Untitled Document

Fing's Perdition : Part One


	One's journey goes a certain distance
	When a path appears to be a web.
	To be content in such an instance

	Would seem like halting the tidal ebb.
5	There are so few means to one's assistance.
	The first step is the one we most dread;

	No single strand can support one's ambition,
	No direction appeals to curiosity,
	No reason can surmount the fearful vision

10	That pride has positioned into apostasy.
	All around the spiders of excision
	Threaten to put cease to our velocity,

	Yet the duty to vocation reckons
	To propel us forward, despite our wishes.
15	One has no choice but to be beckoned,

	And to taste the bitter as delicious.
	Still, I sat for an ocean of contemplative seconds
	And I meditated upon the oily, viscous

	Feeling of this muck of indecision.
20	I tried to hold it gently in my hands,
	The fabric of my life so tawdry thin,

	I had no power to resume a graceful stance
	Against the buffeting winds of adversion,
	To speculate and gamble against chance,

25	When one did come before me I well knew.
	Furrowed mottled sorrow on his brow,
	The passion of my apathy flew.

	Yet he was some ghost before me now.
	His eyes were as black as the sun is blue.
30	I kept no doubt abiding anyhow;

	Beside my empty contemplation, he held
	Out the calloused softness of his palm.
	Not smiling but seething a strength I felt,

	Exuding both a vulgar and divine calm,
35	The man could not be pelted with insult,
	And so his apparition caused no alarm.

	I: "Sir, you are both humble and exalted.
	Please tell me how it is you've come before me."
	He shook his head as if I could not be faulted,

40	Mistaking him for someone with greater glory.
	He: "Son, please do let your wonder be halted.
	For I am not a martyr in my story."

	"But sir, you are emblazoned on my money!"
	And I reached inside my purse to verify.
45	I showed the bill and coinage, he said, "Funny,

	I always find the need to clarify
	That even as I do not pray on Sunday,
	To no religion of myself can I testify."

	I: "And yet you stand as representative
50	Of ideals which good citizens may pursue.
	I know you need to be modestly tentative,

	But coyness on your part wouldn't be true."
	I was trying his patience and being inelegant.
	"I offered my hand, where I could have withdrew."

55	Pleading, "Sorry," I said, "I just can't believe it.
	May I ask you a few simple questions?"
	"I am Lincoln, young man, can you not conceive it?"

	I was afraid to respond with further investigations.
	So I put out my hand and stood up to leave there:
60	"Do you know a way out of this vivisection?"

	"There is no way out," but he grinned and he snickered,
	As if he was aware of what was to come.
	I looked as his unblue-unblack eyes flickered.

	He: "But you must better know what has gone.
65	For in this desperate state you have been snookered.
	You very simply don't know what's been done."

	I wavered slightly at his abrupt suggestion.
	I learned, despite my teachers, all I knew of truth.
	I bought no lies, have always been an exception,

70	Who dares to tell me what I must pursue?
	Incredibly, it was Abraham Lincoln.
	He noted the labyrinth of my thought, "Forsooth,

	Who taught you to always so depend on yourself?
	Be patient, I will show you what human can mean.
75	By this manner you may experience yourself;

	Your part in the whole." He convinced and we proceeded
	Along the thinnest strand of the web, which felt
	As if it were as wide as the open seas.

	And which reverberated with every step.
80	In motion, but supporting our motion as well.
	I might have been the length of an insect

	Quivering on the kissing breezes swell,
	Or the very wind itself, the path was set
	Before us like the telling tolling of a bell.

85	I followed, unbelieving of the import
	But hungry for a good story to tell.
	I thought to summon up some witty retort

	But, by a strange misstep, my guide fell.
	I took his wrist and helped raise my consort.
90	Quoth my uncle: "Good thing it wasn't a well."

	I looked at him, but then we reached the gateway,
	The sign on the stile, 'Here is morality."
	The path appeared to continue straightaway,

	But that is not what it was in reality
95	For the structure of our steps faded away
	And we both dropped down immediately

	To the first level of the passages
	Through the red hallowed annals of history -
	In the life that we lived as the hostages

100	Of the rationally disciplined mystery
	Of Ben Franklin's most loving adages.
	And I was scared at what I was about to see.

