Of Earth/Heaven; or, 12024 HE
writ o'er many moons // co-written by Nashoba-tek, Israfil, & Ser Templeton Esq. w/ invention from willa beale
Introduction
Sweet Reader,
Reading this will gain you nothing. It is not intended to be digestible. It is the exegesis of an hierophany; it is the hierophany of an exegesis. What began as eight lines fermented for months before bursting. What follows is a work of thought and fervour.
I adored the process of crafting this text. Language is darling to me. When a fair line appears from my senseless cavorting, I am delighted. There arrived many fair lines in our ambling production. Everything else is the marrow: just be thankful.
Reading this will gain you nothing. Unless, if you know Will Edgcomb well—quite well—then you may gain something. Already we have considered annotating or adding commentary to this fretful diatribe. It is a banquet for the starving enfeebled mind.
Much is to be said for the depth of personal references herein. They should cause no alarm. Consider them as drifting notions in the ether of memory. They reflect the whole and nothing more. We are working through some things.
Reading this will gain you nothing. Despite these opening words, reserve expectation for the space before and after what follows. We cannot hold your hands. Nonetheless, we hope you enjoy this tender missive.
Thank you for reading.
To Whoever’s there at the end of the road.
I
Sometimes, I wonder: What are they made of, some people? Of Earth? I have met certain folk: Delirious clay, masochistic grass. But, of Heaven, also? Haven't I met some wayward angels here? All comprised of love and light; manic and charged by the Host? Oh, to Hell with the symbolism. You know what I mean: the matter! The Matter! What is it made from? Is it just filth and beauty or is there something divine about our makeup? Is there a bit of a decent fellow in us all? Or, as Erik said, is it nothing but an evil fated to become good or worse by crook? I don't know, Sweet Reader, I don't. I'm a bit of a wayward apostate. I don't know much about anything beyond that I am the wisest and most powerful. And when others tell me that is awful, I say, "Exactly so, my good sapiens, right-o!" And then they do not respond to my texts. Sometimes, I wonder, though: With what are their minds stuffed? Is it a bit of light or is it a bit of snuff? I recall when my father took me for a walk some four years passed now and said I seemed to him a man out of time, neither ahead nor behind but quite removed from the present way: Suffering about useless customs, seeking the next kernel of thoughtlessness to warp into a useful bit of data for the hoard. With what, then, is my head stuffed? I am not of Heaven, but of Earth (100%). I prefer the dirt to my ideas, and so I do not believe in ghosts or even the stars because they are not my Earth. They are not my sweet and lovely planet. The only good a miscellany of belief does is to afford one to lie easily to their self and others. That is why the idea of the ego is the trap. But only sages, painters, and poets know this. To try and give it to anyone else is an affront. Because so easy it would be to tell you: If you want to be enlightened, then be enlightened, but you would never understand that because Zen cannot be taught but through contradiction and humans are not good at contradiction: Their rational skills are too weak and their pride and identity are too great and their soft skin is too hardened by God and their smooth brains are too furrowed by the unique suffering capitalism has brought their survival instincts. Truly, isn't it only this year (12024 HE) that I have recognized in myself the man who could have helped the man I was last year or the year before? Wasn't it only this year (12024 HE) that I confronted the grey image of hanging from the rafters of the greenhouse? Wasn't it only this year (12024 of the Human Error) that I have dismantled all that I am and become far more than the sum of my perceptions? Isn't the lesson of a contradiction the arrogance of a well-studied cleric informing you the path to yourself is right back along the thoughts you've been navigating all this time? There is only so much patience in me for an ape that cannot even suspend their dogma for a moment to consider that I am always right. I am always right. And this was finally the year (12024 HE) that I finally, bitterly, accepted that. So, how could I ever expect an ape to get it? Sometimes, I wonder: What are they made of, some apes? Of Earth, yes, irrefutably: There is no God. We are delirious clay, all, masochistic and crass. But of Heaven, also, I know there is something in the way the seeds of the wildflowers sleep in winter that suggests there is something other than Earth, some Way that courses through this wide reality and never touches a thing: It cannot be known. Surely, some are made of this constant ephemera: All comprised of patience and right-action. I know I wish to be among them but none there are to take as a friend (and I refute all masters). It is no matter; I am content to lie low where low things lie. I will wait and hold space for these apes (I am the apes). I will end this poem for a moment, and consider sleep. I will consider all these useless people a bit more.
