The first part of ‘I Sing The Body Electric’ by Walt Whitman, as read by…

In Darkness by Amy Lowell

Must all of worth be travailled for, and those

Life’s brightest stars rise from a troubled sea?

Must years go by in sad uncertainty

Leaving us doubting whose the conquering blows,

 Are we or Fate the victors? Time which shows

All inner meanings will reveal, but we

Shall never know the upshot. Ours to be

Wasted with longing, shattered in the throes,

 The agonies of splendid dreams, which day

Dims from our vision, but each night brings back;

We strive to hold their grandeur, and essay

 To be the thing we dream. Sudden we lack

The flash of insight, life grows drear and gray,

And hour follows hour, nerveless, slack.

I just discovered Amy Lowell’s poetry, which in my opinion, deserves to be disseminated far and wide. I’ve been researching the incidence of depression on historical figures/thinkers, and realised that (low and behold) it seems to be quite a widespread phenomena. I wonder if the existence of clinical depression flies in the face of evolutionary dogma. After all,  many influential figures have suffered from it – and a considerable number have succumb to the violence of their own hand, yet their contributions have shaped society and culture as we know it.A great paper on the topic is written by Daniel Nettle, entitled Evolutionary origins of depression: a review and reformulation.  He writes:

… increasing neuroticism is associated with increasing competitiveness,and neuroticism is a strong predictor of success in attainment (generally studied amongst university students) amongst those who are resilient enough to cope with its negative effects. Having a fairly reactive negative affect system causes people to strive hard for what is desirable and to avoid negative outcomes, and this may well be associated with increased fitness. . . Thus it is plausible to argue that increasing neuroticism is selected for, because of its beneficial effects on striving in interpersonal contexts, until the point where the negative effects of mental and physical illness outweigh the marginal benefits. (Nettle, 9) However, if neuroticism is in fact an evolutionary tool, it is one that engenders a very high risk. Depression is crippling, and it creates an all-pervasive sense of nothingness that can completely demolish a person’s ego and psyche. Nonetheless, perhaps this (low-intensity) neuroticism is also that which allows one’s  imagination to lead them to novel ideas. It seems plausible to me that neuroticism could even lay the groundwork for all originality.  After all, the inventor of sliced bread might just have been a neurotic freak who despised having to cut up their bread one morsel at a time, whereas all their counterparts and ancestors had been fairly comfortable performing the task.  

All of a sudden, I don’t feel so bad for being neurotic.  

“ I stole this image from this other wonderful blog that I just stumbled upon.

Holding a pen like a scalpel, in the midst of an unadulterated abyss, there are no words which can bite the grass like crickets can and do at dusk. What ? you ask. And how I’d like to respond, but the truth is that nothing stays still long enough to be defined and shouldn’t that be enough. Whoever doesn’t think so has sat too long in armchairs before moving pictures of worlds they have no part in, screaming at those blinking lights and weary of the shadows that pop up just about everywhere if and when they are blown out – extinguished. Anguished lights they are, pale and jaundiced – repulsive unless you look at them long and hard untill they become much like a soother filled with mother’s milk for infants abandoned on that dangerous safari that kills before it hunts because isn’t it only after death that souls are recruited? Up in heaven as it is on earth.  

But nothing, absolutely nothing, livens up discussion like ta – boohoohoo. A cry is heard, distant and off of stage left. It multiplies, invades as a cacaphony of unrequited desire. Despair at high pitch. The makeup is well applied and generous while the costumes are tattered, scanty even – scattered - but the elephants do not waver, knowing exactly where those peanuts are kept at baseball games all around the world, hearded into fat sports-mouths while baseball-men watch and gag on their own glory.

Now wouldn’t it be nice to live a stable, yieldable existance, as if Schopenhauer meant nothing at all, when in reality he doesn’t most of the time. Not many of them do – these books with big ideas in them hidden away from those afraid of dust and whiteness, it’s cultural class hell, really. because when you ask prosititues their opinions on Heraclitus they think that they have missed out on a new STD. So That”S WhaT ExistS, is it?- HPV, VD, herpes simplex one (1) and two (1), syphilis, gonorrhea – and the mother of all mothers, the primordial eve of all sexual fear – AIDS (!) If only we spoke of philosophers as we speak of these handles: imagine: “Well, according to Gonorrhea’s theory of the essentialization of the other in terms of metaphysical non-being that cannot be explained through idealization, while being sensed, it is the unkowable creation that is the cause of the pervasive, yet untenable, anxiety. Much like Syphilis’ dissertation on the meaning of neant – of touching nothingness as if it were a massive, enveloping  ephemeral clitoris, it’s essential symbolization slippery and palpitating, gleaming yet palpable.

