

       The Affliction

       (A Monologue)

             I

   It's quiet in this house 
   The hum of my computer
   And a distant gentle sound
   Of music comes from nowhere
   Snow swirls just beyond the window
   In the distance, hills obscured
   In the corner is a painting I've just sold
   I am looking at it for the last time
   Like a friend I will not soon forget
   Books everywhere, magazines on art,
   Egyptology, science and computers
   I have taken this wednesday as a sabbatical
   from work, my mind requires rest
   and needs to be alone
   (I lean back in my chair)
   I have just finished reading
   William Styron's tour de force
   About the rages of a man's reality
   In confronting his depression...
   It spoke to me succinctly like a 
   Kitchen knife revealing the attack
   (Revealing what we are through what we lack?)
   I have been many times in a 'depression'
   Many times have walked among the pines
   Alone upon a winter's eve
   And many times have felt the weighty hand
   Lie down upon my shoulder, calling: Friend.
   But this was not the friend of living
   This friend was wan and pale and reeked
   Of death.  This friend was what I had become
   When looking in the mirror at my suicide.
   What held me back? The thought of writing poetry:
   Of knowing the next poem would be better
   Than the last. Of knowing that the struggle
   Would carry on forever, but also realizing this:
   That whoever I was, am or will become,
   I have captured something of the moment
   Others never have the time to feel.
   I have lived through this depression
   Understanding just a little more about
   The person that I am. That gives courage.
 
   10 a.m. As if a feeling of euphoria
   Threw a misty veil around my mind
   I seem awake, but also seem less blind
   Then when awakeness hits me on the head
   I see beyond the walls, beyond the books
   Beyond the dream...even beyond the dream
   It is warm in this house, but still I shiver
   A spear-thrust pain collapses in my side
   I shiver, sweat, shiver, frightened I glance outside
   The distance meditates beyond my vision
   I have an empty wine glass beside the yet
   To be revised New Testament I found myself
   Translating years ago...I have found it to be
   Much too different from the faith we have
   Swallowed with indifference and a lie.
   I have lost my faith in this. I have gained
   A greater faith. A gathering of universal
   Truths. That all is part of one symbiosis.
   The snowflake cannot live without my mind,
   And I cannot function without it.
   But religion is another story: I will not
   Collect these shards into a poem. I will
   Look upon the boundary of our lives and ask 
   Someone why they think there is a boundary
   To our lives? Where is the distinction
   Between a table and the dinner plates?
   The quantum does not differentiate. And I have
   Difficulty knowing less than one reality for all.

   On this morning with the darkness creeping through
   The white snow; as the clouds get heavier
   So the thoughts of any poet must reflect
   On lightning rods and actions too obscure
   To form the basis of an argument. The shadows
   Are diffused, or disappear completely. The colours
   In my painting fades. There are no shadows
   In this painting: A table stuck before an open window.
   A vase without flowers, a guitar, metronome, and
   Sheet music. And a baton too heavy to be useful.
   But no shadows. Though the sky is clear, and in the
   Distance, three sea gulls. The whole things is a
   Flat surface of intent. Contorted shapes un-bent
   To the solution. Silent artifact: ghostly past.

   I am freezing. I put on a sweater. I ignore
   The passing indecisiveness. I was on my way to work.
   Briefcase and a heavy coat. Suit and tie
   And much to do. I was half way there. I turned    
   Around for no particular reason. Turned the corner,
   Headed home past all these others headed, just
   Like that, to work. I pitied them. I did not want
   To know their arguments. My mind registered
   Contempt for anything that moved within the city.
   Within the walled obsequiousness of mental
   Aberration.  I looked into the eyes of one
   Stranger who knew me, but I did not know her
   Well enough to struggle with a word or two.
   I needed to find solitude. To be alone and
   Nurture this unfathomable tomb that is my mind.
   I needed to complete the cycle of events
   That long ago had harboured me into a 
   Safety net. It strangled me. I couldn't
   Breathe. For breath I prayed to a god I did not
   Care to know. I was solid in my fright.
   The wooden planks of this old ship were
   Creaking on their journey to a new and finer
   World. I wondered what diseases we would bring?

   The snow keeps falling. Falling doubly.
   Swirling in a knot of rage. I listen to the radio.
   On and on. Like the motion of the silent
   Painted metronome upon the canvas in the corner.
   The music flows. External and internal. Mingling
   Longing with desire. Mingling present, future,
   Past. Mingling what these co-responses co-require.
   Mingling what we should and should not make to last. 
   For I am spent, and will make no excuses.
   I have written one more scrap of poem,
   And beaten the Affliction one more time.