II
There, now that I have considered you a bit more, I have surmised that the dead crow I found walking in the woods yesterday was the greatest example of your folly ever nature could have proffered for us: There was no witness to the demise of this poor thing, and no inquest shall be opened for their murder. So, why do you care so much about Earth and Heaven? Now a cat is quite fattened and the crow's bones heavy with dew. This is how I see the apes of this Earth with their war of ideas. Listen: there is nothing. There never will be. There never was. And, I know. I know. You do not like that idea. It imperils your poor sense of identity and your petty mortality. What makes me better than the other sages? I am not a sage, and I do not fear shadows; I am a commoner, and I am accountable. Listen: there is nothing. Do not take me serious at all. Instead, follow your thoughts back to before Earth ever had a drop of water on her tongue. There, you will see, we are equals, unlearned and lovely. Too far we have come: You are among us now. Sit and stay awhile, even if you hate the poetry. I have made you cucumber sandwiches (but they can be jam or ham or whatever you like) and there is a hearty flame in the hearth (can you feel the warmth, scent the wood?) and my companions are all engaging you in the most delightful conversation you have ever had with other mammals. Too far we have come: therefore, come and sit amongst us. It's okay. You're quite okay and safe to sit amongst us: Have a sandwich. I will not let Nashoba-tek lick your ear lovingly if it makes you so uncomfortable to be loved. I will not let Israfil stare at you with the sadness of a thousand quiet genocides if it makes you restless to confront your failures. I will not let Templeton bully you into confusion if it compels you to trust the four of us a bit better. How is the sandwich? I am not fond, either, no. I am sorry if I have made you uncomfortable with my mention of the greenhouse or the crow. I am not trying to make a point, only refining. This is a living process, all of this, and you ought to know that by now if you haven't: No one expects anything from you and anyone who does is worthless to you right now. I think one of the most important things (and of course there are no important things) is the preservation of autonomy and the leniency to let others make their own mistakes (which is why I get a bit flustered when others take my opinion so serious they are cut by their own perception of my perceptions—so silly!). I think there is no truth but this: Hello! I love you.
III
Now, I know what you may think (aside from the hypocrisy and the resentment): My, but he/she/it/they are long-winded and this poem seems an awful struggle to get to a simple and effortless thing. And you'd be absolutely correct. I do not write long poems: my domain is light verse and prose of poor quality. The only reason we are still here is because sometimes, I wonder: What am I made of? I am not any of those things you consider. I am not the faults Elijah heralded, nor the dishonesty Danielle witnessed in us, nor the disabled intellect Will worries for, nor the insecurity Céilí's actions had bestowed. I am a secret ten-thousandth thing. I am in love with every enemy I've never had. I am in love with my own vilification because what other unreasonable thing can I be? Angry? Please, that's no way to process an injury. Distance is not a helpful thing. I am healing. The most important thing in writing, perhaps, is clarity, which is why these past stanzas have made an effort to be quite considerate in language and relatability: I am your friend. I am not concise in thought, though, no: I am a slow chess player. Nature does not hurry, either. Trust me, if I could simply say to you: this or that, and such be all I needed to say then I would say it, but so many sages have tried the same and look what happens when they try to tell you how it is: They hang you up, torture you, make you their God, and then, worst of all, they go ahead and misunderstand you. So, no, I will take as long as it takes. Will you? I should say this or that, but I won't because then you'd misunderstand, and then we'd truly have wasted our time here, no? We'd be screaming at each other like the stars: Ever ignorant of how dead we already are. No, I know what you may think: What are they made of, some people? That they go on like this, treading ever the same worried ground and never repenting for the indiscretion of their sacred delusions, their constant ephemera? When others have asked me: What is the meaning? And I have upheld my empty palm, pointing there, and they have then huffed and ceased their interest, haven't I fretted the small crisis of their ignorance, too? I do not condone cynicism, but I understand it. The cynic is an interpreter of contradiction, quite useless, but invaluable, and annoying. Better it is to be one who speaks above singing than to be a singer who cannot speak anything. It's 12024 HE, for Christ's sake. Let's let go a bit.