Or, conversely: “you’ve got Sophacles? Damn, why didn’t you put on your reading glasses – you know you shouldn’t be fingering those books without protection. At least you’re lucky you didn’t contract Sartre. Now that’s a Being and Nothingness that will not go away.”

Perhaps that is the attraction to arms older than the sun before the earth became the rocketship as we now know it to blast off the dead sleeper cells of skin, like terrorits, attacking from all angles against that warm embrace that could have been really nice, if only you had not fucked it up. On the other hand, it could just be blurred fantasy that beckons you from bed to stare out the window and smoke your thousandth cigarette of the week (and it’s only Tuesday now) because you  wished that monsters other than yourself were lurking between your bedsheets intespliced betwixt days of incongruous obscurity, and days of impossible attempts at being something other than you are: in-the-world.

“Don’t lay any certain plans for the future; it is like planting toads and expecting to raise toadstools.”

 - John Billings

Is it possible?

Photos render such false exuberance. I was looking back over some old photos and realized why I had been intimidating at one point in my life. You could see it in my demeaner, in the way my skin shone, and in the way my teeth sparkled – you could see an ebbing superstrength interlaced with my flesh. It was called youth. There was nothing that could not be done.  it was all – all of it, every last shred of it -possible.

I smoke too much now, I scream and run round in  cirlces all with out moving a muscle (and you can tell this by that spare tire stubbornly loged around my care bear tummy) . I am consciously deciding to invite that unbounded energy, that grotesque vitality with which I was so mercilessly endowed, back into my life, into my blood, into my craneum.  And while I’m waiting for its rsvp, I’ll be chatting up every postman from here to my discarded umbilical chord.

After all, just because lost illusions are staple fare at most time buffets doesn’t mean that you’re forced to add them to your plate.

Wiped right off, the photo did not speak. Like a bank going bankrupt, this was a photo without images. We stared for hours at the plate, hoping something would appear. “Still nothing,” said the dandy, in his grey felt fedora and blue tweed jacket. He was leaning over the counter waving the wet paper about with a set of tongs.

“Oh god… dammit – it’s got to show up at some point.” She sighed. Photographs were her mnemonic apparel. She needed them to remember, without them she had nothing. No history, no kin, no soul. She looked down at her feet, nervous and dejected. She needed to know what had happened, and the darkroom was giving up no answers so far. “what, did I leave the lens cap on?”

“If you did, it would have been the only thing you left on in your tomfoolery” he replied, smirking. He was a froward little bastard.

“I’ve been thinking my camera had become omnipotent, now i realize just how wrong that appraisal was.” She spoke mostly to herself. She put a different filter slide over the negative drawer, closed it and adjusted the strength of the light.

 ”I’ve got something, finally!” she shouted as she looked through the little nozzle of the apparatus at the processed negative. “And holy shit, do I look demonic!!”

“Stop shouting, I’m right here…”

“Look closely, there I am, beer in hand, and looking absolutely pitiful. oiii… but who’s that beside me?” He looked through the nozzle as her head made way for him.

“Yeah that’s me.” He looked up over at her, eyebrow raised. “I thought you had remembered all that. You don’t remember anything?” he asked.

“Of course not, or else I wouldn’t be scrambling for photographic evidence would I?”

“Charlotte, you don’t remember that we hooked up last night? It was marvellous, if I may remind you.” Now he was the one looking dejected.

“Look, one night of good sex doesn’t solve my short term memory problem, ok” She was repulsed at the idea that she had slept with that little rat. He was too slick for his own good, always looking studiously tousled. “Ok. get out of my darkroom. I feel like working alone now.”

“I just got here though. We shared some really good memories last night. We connected. And this is how you treat me?”

“Well, if your story is in fact true, then you made out with a ghost, because I don’t remember any of it; and so as far as I’m concerned, it didn’t happen. Now go on, skedaddle.” she shooed him out of the room.

“I can’t believe you don’t remember!” he shouted from the other side of the door. With her back to the door, she smiled. Of course she remembered…. the sex just wasn’t good enough for a second serving. She walked back over to the enlarger, removed the negative from the drawer, and then threw it into the garbage. Now that’s one way of getting rid of the past.

“If that’s all you want, then sure. That’s it. It’s yours. Go for it.” he said, head dropping slightly, silently to the left. His hair dangled over his eyes as if he were one of those water dogs whose eyes you can never really quite see.

“How much is it then?” She looked surprised.

