Astrolabe (From Vixen's Den)

This is a mirror of poetry I have at another domain:

Astrolabe

(in voices)


Disclaimer: This was written under the influence of a huge amount of caffeine. When I wrote it, I could actually hear separate voices in my head. It's better when read out loud. The title has an interesting story-in a way. You may have heard of Peter Abelard and Heloise. If not, here's the briefest of synopses: Peter Abelard was a French philosopher and theologian who was about to take holy orders when he fell in love with a young woman he was tutoring-Heloise. She gave birth to his son, and they were secretly married. This made her family go ballistic, and they had him emasculated, and both of them ended up in holy orders. They were kept separated for the rest of their lives, but kept in touch through wonderfully romantic correspondence and were actually buried side by side, eventually. Their son was named Astrolabe. Although I'm blown away by the story-which I find romantic, and am impressed with the philosophy of Abelard, who held that universals have no existence outside of the mind and that truth should be arrived at by weighing all sides of an argument (way ahead of his time, that guy)-the truth is, I'm simply taken with the name, Astrolabe. They named their son after an instrument used in astronomy. Historically speaking, all the big to-do about astronomy-you know, with Copernicus and Galileo-didn't happen until about four hundred years later. So these people were-I don't know. I get carried away. Anyhow-Astrolabe-the son, I mean, you don't really hear about what happens with him. If I were Browning, this would be a dramatic monologue. I'm totally not Browning. This is a thing with a bunch of different points of view. And it doesn't really have anything to do with Abelard and Heloise. But here's something to keep in mind-


Peter Abelard was influenced by Scotus Erigena, who said that all things that were, were stars. This is about holes. Everything is a matter of perspective, huh?


*****


I see nothing but holes out there.

Millions of little, sucking pits

Ready to eat. You. Up.

All those holes, those floating holes.



Some eyes read

Like a map of a minefield

And you've got to pick your way

Around them-if you read them right.

You look into the pupils of their eyes-

You see holes.

Shiny black holes.



See her?

She knows what she's giving in to.

Throwing dirt into a bottomless pit,

She is,

Or maybe she's throwing kerosene

On a volcano.

Little girl's just stomping her feet in an earthquake.

It doesn't fill her up.

Likely nothing could.

She's got a heart like a skeleton on a diet,

That one.

Nothing to it, but sure is hungry.



Not a lot of difference

Between a matchmaker

And a vacuum cleaner salesman,

Is there?

A lot of people

Would suck you clean.



What's it about?

You dive in.

You think you got it.

You know it's there.

You want it-it's so close.

Nada, zip, bubcus.

You keep coming up with nothing,

But you keep on diving.

That's what it's about.



"I know I'm not thinking straight.

I'm hungry.

I never think straight

When I'm hungry,"

She said,

And I knew what she meant,

Because I get that way

When I'm hungry.



Gonna tell you a story about a monster,

It's big and scary and it swallowed the world,

But its mouth is so huge,

Its throat so wide,

Its stomach so massive,

We pass right through

And don't even notice we've been swallowed.

Something stinks around here.

Guess where we are.



You know me, right?

I wouldn't shit you, right?

The other day I was reaching back,

Feeling around,

Cause something wasn't quite right-

And I swear to god,

There was a hole.



Did she love me?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I buried myself in her hair.

It smelled like-

Hairspray.

I don't know.

I still don't know.



Someone blew

A puff of smoke

Into the Great Void.

It curled around,

Forming a helix

A double helix,

A triple axle,

And a banana split.



Then, the vision dwindled away as the fever abated. The fugue-half-seen-vanishing from my reality-closing eyes, and half-felt-seeping from muscle and bone, is over, and the God is like someone I know and love.



"Ah, chaos," he said, lovingly,

"Chaos, chaos, chaos.

Or firmament, if you will.

If only I could borrow a cup."



I didn't believe in anything

Until I found the hole.

It was bad, you know,

Like when Scrooge sees his grave?

Yeah, when I found the hole,

I prayed.

It was like the hole was sent there

Just to wise me up.



She was supposed to be under anesthesia,

But there was scraping, and scraping

And then there was a tiny (suck)

And she knew that was it.

All gone.



"You're mean," she told him.

"Darlin'" he answered,

"Mean's just another word for average.

I can live with that."

He added,

"But I ain't sooo mean."



All those holes, those floating holes.

All those flashing 'Vacancy" lights.

All those vessels made of clay-

(they made the vessels until the clay ran out,

you know,

and didn't have anything left to fill them with)

all those little pits,

those dying stars.