IV
To let go of a thing is easier done than said. Considering Derek, I do not consider the life unlived, but in discussion often discuss his intelligence. To let go of a thing is not a sin. I don't think the right to be forgotten is noble and I don't think rituals are useful or good. Therefore, let us give up our masks, let us give up our hope and surrender to nature: She will come for us regardless—I know it. Really, let go, darling. Let go. To let go of a thing is far easier done than said. I am exhausted, and I know you are, too. Somewhere, perhaps yesterday, we are safe. If you feel the warm touch of me in your eyes, know that I will always love you no less than always. I feel you in every movement of the Earth, from the first fires that consumed us to the first rainfalls that drowned us; from the birth of our great kingdom to the oblivion I know we will one day face. That is my Heaven, heathen, and I love you. My love is a meadow. Meet me with a kiss. O, that I could know for even a moment each and every human on this lowly plane. There is no confidence like ignorance. I am another kind entirely because I hate that I am always right. I hate that I am cursed with these things: To be correct, always; To love unconditionally, like Ha-Notsri; and To be ever aware for what I don't know I don't know. The truth has a habit of making love to me. There is no confidence like ignorance. I hope I can remove one of your eyes. I hope I can catch a salmon with you. I hope you find a better way to know yourself. What matters of Earth? Nothing matters in Heaven. If my feet had roots, then would I only walk barefoot? If my head was a flower, would I think myself pretty? Nothing there is that doesn't love to suffer. The trick is to sip the vinegar, tasting honey. Do you even understand how profound I am not? I have been on a pilgrimage to you. I have arrived. Where are you? Why were you not waiting for me? Don't you long to hear of the journey I had crawling this barren Earth to deliver you back to you?
V
At last, our guilt becomes our chain. There are no gods and no masters and there is no good or evil and no hope. This is an irrevocable fact—your quaint mind cannot attest to the veracity I proffer. It isn't that you're stupid, no. Quite the opposite. I see in your eyes the same fear that sent me. I see in your love the same vile certainty that kills and kills, seeking truth and purity. It does not bring me a relief to tell you that you are no better than the lowest cur. It is not an acceptable thing to accept, is it? It is not kind or wise that I speak to you this way. It is only necessary, and I can do nothing for it. Let go of what I have said here, then return, perhaps in two decades or a bit less and see what notes we may compare. I am always right. Know this: Forget it all and I will haunt you still. Sometimes, I wonder about other ways. But there are none. I must accept this. There is no other way. What is unexamined is not worth consideration, and upon examination is not worth considering. I strongly believe this to be true and I am always right: That is why I examine and consider everything, then let it go. I am no Master, and I am no Sage. Others will claim I am wrong: they claim already that I am a renaissance; they claim I am something quite other: distinct, intense. But I am—what am I?—I am always right. I must trust that others may always be right also. There! You felt something, didn't you? My hand slipped and you had a small reaction. Now, listen. Stop reading— That is the whole of the Earth singing for you.
VI
The year is 12024 of the Human Era. It is ten-thousand things since we started communion. I know it matters because when I have been gardening with my sister or my mother or my brothers or with Céilí or Will or Danielle or Derek or Logan or Elijah I have never felt closer to the universe than when I have covered over a miniscule crumb with earth not with hope or expectation but with trust that someday soon a blossom would enlighten me. When I am hungry, I garden. And it took me a long, long time to make such a communion. There is no Heaven: Heaven is the passing time during which the seed becomes another seed. What of Earth, then? None are made of it, as none are made of Heaven. There is nothing: Understand? There is far more dreamt than ever was or will be. That is not a tragedy, but it is not worth celebration. I celebrate the seed: I prefer the dirt to my ideas. I celebrate the dead crow and the fattened cat, but not the idea that the fattened cat is good or moral. I celebrate the greenhouse rafters, and my guilt. I celebrate all the untrue things ever thought of me. I celebrate all the matter of this useless planet. When, in 12021 HE, around two months ago, and three years prior, my entire world was destroyed, I did not this year inform Céilí on the anniversary that it was three years since the apocalypse despite weeping in their arms the week prior, finally, because I did not even recognize the day as it passed me by. That day followed an emotional and confusing afternoon with my best friend, and so I did not even know that I should have noticed the calendar and my suffering: I did not know that I ought to feel some type of way. I did not know that, on that day in 12021 HE, I would be uncomforted by everything that had ever brought security to my life. I did not know that my community would turn against me or that my silence would be weaponized against me or that my ideas would be weaponized against me or that my matter would be weaponized against me. I did not know that I would be a victim of my own armoury: classic hubris. I did not know that it would take so many boulders to rebuild the mountain I so love to climb, from whose glittering craggy peaks I can see all of creation, Earth and Heaven alike: They are the same from up there. I had forgotten how it felt to be a tree until this summer when I was a tree again, suddenly. And all I ever learned is that I am always right. This planet is filled with ideologues whose temperate dreams nauseate and dispel all the good times we could otherwise be having. A Marxist will never recognize their idealism. A liberal will never concede to loving truly. A conservative will ever be confident, ignorant. I can never be any of these. I am not a martyr, not like that: Whoring myself to a notion. If I die in service of a slogan, I deserve oblivion. If I am unlearned on an Earth that gives me all the knowledge of everything ever then I deserve to be stupid, and to be left behind. That is the most compassionate thing I can be. It is also why I will never be unable to forgive you and why I don't covet the past but wear it fondly. I am not afraid of the people I will never be. I am not afraid of the man I was who failed me. All are my ally. There is not a villain among them who is not recognized and valued on my Earth.