	He: "Do not stray from my side, this blankness
	Is only the will of the other.
105	I tell you in all understated frankness,

	As if you were to become my brother,
	You must let go of your lankness
	And remember that you have no mother,

	Other than the one who brings us together."
110	I: "But what are we about to see here?"
	"A graveyard of promises strewn with heather.

	What has been left behind is held most dear,
	And as easily retained as ether,
	While the vacuum of that space is filled with fear.

115	Do not be afraid of the vacuum, young man."
	But for scarlet liquidity and heat, the vacuum
	Was all, I could feel it in my cast-iron frying pan.

	I was penetrated with sweat and my rectum
	Loosened in anticipation of Satan's imminence
120	My guide seemed in need of no diction

	To read the flash of fear's imagination
	Upon my confused visage. He shook his head.
	Said: "I trust you not to panic in action.

	Nothing that you can see will make you bleed.
125	Do not allow yourself to be shaken in passion
	Here at the beginning of a journey to the dead."

	I barely said "The Dead!" when a spuming fountain
	Of regurgitation appeared before us
	In the form of a gelified, jowled man

130	Whose bile reeked of the acid odor of
	Self-Deception, of the lie writ large on foul land
	He barely could speak for his esophagus

	Was gushing an endless flow of noxious chunks.
	My guide stood and waited with patient command.
135	The third:"I am the gatekeeper." The phlegm and reflux

	Kept him from speaking, but he waved his hand -
	Muttering "Mommy, Mommy," as piles soon built up -
	As if to tell us to wait for him; it was hard to stand.

	He stopped for a moment and turned to us with a grin
140	"Ronald Reagan, Mister Lincoln, nice to meet you."
	My Uncle did not hold out his hand, but kept his chin

	Held to his chest and his brow remained dubious.
	As the Old Biffer began to chork again,
	I needed to question my guide, whose fury was

145	Well-contained in the cross-pins of his felt vest.
	"I beg you to hold your questions just now, my son.
	Here is a man who is nearly beside himself."

	He waited silent 'til that greasy pate was done
	Sickening up his lungs. I smelled his bilious belch.
150	I had to stand up straight after that one,

	And speak up to say, "Why are you here?"
	But my Uncle chastised me, "Mr. President,"
	By ignoring me and leaving me to fear,

	In the manner of the child most innocent,
155	A further venting of his frustration later.
	His scowl and reproach were without precedent,

	In the mild justice which righteousness bestows
	When tempered by the ideals of free institutions
	In the glance of a man who you know who knows,

160	Having named the decisive ideal in crystal distillation.
	"Is there any sort of formality for us to go?"
	Reagan's breath scorched our eyebrows and even

	Caused my guide to turn his head and catch his wind
	"All are free to pass through here, none are in need
165	To offer justification," he said, "For their sin."

	My teacher: "So are the keepers of the breach."
	A belch: "I stay here until the next comes in."
	Myself: "Then why is it I should hold my speech?"

	We commenced walking as Reagan endured a dry heave.
170	"You are the equal of everyone you see.
	You must allow them to be what they are to be.

	You must let them play their scene and leave.
	Please hold your tongue and test what you believe
	In the silence of your own conscience." My teacher

175	Did not look at me, but kept up a stern pace.
	"I'm at your service, but I'm not delivering
	The answers to your questions. Instead you must face

	The very shadow of your quivering
	And acknowledge the strength of its force and its weight
180	Even as you attempt to stem its shivering,

	When there is nothing there for your body to hold."
	I thought for a moment and said, "I don't get it."
	"If you hold your peace you may discern some gold

	Among the fool's stones and the sickening vomit."
185	I knew better than to assert anything bold:
	"Show me the way, Uncle. I will be honest."

	We came to a red door which bore an inscription:
	"Forsaken." My guide: "Even if this is true,
	You remain of the earthly anthropomorphification.

190	You are not one of the elected to be strewn
	Into the hell of this bureaucratization.
	Have no fear of the words which you are shown."

	We entered a simple door and sat in an office,
	The like of which one might see in a lobby.
195	But all about there flew a plague of locusts

	Such clouds that I could hardly breathe or see.
	Certificates hanging said 'Herbert Hoover Insurance -
	Registration required and Be Seated.'

