paz, poet, diplomat, Nobel laureate (1914-1998)

Wrath

I am a thing of anger. I am angry as never before.

Why did she do this to me?

I thought we were - I don't know what I think we were

but she was with me. With me!

What was the whole point? I swear I could kill her.

I'm sorry to disappoint but I'm not going to let her go.

I'll fight teeth and claw. I'll fight her if need be.

What she did was absurd. Look at the mess she's left.

Why did she do this to me, to us, even to herself?

She should have been honest, she should have talked to us.

Out with all her petty secrets! Out with all the festering pus!

She is insane. Insane. Or bipolar. Or both if you can be both.

I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.

She was the reason I was thinking,

the reason I woke up in the morning and not in the afternoon.

It was her who made me stand up, stick out my chest and move on.

How I hate her now. I am a thing of hatred.

How I loathe to have to go on on my own.

Yes, I hate her. I hate her now as much as I hate God.

Perhaps more, for God washed his hands clean of us for a good reason.

Her? How she did this makes it clear: we were nothing but gnats,

threats, thwarts in her delusion, pallid, crippled spats,

shards of reality in her carefully constructed queendom.

Yet she had made me come back to reality;

she had smoothed its sharp angles, had made it bearable –

yet slightly dreamlike and unstable in her oddity –

She was what I looked forward to on the evening way home from work.

She had made me expect when I had given up on hope. She.

I hate her guts now. Say that she comes back,

smile on her sleeve, glitter in her cat's eyes:

I would torture the truth out of those,

and leave her to her fate, let her to her reverie.

The genealogy of the catastrophe

is distinctly laid out before me:

agendas, memos, diaries –

I should ignore these,

ignore the pain, ignore the shock,

feign, spurn, mock –

keep the things under lock and key,

pay the fee and dash –

bury her five furlongs deep –

burn her – burn the whole world along

and sweep the ash under the rug.

She lived the lie till the end,

drank the cup of deceit to the dregs.

She believed it as she birthed it,

like a crooked infant one yet cherishes.

Shameless, consummate liar!

You nailed us with scornful pegs.

You are evil. Dizzyingly evil.

Uncaring and vile. Full of bottled-up anger.

I in turn am a thing of wrath. Of blood and wrath.

Eager to slay you, and you only lest I follow your path.

Yours are the furious actions of a mad solitaire.

Furious and savage and hurtful and rash.

Yet one thing I have to give you credit for:

you know how to finish off with panache.

Friends

"It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us."

Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)

Soldiers are society

"Wars damage the civilian society as much as they damage the enemy. Soldiers never get over it."

Paul Fussell, historian, author, and professor (1924-2012)

Envy

He was such a nice boy! I never thought such an horrible thing would happen.

It's all just so sad. And dark.

The world's mad, mad I tell you.

Every day I watched her buy a sandwich from the shops across the street

– always smiling she was – and then head to the park.

She was always smartly dressed she was. And open.

Them boys who hang around the pound store she always made 'em turn them head rounds.

The lady from Oxfam said she always dropped in on her way to the park to put a penny in – mind ye, penny's a way o' saying she dropped a coin more like she was.

I always thought she was like I was when I was young like her, only she was prettier. And neat.

Shame people say. It's all so horrible what happened.

Her so young and all. Terrible! Terrible.

She was all I could think of,

She was all them girls dream of.

She was that and more. We was so shocked when we heard.

How could no one see what was happening right under our noses? Are we so blind?

Poor boy. Poor boy. And us all thinking him a pity.

I don't know how he must've felt but it mustn't've been pretty.

Betty I think her name was.

One can't play some games.

One can't be some things.

Or life's not worth living.

Jealousy

I am consumed with jealousy. I cannot think. I cannot think clearly.

She could be on her own; she could be with friends. She could be somewhere new; she could be at work; she could be feeding the squirrels with her sandwich during her lunch break. She eats so little. She should eat more.

She could be at a bar, snogging a drunken man, a sober man; she could be drunk herself.

She could be on the phone with her parents, telling them of her weekend in Brighton. She could be on the phone with her brother, telling him of the problems with her computer. She could be chatting over the sales with her friend Sarah.

She could plan to meet her ex.