VII
Now, where are we? And what are we come to? I am not fair enough or good to pass a judgement on myself, let alone others. I am hardly more than a freak, a man out of time, a cheater boyfriend, a lover, the poet, the Professor, the writer, the mistake, not-he, not-her, not-them a good man, a brother, eldest-son: Him. Who am I to pass an opinion on You? I'm just a genderless animal with funny visions living in a world dominated by the funny visions of genderless animals. I am a fly caught in a web of rampant idealism, all resentment and funny visions. There is not much left. When I came down from the hills, I felt better about things happening. I felt better about the future, when I came down from the hills. But now I do not feel better at all. I feel like I am fighting a Great Foe. I feel like I am killing something. I feel like I am fighting viciously against myself and I have felt this way since I was young in California and I had that horrid dream about being stabbed in the stomach with a broad sword: I felt the steel enter me—and ever since then I have had a seed in me that has brought such vile violent images into the orbit of my impulse: I am a fury in battle against all the other people here: All the other people inside me: We battle. Blood, bone, flesh, teeth: it all goes. I have slaughtered and been slaughtered and all the time worried if I was a bit mad: To take the anger out on my mental avatars. But this year I do not think I am mad for doing this; for, I am winning more often than absolutely beating the ever-loving fucking shit out of me. How can a madman be winning? I am always right. That famous curse: Adonai so loved the world, he sent his only son, that whoever believed in Him, would receive everlasting judgement in Heaven. Is that noble? Or is that a bit of a racket? I digress. Here, have some more sandwiches: yes, we're still here, also, eating sandwiches and discussing violent ideation and that old symbolism: I am always something more than what I am not.
VIII
What cannot be made unclean: a patch of moss in the middle of a pine grove, shaded over by the great green bristle-brush wood, damp and ordinary, musty on the loam and soft under-toe and under twisting forms when the summer eve approaches and the heat of day dissipates amidst the babbling flora gossiping in the steady and polite northern wind soughing along the rollicking furrows of the hills, their fields effulgent in the lowered light of the constant engine battering last against the land before going elsewhere. I am not unclean: Only dismembered by the grey starlight. Always there is something where I can never be. I am always something more than what I am not unless I am somewhere I must be something where I am.
IX
Closure is a fantasy. Nothing remains. In the constant ephemera of tomorrow, I have no hope: My hope is a butterfly. What does it mean: my hope is a butterfly? It lives a day, maybe more—then perishes. Hope is not a thing for heaven or earth alone. I cannot recall the last time I was unbothered. Always there is something on the periphery. It is snowing in my hope: The dead are covered over. Have you enjoyed the warmth of my presence? Have you been concerned that perhaps you are not safe with us, eating sandwiches and dreaming? Let us retire to the library: There we may recline among the volumes and speak of better things.
X
You are here: My palace, my temple; see: The many orbiting globes and fantastic treasures I have surrounded us. They are the trappings of my many lives, and those blistering volumes are the many scores of manic visions I have proffered on this plane. I am lonely here; yes, human: I am lonely. But I love You so, and I am grateful you have come so far with me into the heart of my heaven, dis- tended from Earth and grieving the passage of the cosmos from all our considerations. Come, practice autonomy and do whatever you'd like: Break something of me—take that moon and destroy it. Take the glassworks of my solitude and annihilate the friendly, unending silence. Yes, human, make love to a destruction: That is the way of your kin, and I shall rebuild. The utter-thing is a joy forever: Its wisdom is nonexistent; it will never pass into nothingness; but still will keep a light on in the darkness, and a wakefulness of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. I am nothing more than what I was tomorrow and tomorrow. I am not important at all. Turn away, then, and do not regard me as a serious thing. Do not be dispelled by my cooperation: Do not distinguish yourself by my opinion or judgement: Do not call me when you are angry unless you want to kill me (I accept murder on the terms that I cannot be killed, only forsaken.). Expect that it will not happen the way you want. I am not a dog: I am an angel. You are not a sacred thing; you are just scared and tired— please!—sleep here: I have a nest of moss, warm earth and shallow sea water. I will keep you safe like a thing of the Earth is kept safe by the Sun in all His Dominion. What are you looking at? Oh—the small globe far on that upper shelf: O, tiny foam planet resting amidst the dust and shadow and that was given me by an entity of the Psalms, those distant spaces beyond thought or reason: What mystery is left unconsidered in you? Pay no heed to that small trinket: We are another life. Pay no heed to the whorling colours of the ephemera. Pay no heed even to me and my words: All this nonsense. When you have returned from this invocation and wonder at the marvellous memories you cannot recollect, will you ever wander over to where I am not and think of me? I am thinking of you always: I am thinking of honey and the sun. My language is a daydream of whiskey and smoke. Hear me. Imbibe yourself on the languor of my diatribe: Drink deep and breathe heavy the musk of my darling apoplectic mind. This is not a test. This is not a test. You are testing me. Why do you insist on your world? It all belongs to me: I am. This must be the place where you are not: This is why you cannot stay here. You refuse to concede to the possibility that you are utterly alone in your perception of everything. You refuse to give an inch to the acres of my demesne. You refuse to stop, turn around, and look at your beloved. Look: There is your beloved. Go on. Look. They are dead. You refuse to stop, turn around, and face your ignorance. Instead, you plummet recklessly into the danger of certainty. I am always right. Why, then, do you refuse to doubt yourself? I am always right. What else need I become to regain your trust?