	The line behind us extended for hours
200	And I perceived a mounting frustration
	As is if I had it within my powers

	To know the stress and knotting tension
	Of those hungry masses crowding in the Bowery,
	As if they knew that there was no cessation

205	(Of their stomachs as aching hollows)
	To be found as they waited for assistance
	Which would not be forthcoming tomorrow.

	I felt deep ignobility and indignance,
	The very face of which was creased and sallow,
210	Rumbling through the guts of a mob of resentments.

	After as many hours as have four score
	And seven years, a round but haggard man appeared.
	We were all starving and ill but Lincoln forswore

	To hassle further this mole in the veneer
215	Of a rotund man who could not see further
	Than the dusty whiskers of his squinting sneer.

	"I believe," extemporized my avuncular guide,
	"That we are free to pass by this office." "Oh no!"
	The spongeular, homogenized president cried,

220	None may pass without registration." "But though
	We have been here the hours of years, you try
	To exert your influence against the overthrow."

	His round face tilted over his round body,
	And a bead of sweat dripped off of his nose.
225	"I've got the guns and the numbers, so nobody

	Gets through this office without one of those."
	The light was so red and my head imploding
	With the hunger of famine and wasted plows,

	I did not see the paper before us, a legal
230	Document, indemnifying said agents
	For services rendered, requiring signatures

	Prior to embarkation. My guide read the contents,
	Took a pen from his pocket and served imprimatur
	For a further broadening of our horizons.

235	Hoover's vacuum of eyes went out like they pulled a plug
	And there was nothing. He mumbled some and grimaced.
	He rubbed his greasy pate and jumped when the water jug

	Bubbled up ominously. He looked like a man flummoxed,
	Dammed up inside, condemned, and unable to shrug
240	The liquid weight of words which were heard as promises.

	I watched him and thought to call his attention
	To the lines of thread-bare souls who were waiting,
	Whose lives hung on their bones with the same attenuation.

	I: "There are more who come after us." My guide,
245	Who had undivided, with his will, a nation,
	Interjected: "So we will be on our way, thank you."

	Sweating he turned back into his office and more
	People took our places and the line slithered
	As we passed wordlessly through the door

250	My leader cast glances at me which were withering.
	I remembered then what he had told me before,
	I should be listening and not blithering.

	And a vision blistered through my consciousness -
	A dream as I perambulated-
255	Of this man being born a Kentuckian

	And then to Missouri having emigrated,
	Where masters and slaves were the lay of the land.
	I did see a nation devestated.

	And he had not spoken. Divided union I scanned,
260	Where brothers kill brothers with limbs amputated,
	War ceaseless between them, each of them damned

	To cursing revenge on the other, whose mother
	And sister were raped by the brother, who will
	Always avenge for the sins wrought upon him.

265	Complete I saw millions of maimed and raped and killed
	Who might otherwise be of service as lovers
	With soft hands whose beards are anxiety ridden,

	Whose kisses might be shared as generously
	As the ballistics which rip the forests to shreds.
270	The man beside me was a savior as venerably

	As the souls macheted, dying septic deaths
	In the fields and cities of the land of liberty,
	But unique in manner and words and sense.

	My silence was now the only prerequisite.
275	I could not even interject mindlessly
	As was always my most exquisite

	Pleasure, in polite intercourse with society.
	When I was most empty, I was most expressive
	And so I got on fine, until finally

280	People started catching me up in my lacking.
	Lincoln would have to be one of those types.
	But at thirty-five, one might begin relaxing,

	And when in such company, who, without hype,
	Proved himself at the level of the most exacting,
285	It was necessary for me to stuff my pipe.

	Which was much less easy to do as we turned left
	Down the hallway, found the door marked 'Dissolution'
	And entered to discover behind the desk,

	Shaded ethereal red in florescent diffusion,
290	Who shone so brightly from the deserts of the west
	Across the screens of so many in need of illusion.

