DIGNITY #1

"He is not less in little things -- 

for these little things are to be measured

not by their own greatness

(which does not exist),

but by the wisdom of their Designer."

Augustine of Hippo

The City of God, XI.22

a crack at my own psalm

Oh LORD. Is this purgatory? Tell me. No... you don't owe me that. You are more distant from me than the most disloyal friend, yet you flow out of this pen; you emergeth from my lamp this dark night; you project my own vision. You are throughout, yet wrapping your justice in my skin. Not alone I am. My work flickers; yours sets ice ablaze. Your end is a sloth's dream. Were you ever curious? Did you ever self-deceive? You knew the measure of creation's dark – did you tell no one? or did your apostate sneer at your avow, and call you a guesser? For what? For what does the most proud one seeketh the limit of ignorance? Ah. I see: He wanted the void to prove his character – now he begs the blind to admire him. He flirts the lost as a drunk comedian. And what a set he's having, this very night with his yearling prey. How? I say. With a clock? A whistle? God, a kiss? LORD, my fellows run! They careen and bounce from a mangled wreck, and seek to spoil a virgin, or murder a dandelion. Already dead, loving it, they cast not a shadow but by their own hate. A moth itches them; it loveth light more than they. They don a yoke and chains under the sun; they name the sun chairman. Buffoons! They purchase filth with their stone words. The temple of the father's tongue is abandoned. One upon another draw bows of derision; to kill all truth as if you were not Truth. You catch their arrows, of conceit and poison, with two fingers, every which-way they shoot, and turn the missiles to plague. I smell it. I sweat it. I eat it. But I will call you my Father and rest on the vine of green and dew. May I breathe the eternity of a never-ending seventh chapter, a praise and a swashbuckling and a howling chorus of the north, in the deepest crack of the most brilliant dawn; a righteous adventure of vision, sojourn and friendship of excellent wild. The ghettos will be moss. The prisons will be mangroves. The towers of fear will be chimneys for termites. Nature will seize nature. Order will seize order. Law will seize law. Decay and vigor shall wed and be faithful. May you preside; Amen. The conquest of the lie shall complete itself in the thundering echoes of the Word, betraying the bounds of zero to the devils who sought, and led captives, to steal the worthless treasure within its pit. Glory will see no summit, and no creature will fear the drop. Trust will be the palm of your hand. Knowledge will be but love, and honour, and tales of the chivalrous of the dust road. Crags of the Old World shall sunder up fountains of wax under bonfires of pine; Creation shall dance free all around. And the New shall imagine and remember the birth of the deep as a grandfather tortoise. Rain shall find not a rebel on earth – war? a joke. Weapons shall be verse. Honesty will be its own preacher, and no child will despair of a home, nor a companion. Eyes will murder teeth in the theatre. The kingdom will laugh, be filled, blessed and rejoicing in sympathy, comforted in their exhilaration and tears of mirth. No beauty will be denied. The massive and the dwarfish, the vast and the dense, the king and the pawn and the games of brotherhood will have their place in the Book. Villains will be funny; heroes wily. Art shall assault with color or nothing. Fantasies shall have no fear in them and not one barrier. Ballads will be contemplative like unto silence in winter. Observance and pace on a walk will find balance. Bold will not offend; happy shall wander. Math shall be everything superficial. Surprise shall be history; anticipation shall be the science. Christ was the journeyman to my heart becoming; so was he ever: May He clue what he discovered, and command my mystery. Your grace be with me. Amen.

Giambattista Tiepolo [1696-1770]

"NO SPEEKEE ENGLISH?"

[dear] ___,

i appreciate your thoughtful and sincere attempt to advise me on my conduct with relations. however, i have already pointed out to you that i had already apologized to R___ for what happened 4 years ago over and over and over again. and i noticed a misinterpretation in your analysis of what i emailed to R___ initially the other day which i paraphrased to you. you said:

"He didn't want to think about you and he didn't know what to say to you when he did think about it."

that was not the acquittal of R___ that i offered him. rather, i said that he was having problems applying his native language, 1, and 2: he wasn't thinking about his OWN feelings much at all (and subtextually i implied that this went for his other relations).

this is just silliness to talk on and on about childish emotional motives or fears that mature adults should be able to get over. the real issue is (1) cultural narcotism, and (2) the modern degeneration/erosion of the English language. it's very simple. and no, i do not understand why people would flush the most sacred element of their ancestral heritage -- their native language -- down the toilet. and no, no, no: i see NO EXCUSE for it and it DISGUSTS me. when people are shamelessly ineloquent and proudly speak like dope-shooters ["chill out, man"] as a response to plain English with unmisinterpretable meaning, it fries my brain and baits me. [This author had responded to R___'s "chill" command with a string of obscenities -- which yet illuminated nevertheless(!).] well, oh well.

******? well, guess what? i still think less of her to this day for calling my mortal, soulful expression of merely  "longing for love" -- she called it "thinking too much" and "philosophy"! that was grossly offensive -- black. frankly, it was tantamount to blasphemy.

if people want my respect, then they ought to speak English. plain and simple. that is NOT a tall order, and whoever thinks it is is a sell-out and can go to hell and find some enlightenment there.

finally, R___ IS INDEED OFF THE HOOK. he has become both a worm and a monster. i want nothing to do with him. the man is dangerous and poisonous to one's basic self-respect.