She could have chosen that dress because she heard on the radio the day would be sunny. She could have chosen it because she fancies it. She could have chosen it because it was a present to her.

She could be wearing it because men look more intently at her. Some crane their neck.

She could be jogging; she could be doing her grocery shopping; she could be taking a shower.

She could be jealous too, and not willing to speak with me.

She could think me an idiot. She could think I'm pathetic. She could think I'm hopelessly in love with her.

She could just be out for dinner with her friends. She could be looking at them only. She could shut herself to the world outside. She could rebuke every suitor, every gazer, every playboy in town, in the world. She could open her arms to them, make them happy and make me sad.

She could have dirty thoughts, sweaty reveries of her having sex in the toilets of a bar, or in a car, with strangers, with colleagues, with her ex, with her friend Sarah, with me.

She could dream of worse things. She could stay with me because she's happy, because she feels secure, because she has no one else on her list.

She could be anywhere else I'd find fault with this.

She could be on her own, minding her own business, I'd find fault with this.

Everything she does sounds suspicious. Everything she says, wears, smells, buys, eats, seems suspicious. Everywhere she goes. Everyone she meets, calls, chats with. My life, because of her, is a hell on earth.

She could be with me, forever. She could think of me only. I could be the only thing on her mind, all day long. She could be with me, but ultimately I'd find fault with this too.

I am consumed with jealousy, and every day I watch her kiss her boyfriend goodbye on the doorstep to her house.

Mayhap

"When you see a man led to prison say in your heart, "Mayhap he is escaping from a narrower prison." And when you see a man drunken say in your heart, "Mayhap he sought escape from something still more unbeautiful.""


Kahlil Gibran, poet and artist (1883-1931)

No other choice

"We should not write so that it is possible for the reader to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us."

Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus), rhetorician (c. 35-100)

Snow din

The snow is falling

falling falling

and I wish I had the guts to stop it

stop it and lashing, lashing

at'em with a French double bass bow

from the bottom of my pit.

Record-low

in the tank

in the bank

yet there is snow

falling

in peace peace peace

yet I hate the

coming from their mouth

for it means nothing

nothing nothing

comefroms the stage where actors

aren't actors playing actors but actors

playing playing pretending

being snowflakes on the swaying grass

embracing a bonnie lass

yet it's too late

too late

to dance.

What if we fell like snow?

Snowliness is the worst state of the mind –

shantih shantih shantih where art thee –

“I never meant to hurt them snowflakes, Officer, I swear!”

yet I lashed at'em relentlessly

the bow showed no dent, no wear and tear,

and the drysmeared blood on it most unkind

as it is of the irremovable sort

and the wind, the wind!

comes howling

reaches me there

at the bottom of my cistern

where we take turn

every century or so.

Mines comes now.

Mines comes now.

Mines comes now.

I have forgiven what it was I had to say

to the next reservoir-bound fey.

Perhaps the snowflakes will say.

Look up at the hollow shaft

watch the hollow specks

listen to the hollow voice

yet some would argue nothing's hollow.

How wrong they are. How wrong!

No throng, no raft, no decks, no choice,

but what dreams conceive

but what dreams allow.

For years I mistook die for dream

in we live as we die, alone

seemed to me a better line,

a better scream,

befitting the moans,

the whining,

the tears

we shed.

I was misled

waylaid

by the lure of the snow

damn the snow!

May it burn and drown

in the see o' darkness!

Pack the world in a nice urn

watch it burn, burn, burn

and the flare of the sun

has that effect upon the snow

chars the tea in my glazed flagon

blackens the base bow

ashens my brow

darkens my sweat

“I swear, I swear!”

Be hanged with'em!

Be hanged with'em!

The snowflakes gather

and chant, and dance.

and the world seems more hollow then it ever used to be.

More hollow, more hollow.

Aye, we can fall like snow.

From the floor of my underground tower

I can see but few hours

yet I feel them all, them all,

and sour is the frail

hurt in the small

of his offal.

Fingernails broke yesteryear

trying to dislodge the fray

I failed, I failed

dim is the snow, lightless is the day

they all fell like snow

down a hollow.

The hour is now.

Contentuous

"Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings."

Alice Miller, psychologist and author (1923-2010)