             II

   Second day. The mind restrains itself.
   It is poisoned, it is numb.
   It is shattered, shattered.
   It is like a fool obsessed
   With shadow boxing (writ appealed).
   Dead of winter, just before the spring
   Hits. 2nd day off work.
   TV (which I hardly ever watch)
   Pizza and some wine.
   Windows rattle. Those few 
   Messages that I received appeal:
   At 2 a.m. they work to separate
   The dream from nightmare. - I am blessed
   To have such solid friends.
   Even in my solitude
   The shattered mirror comes together
   With the image of a self
   Repressive past.
                    I look
   At old and faded photographs:
   I read old journals, notebooks,
   Poems I have not rehearsed
   In years. Oh! Has so much time
   Been wasted slipping past? How has
   So much time slipped past? And where am I
   In all of this? Where is what I
   Wanted most and have not gotten
   'Under breath'?
                  Mind
   Unsteady. Image of a snowy owl.
   Nocturnal, ever waiting, waiting,
   Waiting. Open eyed and wide awake.
   Always open eyed and wide awake.
   So something strikes me in the glitter

   Of the silent frosty forest
   Blackened by the snow.
   Mindlessly I wander, walk and
   Wait. Wait and walk and
   Ponder what is no solution
   To this argument my mind insists
   Is real but can't be felt
   As such. For what? and
   Walk to where? - Mindlessly
   I paint upon the trees 
   A image of myself...an image of the
   Trees against these walls that are
   My window to the world that is myself
   No less than others I can't hope to touch
   Or see. The past reels through me like an
   Old discarded entity left to rot
   Upon the cutting floor.
   (And the reaper dances
   Upon the alter of the threshing floor.)

   We stumble, we reveal
   Ourselves by masking...and our building
   Masks upon the masks which we inhabit 
   As our soul...The sacrificial lamb
   Is cleansed as cleansed are we
   In sacrifice and suicide...
   But why upset the brave solution
   To this argument? The hero plays the
   Clown and devil in despair...
   (The hunger is our disrepair).
   So time and effort,
   Plastic sense of augmentation
   Breeds the bleeding aftermath
   Like worms within the earth.
   Worms which hollow corpses 
   Breaking down their relativity.
   Handing us the straw and saying
   'This is soul. Make the most of
   What you have inherited. The universe
   Does not inherit earth.'
   I neither questioned, nor accepted
   I was much too worn to be the cause of
   So much enmity.

   I look at these old photographs:
   Friends and lovers cross my eyes
   In a two dimensional array.
   I see the faces and remember thoughts
   And actions and refrain from comment:
   I have met them eye to eye.
   I rummage though my spastic mind
   Images of Dante's Hell
   Self unsured and sense upon this tide
   Hemlock's wind upon this shore.
   The music augments possibilities,
   The wine recasts the mind
   into a taunted imbecility (civility?).
   But these old photographs
   (Here is Linda, here is Sue)
   Images the haunted path 
   Of what-could-have-been could be.
   Where are they now - ?
   Physically changed (Some have children,
   Some have gathered solitude...)
   And knowing that the city's changed
   And so the people that inhabit
   This abode...And are the occupants
   Ever different? Do they ever differ from the
   City's consciousness? A consciousness
   That others claim their own? - I am
   Startled otherwise: I see the future in
   These eyes. And there is nothing but the city
   In those youthful death-defying eyes.
   I refuse to comprehend...I refuse 
   The claim that no one is an individual...
   But then the city builds a mount...
   Is an anthill, termite hill, beehive
   So much of a different replication
   Of reality? The city is inclusive...
   Eventually the city runs us all.         

   I collect my sensibilities set among
   The empire of a rose, spent.
   Death is next around the corner
   Of a once deserted street.
   I don't go out. I eat alone.
   I smile a lot, and repair
   Safety nets. Drink me no Salt Peter.
   I am not a monk. I am just a blazing truth
   That somehow is myself. I am.
   Acknowledging the invalidity
   Of the initial sacrifice...hope,
   courage and a silent stupefaction:
   God! How did I live this long?
   How did I manage fire from water?
   How did I refrain from death?
   I who did not wish to but have
   Ultimately found some kind of hope.       

