1
So what do you think about the symbolism of Virgil covering Dante's eyes with his hands over the poet's in lines 58-60 of Canto IX?
I don't think.
Thinking happens to be Hamlet's only reservation about the afterlife. Without consciousness it would be paradise.
"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?" Dreams. Like in Dali paintings or David Lynch films or in Freud books or a Jay-Z song (I HAD A DREAM!) , dreams like Alice in Wonderland, a dream of the Red King.
Art? Let's dance!
Quiet down Lawrence.
Pape Satan! Whatever in blazes that means. ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER!
So...
If we go down, we all go down together. Thus sprach Yasmine Yousaf.
If we go down into infamy, into the victor's flames, then we all go down together.
Sensitivity, dude.
What?
Its a chaos theory concept where the more subject to change and unpredictability a phenomena is, the more CHAOS it possesses. Since humans are unpredictable the race is sensitive in the chaos sense of the word.
I feel like I'm losing you.
I did bloody warn you that this was postmodernism, right? Good.
I wrote this because I am Dante, going into the mountains and probably never coming back. I am Alice going through the rabbit hole. I am Aeneas in the underworld of mainstream Christianity. And yes, Don DeLillo, you can have your bloody baseball back! I sure as heck don't want it!
So...
2
I am also freaking pretentious. Have you noticed? I am Walt Whitman, don't tell me what I am not!
See the cat, see the cradle.
This is it, folks! In the words of Lawrence, hang onto your seats Ladies.
Just kidding. Have a sit down.
This is my swan song, my goodbye to an old life I have odied and amoed to its fullest, having spent my time in the hospitals and schools and libraries of this state, having taken life and spouted out whatever in heck's name this is.
This is my swan song, and it is sung by the beautiful swan which is the Ugly Duckling, a duckling forged in the volcano of Ohio by hundreds, some kind, some not, some who knows, some who cares. It is not sung by Chris Muratore, it sung by Stephen Daedalus, by young Werther, by every blasted Bildungsroman character.
This is my swan song, because where I'm going, into the mountains and desert under the shadow of the Y, you cannot follow.
This is my swan song and I say my goodbyes to one and all.
3
One and all, you say? Why one and all? Aren't there some people you will not miss?
I think of Ohio as a zoo. In the most endearing way possible. I like zoos as a child I wandered them in the height of ecstasy, surrounded by myriad beautiful creatures, united under 1 Tao. Tao te ching, anyone?
I'm sure I'm not alone. Why else become a zookeeper?
And the people I don't like, they're all monkeys. Why? Because they are cacadaemons, caca throwers, caca launchers.
Don't worry, if you;ve gotten this far into this Mulligan Stew, you're not a monkey.
There is a small monkey house in my Ohio. There is little room for enmity in my Ohio. There is a wide open pasture for the sun cow of peace.
Stinks of corn, does it not?
Would you kindly not compare my poetry to corn? Shocking, right, that this prosaic song could be considered poetry.
Its riddled with puns like James Joyce on something.
4
ODI ET AMO.
So this is it, endgame. We all win, I hope.
This is when the author makes sense. Its like reading Thomas Pynchon from the end. That is the way of things.
Goodbye, and for all who have shaped my life for the better, thanks. For all those who haven't, you don't exist, because I am no Martin, I am no freaking pessimist. I believe that bad things happen to make us stronger. I believe all bad clouds come with silver linings.
So...
