cogito

Old Goat

I think this guy that I talk to at the coffee shop every now and then might be the devil. He claims to be an old farmer who lost his farm, but I think that might just be a metaphor. He sits there in his overalls, sipping his coffee, and doesn't say much unless someone approaches him. If you do, however, he'll talk in friendly wistful tones about everything he can remember about his former life. He never talks about the present, or the future, only the past, as though he is a soul waiting to be retired or, maybe, reincarnated. No plans for world domination. No evil plots. Just a sense of loss, a little nostalgia, and a waiting for the end. I sure hope he's the devil. That wouldn't be so bad.

Fallout

No one can explain it. It was supposed to be the end of the world. Instead, it was the anticlimax of human existence. I guess, as it turns out, we don’t have the ability to end to world in one fell blow. That should be a good thing, I know, but it seems to annoy most people a little. The scientists try to blame it on postmodernism, but that makes no sense at all. The laws of science should be immune to such things. The physicists are now claiming that quantum physics changed all that, and that the laws of nature have developed a sense of irony.

So, we all live on. It’s confusing. The leaders who ordered the launch of the missiles are in the unexpected and awkward position of having to apologize. It ended up not being that big a deal, but they didn’t know that. They intended to kill a lot of people. Jerks.

It’s hard to know what to do. I’m finding it harder to reengage in life than it was to give up on it. I’ve called in to work for the past two days, but I guess I should go in tomorrow. Life goes on, as weird as that is.

I think what bugs us, no pun intended, about the whole thing is that it smacks of capricious higher authority. I heard a few people talk about it a little in the coffee shop this morning, but no one has publicly admitted what we’re all thinking: some god, some higher order played a joke on us. Only the cockroaches? The people, the buildings, the plants, the animals...all fine. Unscathed. A loud noise, a bright flash, and dead cockroaches everywhere. It can’t be a coincidence. It’s just too ironic.

You Can Quote Me

"Hello"

"Yes, hello. I found your number online."

"Oh. OK. How can I help you."

"You wrote that book about famous quotes, right?"

"Well...there are a lot of books of quotations. I wrote one of them, yes. Can I help you somehow?"

"Yes, I hope so. I'd like to submit a quote for the next edition of your book."

"Oh...well...uh...you know, I don't pay anyone for quotes."

"Oh, no. I didn't want money. No. I just wanted the quote to be in the book."

"Oh. I see. Well, who's quote is it?"

"It's mine."

"No, I mean, who said it?"

"I did."

"Oh...and it's famous?"

"No, not yet, but I'd really like for it to be."

Mountain Time

Dearest Clara,

My horse has ridden as far as it can tonight, and I'm so sleepy that I know that it would be dangerous to keep going. Today was good, I put many miles behind me.

What a beautiful place this is. I'm riding through the foothills of a mountain range, I'm not sure which one. Very green. Lots of trees.

It's a bright night, and I've let the fire die down. I don't think I've ever seen so many stars. I wish I had someone here to share it with. I wish you were here.

Anyway, there's nothing we can do about that now. Sitting here under the stars like this, I can't help but think about how nice it would be if I lived in modern times, instead of olden times. It would be nice to have a television to watch, but they haven't been invented yet. An Internet connection would be cool too, but there would be no servers to connect to these days. If I had a motorcycle, instead of this damn horse, I'd be where I'm going by now. But where would I get gas?

Listen to me prattle on like this. I guess I'm just a cowboy ahead of my time. The guys at the saloon back home would get a real kick out of hearing this. I'd never hear the end of it.

Well, I should get some shut eye. Now that my mind's awake and I'm off that damn horse, I'm not really sleepy anymore, but I've got a lot of riding to do tomorrow. Maybe I'll count the stars.

An iPod would be nice right now.

Love,
Walter

Unamerican Idol

Laying his typed notes on the podium, he adjusted the microphone. He stared at his notes, but his eyes would not focus. The echoes of endless arguments, centuries old, rang in his ears. He had heard them before. Everyone had. Hearing them again today, in light of so recent a tragedy, so present a struggle, brought him to the edge. He cleared his throat, felt the lump there move up and down. He took a deep, slow breath.

“Hello.”

And then nothing. Around the room, a few talking people began to glance at him. People from numerous nations. Diplomats and dignitaries. Ministers and minions. He said nothing. He stared out over the crowd, focusing on no one for long. His head turned in a slow arc, from those on his left to those on his right. Tension mounted. One by one, people fell quiet, turning to watch him. Unintelligible conversations in countless languages and dialects slowed to a stop. He gazed up at the translators in the back, eyeing him nervously, wondering what followed “Hello”.

He glanced at his notes in silence. They were foreign to him. They belonged to some other context, some imagined situation that did not exist. The silence hovered precariously. It would not last. The spell would break. He looked across the room once more. He adjusted the microphone again. These were teases, promises that he was about to speak.

Then, the ideas in his mind aligned, and he had words. He returned the note cards to his pocket as he began.

“How can we, as men and women, as humans, hope to solve a dispute among Gods? One God has given some land to one people. One God has given it to another. These people cannot but do what their Gods have commanded. It is not for these people to give up their land, to abandon the promise of their God. This dispute must be settled between these two Gods.”

He stopped. The silence could not take the pressure for long. As the translators winced through their work, the silence shattered. The sound and fury were tangible, physical. Arms waved. Fists pounded. Shoulders shrugged. Some were furious. Some were confused. Some were scared. He was insane. He was being trite. He was being irresponsible. He was right.