NOW, AS FOR US: i repeat, i am very sorry about the pain i have caused you, ___. anytime you want to discuss your personal, residual demons concerning our past affairs, i am available.

take care. cincinnati prevails.

Money does not exist. (CLICK ME!)

And if thy brother

be waxen poor,

and fallen in decay with thee;

then thou shalt relieve him:

yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner;

that he may live with thee.

Take thou no usury of him,

or increase:

but fear thy God;

that thy brother may live with thee.

Thou shalt not

give him thy money upon interest,

nor lend him

thy victuals for increase.

I am the LORD your God,

which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt,

to give you the land of Canaan,

and to be your God.

Leviticus 25:35-38

rug blueprint

"9/11/2099"

He that overcometh

shall inherit all things;

and I will be his God,

and he shall be my son.

But the fearful,

and unbelieving,

and the abominable,

and murderers,

and whoremongers,

and sorcerers,

and idolaters,

and all liars,

shall have their part in the lake

which burneth with fire and brimstone:

which is the second death.

Revelation 21:7-8

"GHETTO PLANET"

detail 1

detail 2

detail 3

detail 4

Don't you know?

that it's true

that for me

and for you:

the world is a ghetto?

War, 1972

self-portrait, Chicago mansion, 2002

"Love Against the Machine" 

detail 1

detail 2

untitled

How sour sweet music is

When time is broke and no proportion kept!

So is it in the music of men's lives.

Shakespeare

King Richard II; V, v, 42

Drugs are bad for you.

OVERNIGHT

DELIVERY

"Vomit in the Sink; $5.00"

"And since I am deceived,

how am I deceived in believing that I am?

... "Neither am I deceived in knowing

that I know.

... "And when I love these two things,

I add to them a certain third thing, namely,

my love,

which is of equal moment."

Augustine of Hippo

The City of God, XI.26

"Opium and a Belt-Buckle"

I said of laughter,

It is mad:

and of mirth,

What doeth it?

Ecclesiastes 2:2

"Reptile Prostitute"

"Kidnaping the Virgin"

inmate, one hour prior to forced injection

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Roeror's Imperative"

I rise, I rise,

I, whose tread makes the earth to rumble.

I rise, I rise,

I, in whose thighs there is strength.

I rise, I rise,

I, who whips his back with his tail when in rage.

I rise, I rise,

I, in whose humped shoulder there is power.

I rise, I rise,

I, who shakes his mane when angered.

I rise, I rise,

I, whose horns are sharp and curved.

THE RISING OF THE BUFFALO MEN

unknown Osage Poet

EMAIL TO A MAN STILL HURT

dear ___,

i regret the contentiousness of our unintelligible discussion this evening concerning friendship. the one conclusion i drew from it is that you are still very hurt by the way i've treated you over the past decade. i don't blame you for that, and i am sorry i took out my frustrations about my problems out on you over that period of time. my only attempted excuse is that the problems facing the young today (including myself and certainly seniors of mine as well) simply cannot be put into eloquent words as a way of correcting them. instead, these frustrations are expressed as inflictions of pain and provocations to mutual anger. i have learned to go forth with my own life in this morbid and wretched social climate and physical environment of mine by rejecting the world and what perpetuates it wholesale, and retreating into my own self. perhaps that is what others are doing, however maybe unconsciously, and maybe for a long time. i myself did try a dance with this world for a long time, but it brought on misery and confusion; you cannot dance with a corpse, even though it may be possessed, animated, and thinking itself vigorous. at bottom, i really have no genuine hope for my society, and in some ways everyone i know, and i look forward to my earthly death.

my attempt to speak English with r___ was a regression back into hope. it was foolhardy, and the only closure to our non-relationship was to speak as if i cared. and i did care -- erroneously. caring about the sins of others has always been an error however noble, because their pride is so immeasurable. no matter how subtextually you suggest that they may not be as alive as they self-deceitfully tell themselves that they are, the savage devil inside of them rings the alarm to deafen them and blind them so that they may not perceive the truth. but that is their fault ultimately, and the devil's. i wish them well, but if they ever enter Paradise, i have no doubt i will no longer recognize them, because every way that i do recognize them in this life is distorted. sadly, perhaps this applies just as much to my own self-concept.

but if one denies me honesty, they do not help erase that vile obfuscation. please do not defend disingenuous politeness in my company, ___. it is not something to be defended -- it is analogous to telling a man that life thrives at zero Kelvin.

anyway, please speak for yourself in the future, and do not use my relations as proxies for your condemnations of my roughness. i'd much rather you get your anger about our own past off of your own chest, and you do not need to worry about hurting me if you do so. it is worth a reconciliatory discussion. we'll never have total closure, though, but those very ways and degrees in which we cannot we must both accept. i respect you and i love you, but i will follow no man into the dark of false values and no man should follow me in the like. that is the pain, because the world stinks. go on and say what you like; seriously and soberly.

neil