“Well, I can always tell you that. But that’s not really what’s at issue here. I’m talking about possibility here. You can have anything – anything – yet this is all you want. Seems odd to me.” He flopped down onto his hand, elbow stoutly propped on the counter.

She paused a moment, looking at him from a slant. “Yeah, man. That’s pretty much all I want. Can you please tell me how much you require from me… in payment, I mean.”

“Yes, of course. But, you see, I’m trying to tell you something here. I’m trying to impress on you an idea. I’m trying to break through to you here, you see. You can allow yourself to want more than this. You’re not limited to this. You can have it all. You can grab hold of every thread that possibility has to offer – every moment, time, opportunity, event or thing, even wealth -you can grab hold of them and pull till they all come tumbling down. They can all wash over you as if you were a unicorn standing under a waterfall. Do you understand now? Do you get it? Get what I’m saying?” His face was still supported by his hand which was supported by his arm, which was supported by the counter. His eyes still nowhere to be found.

She took a deep breath, realizing that this was turning into a situation that she was being forced to deal with. She really hated having to deal with anything, even when she did so of her own volition – but particularly hated being forced to do so. The vein on her forehead began pulsing visibly as she struggled to keep her frustration in check.. She had rage issues and didn’t want this to turn ugly.

“Look,” she said tersely and slowly through a clenched jaw, “I am here to buy a carton of eggs, 2 stalks of broccoli, a loaf of bread and an eggplant. This is all I came for, all I need and all I want. Okay? So please, tell me what I owe you for these items, let me give that amount to you and then let me be on my way. Agreed?”

“Shit – did you realise that you’re buying all ‘B’ and ‘E’ things?! This happens very rarely, but when it does it is really quite memorable. You came to this grocery store to ‘B’ ‘E’ – to BE! to be and keep on being! Broccoli, Eggs, Bread and Eggplant! Wow! My God. Be! Be! Be!” His zany eyes finally glinted through the curtain of hair.

“Stop it NOW. If you don’t, I’ll have no choice but to either speak to your manager or walk out of her with all these ‘be’-ings for free. Do you understand me? Stop it. Let me pay. Let me leave. It’s as simple as that. Do you realize that there is a line-up of people forming behind me. They all want to pay for their things and get out of here. Just like I do.” Indeed, behind her, a long queue of people had formed, and they were all watching the conversation unfold in either bemused indifference or apprehensive impatience.

He looked up from behind his frivolous fringe at the waiting customers.

“Oh!” he ejaculated, “My God. Yes of course, I’m very sorry. I have this heart condition that makes me become esoteric whenever the temperature drops. It’s hereditary, you see. It was a congenital…”

“Shut up. ring me through.”

“… it was a congenital condition that is actually quite rare, if you can believe it…” he continued obliviously.

She had had enough. She picked up the ‘B’ and ‘E’ things that she had attempted to purchase, put them aggressively in a bag, and walked out of the door as the cashier continued to mumble something about how his family became quite the interesting dinner guests whenever winter came around.

The next customer walked up to the cash cautiously and placed his things on the sticky, black conveyor belt. He looked up at the cashier anxiously. The cashier stopped abruptly, looking at the new customer as if through fresh eyes.  “Oh, hello.” he said pleasantly.

The customer nodded acknowledgement at the greeting.

“Will that be all?” asked the cashier.

“Yes.” replied the customer firmly.

The cashier peered at the customer through his gratuitously cumbersome bangs, and after an awkward moment, said, “Sure. If that’s all you want, of course there’s no problem. It’s yours. Go for it. But I happen to believe that you are more than the sum of these things.” The cashier’s head dangled to the left once more.

The customer groaned loudly, as did everyone else who was caught in this grocer’s queue, like flies in a spider’s web or butter on toast. The people in the lineup clutched their unpurchased goods so tightly in their hands that almost all at once, their knuckles whitened.

wrote slam poetry in my head all night

psychic paper dirty and smeared.

dribbled soppy love/hate atop

those imaginary hilroy blues

brilliant prose broke forth

like projectile vomit

Unstoppable

wished your ears tickled red

hoped you had an uneasy 2am

prayed you were wise enough to ignore it

Now my coffee-sopped innards rage

like twisters in kansas and tsunamis elsewhere

While i try desperately to revive

those gleaming shards of salvageable material

and fail.

for eyes unseen

silence unheard

For lips unopened

and wounds incurred

For bellies filled

with swallowed air

and vanities satisfied

with undue care

for acts of kindness

gone unreturned

and wise lessons

left unlearned

For hopes dashed

and passions undriven

I beg forgiveness

for not having forgiven