	Three youthes, as if they had never died, greeted us
	With shine emanating through their welcoming smiles,
	"We are pleased you are with us. You may be seated as

295	Your paperwork is processed through the archival files."
	The woman spoke first, sadly, sultry and baited us
	With baleful sighs, "I hope you can stay with us for a while.

	Things get interesting here in the evenings.
	Somebody's always coming over with some wine.
300	We have a good time, even when we are working."

	She giggled and one of the young men sang
	With a southern twang, "I recognize this gentleman.
	I'm sorry, but may I ask you to sign?"

	He pushed a clipboard and pen over the counter.
305	"Yes," said the other, with more space in his voice,
	As if he barely contained within him the power

	To hold back the wide windy plains of his soul's choice,
	"Mr. President. What brings you into our bower?"
	"This young man is journeying to better know his joys."

310	"He's not so young," said the rebel in the red jacket.
	The blonde woman cooed, "Nor does he know where to find joy."
	The southerner frowned, "I ain't never seen nothing like it."

	And I was made to remain silent and poised
	As these icons pondered my fate. I was too attracted
315	To the woman, at whom I could not be annoyed.

	Helpless as ever with these stars before my eyes,
	I could not speak across the vastness, nor reach
	Over with my sympathetic, pitying sighs.

	She would never be mine, though I might beseech,
320	Though I might strain my throat with heavenward cries.
	My guide surmised my wonder and turned to teach:

	"Each and every night this trio of angels dies.
	Recollecting all that they are leaving behind,
	Fully aware they betrayed their promises.

325	They weep and they claw at their eyes, which are blind.
	They intoxicate and metamorphize
	Into fears which drive the clocks to unwind."

	"I overdose on pills and alcohol."
	"I drive my car into a telephone pole."
330	"I have a heart attack in the toilet stall."

	"No one can love me but for my hole."
	"No one can see that I'm an empty shell."
	"No one can see I'm not king at all."

	"So they die," said my friend, "With no one to save
335	Them. With nothing but what their emptiness gave them.
	No intercession to deflect them from the grave.

	Nothing but pity for what might have been when
	They first gave themselves to the crowds of waves,
	Before they became what they couldn't sustain."

340	"Here's your paperwork, Mr. Lincoln," Norma said.
	I loved her more then than I ever did before.
	And the other two men, I loved them dead.

	And I wanted to give myself to be their whore,
	So they would know they could still buy a friend,
345	Or someone else they could too briefly adore.

	As I reluctantly exited the room
	And went down to the left to the next office over,
	My guide noted the scarlet hue of my gloom,

	Said: "Young man, any one can be a lover.
350	Fewer can actually love themselves and exude
	That love to the others with whom they endeavor

	To make intimate contacts." I chose to remain silent.
	He stopped then outside the door to look at me.
	"You cannot fail, but you must be endurant.

355	You may speak, but you may find words unnecessary."
	"Thank you," I said, for once feeling aspirant -
	To see instead of being seen, impressed me.

	My Uncle pushed open this door and all vision
	Melted and sweltered in a room of wet glass.
360	We had hardly stepped in when fire and adhesion

	Drew us gasping into its maternal, molten grasp.
	I straightened my back and panicked to breathe in,
	Like a bug swallowed in a bubble of amber sap.

	I felt the crystal heat flow into my throat and lungs -
365	Terror in my heart and eyes, Lincoln reached to touch me.
	"What feels like lava, might very well be dung."

	Which didn't make me feel any better, but trusting
	In the prophetic quality of words from his tongue,
	I could not fail, and so wanted to know his teaching,

370	That I ceased to resist not breathing and felt fine,
	Like I had returned to a place previously known.
	I wanted to reassure my friend and guide

	But our movements in the magma were slow,
	And my eyesight was glazed over, though not quite blind.
375	I spoke no words, waited to see what my guide would show.

	There were no walls but the limit of my reach
	And the pressure on my skin. I could not but submit.
	What I saw challenged my belief.

	Floating all around me, in aimless, careless drift,
380	Dozens of bubble fetuses in sculpted relief.
	I wondered how these creatures could subsist.

	I wondered what it could mean that they were here,
	Ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny,
	When I noticed more beginning to appear,

385	And found that they were gathering around me.
	I say, on the whites of my eyes I felt the searing.
	Still was compelled to their praying; my guide stood between.