And yet, he had no anxiety. He felt good. Lights flashed, asking for a turn to speak. People shouted responses. People struggled with the system to gain the floor. He looked around. He knew what some would say. Some would dismiss his point on logical or political grounds. He wasn’t interested in practicalities. He wanted to take this all the way. He found his mark, and yielded the floor. The response came quickly, and he knew what it was even before the translator spoke.

“There is only one God.”

“Then we are at the mercy of his whims. I will not presume to tell these people that God has not truly spoken to them, and I will not presume to tell these people either. God therefore, plays games with us. God sets us up, against one another. We cannot but follow. We are at the mercy of his whims.”

Chaos and turmoil. A striving for control. A yearning to be heard. He found another mark, yielded.

“You speak of God, but you mock God. You do not believe in God, or you would not speak this way. Before we can talk about God, we should know. What do you believe?”

His mind went blank. He felt the weight of his situation. Why had he done this? One moment ago, he had a point, but it had fled. He couldn’t remember where he was going, what he was saying.

The world stared at him, waiting to be divided by his answer. Some would claim him. Some would reject him. He would become insider and outsider, believer and infidel. There was no right answer.

Then he realized it. It isn’t about me. It’s about…

“What do I believe? In what do I believe?” He paused. They waited, murmuring.

“I believe in you. All of you. Not just here, in this room, but out in the world. All of you. I believe you see everything, and you know everything. I believe you have all power.” Again he paused. Silence.

“I believe you are good. I believe you are loving and wise. This world, and everything in it, belongs to you. To whom else shall I go? There is none other. Salvation is in your hands. You’ve got the whole world in your hands. And I have faith in you. I trust you. I believe in you.”

Silence.

Too Cool

I was listening to an interview on public radio yesterday the general topic of which was utopianism. The primary guest was an author, and I do not remember much about her. In addition, there was a short interview with "The Polyphonic Spree" (if you are not familiar with them, you can Google them and find out much more than I will possibly bother to tell you here). In short, they aspire to make happy, joyful music. They talked about how foreign this seems to be to everyone today. People assume that they are being ironic, or that there is some joke behind the whole bit. People also have accused them of being a cult (the body-length, multi-colored robes and quasi-religious musical themes probably do not help much in this area). I think their basic point was that the world has become so accustomed to cynicism and irony that we cannot understand a group just trying to be positive or nice.

This reminds me of the hype I heard a few months ago about the English band "The Darkness". They insist that their 80's throwback, hard-rock style is not tongue-in-cheek. They claim sincerely to like the style of music. People, generally, cannot accept that they are being somewhat ironic or acting out some subtle parody. I cannot help but think, when I see their video for "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", that they are having a bit of fun at the expense of 80's hair bands.

All of this makes me think about ideas I have been mulling over for a couple of years about "cool" (in the Fonzie, rock and roll sense). Our culture is rife with it. I imagine there was a time when cool did not exist. If this is not true, there was at least a time when it was not as important or prevalent.

What is cool? From whence did it come? What were some earlier manifestations of it? Is it the central doctrine of post-modernism?

foreign relations, borders

"How dare you throw that back in my face, after so much time!" I had crossed the line. I knew it, but I had nothing else. It was my only attack. She was pissed.

"Well, it still hurts." I lied. Pathetic.

"I could easily bring up Berlin! Athens! Tokyo! I could take cheap shots too!" Tokyo! Tokyo!

"Tokyo was all Truman's fault and you know it! You can't still blame me for Tokyo!" I was losing control. People were starting to stare.

She glared at me. She was assessing my limits, I know. She was directing her insight into all the possible futures.

"Okay, okay." She was the better person. She didn't cross lines. She didn't like attention. She turned her head, letting the tension pass. My heart was still in my throat. I stared across the table at her as she looked out the window. Her neck. Her hair. Her cheek. This was definitely her good side. My adrenaline subsided. I sipped my coffee.

I think she might know the truth about Tokyo. But how?

cosmology on a country road

they closed the particle accelerator

he's not doing well

he's got to know

they said there wasn't enough money

to accelerate

but he accelerates

around the curve, over the small hill

going so fast, the tires leave the ground

he's on the verge of tears

then smash, I think it was a beetle of some kind

he screeches to a halt

gravel and leaves flying

dirt and dust billowing

he takes his spotlight and magnifying glass

fling open the door

dash around, leaping on the hood

trembling, drenched in sweat he looks

for God in the collision

for answers

poetry

it is a difficult position

to give a poem definition

the heart endures no inquisition

and poetry transcends cognition

yet note this possibility

that poetry is clarity

that inside you and within me

our natural state is poetry

that thought does not exist in prose

but dances in poetic throes

and when, with clarity, it flows

from think to ink a poem grows

Terminal

"So that's it then." She said it without feeling. I started to look at her, but I looked past her, through the window, at the planes landing and taking off. She stood slowly and walked away. A lady with a thick accent came on the loud speaker asking everyone to watch their luggage. "I guess so," I said softly, but she didn’t hear. Somewhere a baby was crying. A flight to Tucson would begin boarding in 10 minutes. Mr. Marshall had a call on the courtesy phone. The planes came and went. Across the terminal, she was disappearing down an escalator, but I didn’t notice.