             III

   Bazaar, this consequence of hope.
   This eagle eyed estrangement. This winter
   That encroaches into spring. 
   Obsessed with fear of where the walls
   must end, and where the world of truth
   Begins, I began expressing what was hardly
   So expressible. Words tumbled like a
   Bleeding heart. I am almost this ashamed
   Of voicing what should be a private pain.
   But poetry defines no boundaries. One part
   Of a collective voice is what must be a part
   Of others. No one is alone. And in this 
   Frightened desperation no one fools another.
   There has always been the argument that we
   Have cast ourselves adrift and floundered cork-like
   On the open elemental sea. It may have seemed
   At times like that. And in a moment of hallucination
   We might focus on a very fragmented universe.
   I myself have done this many times. Not through
   Any search for truth, but in spite myself;
   My wanting to remain a certain individual
   Within the choking city atmosphere. Alone
   I gathered solitude and the reflection
   Solitude engenders. Yet none of this collects
   A subtle genealogy. Without the focus and the
   Goal there can be no solution. Neither to a 
   Simple trust nor to the swelling of the universe. 
   When the mind implodes and focuses this self
   Upon the self, the relativity is lost. Nothing
   Reveals itself within another thing, but fragments
   And collects the shards into a heap. It seems
   At times like these that there will never come a day
   When light will grace the darkness with its rays.
   The stars no longer shine, and all is black: but
   Black within the mind. This darkness seems 
   Inviolate. And every twisted circle of repressive
   Hell assaults the nightmare hurricane that twists
   The neurons contorted through the brain. Each
   Hallucination just as real as if the hand touched
   Burning Iron. This oppressive phantom swings
   The sword of Damocles and taunts us to reveal
   The thing we want the most: and that is silence,
   That is death. Rest from this destructiveness.
   Resting through destructiveness. It is a final
   Desperate struggle to accept the will to a
   Reality no one else can fathom. It is the cycle
   That embraces all. And it comes not as a free choice,
   But as a prisoner condemned to the electric chair,
   However innocent the soul might be. And you hope
   There is no soul to resurrect.                              
                                 I have come full
   Circle in explaining this. I had hoped to write a
   Better poem as no idea in prose can capture
   This debilitation of a complex mind. Falling
   Pray to such disease. The cure, they say is
   Always time. But time can be a killer too.
   And too much time can be another Hell.

   But no, I have no thoughts of death. The
   Conquest is beginning. I have breath enough
   To fight the beast and rage into the future
   With conviction and with purpose. I understand
   What happens here too well. I know what shadows
   Come upon me when they will, and I will make
   The most of it. I will grapple with my own
   Self worth, exploding outward with a force
   That rallies the whole nature of the universe.
   Harvesting such energy that nothing can 
   Debilitate the poet in this mortal shell.
   And poetry is my expression. Others have their
   Friends and relatives. Each one has their own.
   I collect the shards into a greater whole
   Reassembling what will be a new reality
   That others can repair into when the Affliction
   Strikes. 
             And strike it will, for just around the
   Corner it will wait, not for those who unsuspect,
   But those who all too well await it's grasp.   

   The struggle must continue: For no one here collects
   The goal without the price agreed well in advance.
   The slaughter house is the Affliction, and the
   Burden that is Purgatory smiles on us at last. 


        Coda

   Friday. The third day.
   It is always hardest on the third day.
   The death-chill of the air involves
   The bubble of activity no less
   Than stupefying numbness.
   Intangible fluctuations flood
   The mind and evolves to pain that binds
   One to the fractal universe.
   I want to shout, teeth grinding,
   Fist clenched. I want to scream
   Like no one ever screamed before.
   I want the universe to shudder
   And collapse. Reverse the process
   Of our livelihood. Time twisted,
   Scattered, light diffused. I want it
   All to cease. Fall apart and quit
   This heaviness lodged choking
   in my heart.

   It is Friday. The third day.
   The sun shines like a bleeding corpse
   Binding shadows to the facts.
   I pull the curtains to my windows
   Tight. No light permeates the
   Ragged rage of this poor fool.
   Simpleton. Stumbling in his madness
   Through the padded cell of hope.

   It is Friday. Drink a toast to Friday.
   Drink a toast to silence. Drink a
   Toast to...hell, just drink.

   13/14 Mar 92

   11-14 Mar 92
   
   Copyright (c) Klaus J. Gerken 1992   


   Ygdrasil Press
   http://www.synapse.net/~kgerken
   kgerken@synapse.net
   alt.centipede
   