How can we tell what is a creation and what is merely the detritus broken away from some decaying mass? How can we tell art from the symptoms of some mental disease? What is a poem and what is a beershit? What is all this separation? If a flower could fart, would it smell?

If I could write poetry-

Oh, if I could write poetry!



There is something abnormal,

Eerie,

Strange,

About a hole in the ground

That has corners.

It begs to be filled.



It consumes much of his time.

He doesn't even have to do it.

But he wants to do it.

He goes out in the street for somebody-

Anybody! A nice girl, a slut, a young boy.

Anyone he can do it to.

Maybe he does have to.

Look.

Life is short.

You know it, I know it, and he knows it.

Life is short.

Nice girls, sluts, and young boys know it.

If the world doesn't

(smack)

come to an end?

Hah?

There are worse hobbies!



It's the voice.

Some voices will convince you-

Some-not in a million years.

It's in the voice.

Some voices offer you the world-

Some-just noise, just air.

But, yeah,

It's in the voice.



Nobody loves you like I do.

Nobody could love you like I do.

Even you

Couldn't love you like I do.

Why can't you just see that?



I feel dizzy because I'm looking down the edge of the whole frigging world.

I'm looking down into the abyss and it's crowded.

(C'mon, jump! Jump! You won't be sorry, and you won't be alone!)



Is Hell really other people?

Or is it just being alone?

Or is it just being?

Maybe Hell is being other people.



I'm digging, all right.

I'm digging a big, fat hole

All the way to China.

I'm digging and I'm sinking.

You wanna know why I'm digging?

You wanna know why I'm sinking?

You wanna know why I'm going

All the way to China?

One billion Red Chinese can't be wrong,

That's why!



I lost my mind in a poker bid but that's okay because I took the other sumbitch for everything he had yeah right.



The puff of smoke

In the Great Void

Still dances.

It dances for the joy if life.

It dances for the finality of death.

It dances for a wedding,

For a tango-

Ole!



I'm checking the hole every day, now.

I want to know if it's getting bigger, or if,

You know, something's coming out of it-

Stuff like that.

I can't help but go peering into the hole.

I poke at it with a curious fingertip.

I finger the dead lip around it.

You see, it's part of me,

So I just gotta know all about it.

There's something wrong with having a hole.

I know-but it's my hole.

I can't help it if the hole is there.

Ignoring it won't make it go away.

But most of the time, I put a bandage over it.



Don't believe in it?

Honey, it's just the most natural

Thing there is.

Baby, do bears in the woods

Get married?

Or birds?

Or water buffaloes?

(Do amoebas need divorces to split?)



"Life is short," he reasoned. "Life is short and nasty and brutal. It is chaotic and changeable. There is no permanence. While we live, there is some order: some men have power-others have nothing. Life is short and nasty and brutal. If there is any order at all, I must seize that order."

And so began shooting.



All those tiny pits,

Those many many, tiny pits,

Add up to a grand

Artistic hole.



I remember when the rain made rainbows

Right in the middle of the street.

A prettier thing you'd never see.

I found out later it happened because of pollution.

It's the same thing with why pigeons are so shiny-

Dirt. But it didn't make it any less pretty.



There is nothing burning

In the Great Void.

Please ignore the smoke.

No, it is not always fire

Where there is smoke.

It was just a puff.



You dive

For the tenth,

The twentieth,

For the thirtieth time,

Still loking for it.

You dive,

And under the water,

You can hear nothing.

If you stay under,

You can listen to nothing.

It's like a roar.

That roar isn't the nothing.

That is the blood in your ears.

When you listen beyond that,

There you have it.

Nada, zip, bubcus.

No answer,

No question,

Nothing.



Once you understand evil, goodness is possible, because evil is impossible to understand.



There she goes again,

Trying to make a mountain out of a molehill

With shit and a shovel.

There's differences enough in the world

Already

Without her trying to make any.

Does she see that?

Not her. Sick as a pit bull trying to

Suck up his own sick.

That one thinks she's getting a belly full,

Thinks she's cleaning up her messes.

Just makes herself sicker, she does.



The meaning of Life?

Don't you people have

Dictionaries?



I'm not seeing things from a mountain peak.

I'm no higher, literally or figuratively, than other people,

But I'm looking down because I'm at the edge of a pit.

Same difference.

It's a long look down and all ugly.



Anyone with any sense wouldn't go

Poking around no holes

Like a fool.



But when?

But then?

Now?

And how!



Still a puff of smoke

In the Great Void

Like a magician

Vanished, but

We came too late to see the show,

You know?



Let the circle be unbroken and the hole never be filled.

Amen.