	One of the children stared: "We've not seen a breather."
	My leader replied, his voice carrying through lava,
390	"Good children, we are not free to stay, but neither

	Have we passed without signing off." "You are supposed to
	Register every soul who enters. Did you see Hoover?"
	"Yes, we spent a great while on that bother."

	Then one child approached me very closely.
395	"Nobody here cares about signing off. We should
	Be presenting the atmosphere falsely,

	If we were to say there was not any good
	In being kept out of heaven most grossly.
	We ought to try to be better understood."

400	"You mean to say that you are, all of you, sinless?
	That you..." I could not go on. "We are the souls
	Who have accumulated from the beginning,

	Who never saw the light of day, but who know
	A world of blood sensations, red illusions,
405	And who must be held away from help to grow.

	There is no elysium. As you can see we are
	Defenseless as gatekeepers." I know not how
	I spoke:"Reagan said he was the gatekeeper.

	And what of Hoover's endless room?" "There are now,"
410	The fetus communed gravely, "More of our weepers
	Than there will ever be of that herd of cows.

	I don't mean to be rude, but they have no grace.
	They don't cherish a world of soft silence.
	The Presidents come here and stir up the place,

415	Upon the dignity of their earthly offices insisting
	That one of their own represent at the gates,
	As if they could be more eloquent than children.

	Satan was somehow persuaded, but then
	They couldn't just choose one." "And what of Dissolution?"
420	"You can't withhold a flood, once the gates are open."

	The child sighed and my guide bade me: "Our intrusion
	Here is done." Without a name or a word more spoken,
	The child floated away from us. My confusion

	Was profound. My guide opened a door and we passed
425	Back into the heavy, spacious realm of air,
	Where sound traveled with weight, I choked on gas.

	Cold and on my knees on the carpeted floor
	"Is this the beginning of the journey?" I gasped,
	As I vomited a phlegmmy placenta there.

430	"For a pilgrim, there are many beginnings."
	My knee jerked: "Hey! I am not a pilgrim.
	I learned that from old friends, never submitting

	Was the highest virtue we could build up."
	"Do please spare me more of your reflectings.
435	All that must wait until beyond the end of it."

	"Let me please ask what sense it makes to place
	The souls of dead fetuses in a hellish mire."
	"There is no answer to that consideration."

	"Who sent you to take me into this fire?!"
440	I pointed angrily at him who smiled in my face.
	"I am free to respond, but I fear you tire.

	You let your emotions flare like hot dry grass,
	With the sun baking down, in the summer
	In a parched desert landscape waiting for rains.

445	You can't escape the spark which starts your burning up.
	That is to say young man - I am here to sow the grains -
	I cannot make them grow." "Thanks for summing up

	Your duties so succinctly." A sense of shame
	Overtook me as I let sarcasm boil
450	Itself into a quick and shadowy vaporous veil.

	My Uncle waved his hand and I saw no scene
	My eyesight was covered with a cloudy sheen
	Which flickered in red in a hail of flame.

	His tone was not ominous, but he spoke directly:
455	"Your intercessor is she whose love you most admire.
	And if you asked, she said that she permitted me

	To offer this display as the badge of her desire."
	The hail of flame changed to rain and I felt relief
	From the penetrating heat of the undying fire.

460	"Her request is that you give to your host the utmost
	Of your faith." I: "I will." And the rain vaporized.
	The furnace of the earth resumed its work to toast

	The souls of those whose wills had froze to sample-size.
	Ready to continue our helicular motion,
465	I still wondered for whom this hell was corporatized.

	My guide was ahead of me and turning left again
	Down the hallway, he said: "Your Lilica will show
	You how to fill in the spaces of your questions."

	"In the meantime I am not able to know
470	Precisely what I am experiencing."
	"You know it even now, but you don't grow

	Merely by knowing. The scenes change around you.
	Other shadows have other stories. You must observe.
	Nothing you see or hear should ever astound you."

475	I could not but consider the love of Lilica
	As the sine qua non of this brazen adventure.
	How could I proceed with other than humility?

	I began to take pride in my noble indenture.
	And the many who refuse to join with me
	Will be left behind with little expenditure.