XI
You awake in your bed: The covers are hot and if you have a lover then they are there also but you feel different this time: There is no comfort here. You have the lingering awareness of our journey. I am not there; but, you cannot shake the memory. How can you feel safe while I, at any time, may pull out the rug and drive you into my madness again? You recall the library and my many volumes and the remains of all my selves present in the periphery but you cannot make sense of the discussion regarding Earth and Heaven we had over tea and sandwiches. You leave the bed and relieve yourself and return and you may try to distract yourself with your lover or some other spectacle but they brush you off and you cannot shake the feeling of a deep insecurity: I have left you with a teaspoon of my awareness. It a small golden ball you will never find hidden in the places you dare not tread again; it is where I entered and broke your senses: Where I came. One day, you will seek me out again and wonder at me: What are they made of, us and them? Of some we are: Delirious clay; while others: Heaven. What am I, friend? Am I but soil waiting to return? Or am I something that endures beyond material limits? Are we the temporary eternity of atomic pleasure or the constant ephemera of a distended narrative? I hope you will find me again. Then, we may talk of such things, and perhaps you will remember me.
XII
O' Muse, my fair fellow, rehearse my song and sing in kindness; repudiate me and give charm to my verse; glorify the plain and make crud of most cherished things. I am not a poet: Just a wayward prophet, vision-struck. All that came before me anticipated nothing. This age is wet with anguish and dreaming. What mercy I offer is lost in the sea of things. What grace I maintain is a drowsy numbness clutching tender attachments and drowning me. I am but a homeless wanderer: They lost me here, out among the stars and far from the realm of my origin: A deep dark den where a fire burns constant. Will Edgcomb is the best substitute for another thing; always They are where I am not: I am Their custodian. Will is a cosmic grandfather to an animal like me. If I could invoke some merriment in my recollection: Tell of more here than the queer ramble of our fingertips; then, perhaps you would know me better than I do. I could make you laugh again and 12024 HE would become 12025 HE under the auspicious banner of your joy. But you are not laughing. We are desolate. Pall fields grey below indecorous billowing clouds: The fog of tomorrow descends upon us once more. Hope is all that remains to torture humankind. All manner of vagaries ejected from that urn pale compared to the lone fluttering contempt for time. Nothing and nothing; still more of less than before. Late is the hour and all the birds are silent now. Hear them? They dare not rustle a feather now. They are waiting for your laughter: they love you. Won't you laugh, my Sweet Friend? Won't you chortle and holler for the coming turn of the sun? Won't you welcome 12025 HE with a scrap of mirth? Lo! we can hear it shouting from the dense wood: The new year cometh and we cannot answer. What is it made of? Earth? Heaven? Who—what? Only philosophers are stupid enough to break the silence. I am not a philosopher; I am an animal most pleasant. I am the utter-thing, aware of what I am and most proud. If you will not laugh and shatter the suffering of tomorrow, then please sit with me on a frozen knoll and watch: The enfeebled rays of the sun penetrate the icy air between us. It is cold; come closer. I am warm and I am cold and you are warm but cold also. Here: I will ensconce you in a tapestry of all the strange worlds we have visited. Look: There is the sun, there is tomorrow, and 12024 HE is ended. Heaven and Earth do not matter again. Now, we shall welcome all the coming days together.