When there are so many we shall have to mourn,
when grief has been made so public, and exposed
to the critique of a whole epoch
the frailty of our conscience and anguish,

of whom shall we speak? For every day they die
among us, those who were doing us some good,
who knew it was never enough but
hoped to improve a little by living.

Such was this doctor: still at eighty he wished
to think of our life from whose unruliness
so many plausible young futures
with threats or flattery ask obedience,

but his wish was denied him: he closed his eyes
upon that last picture, common to us all,
of problems like relatives gathered
puzzled and jealous about our dying.

For about him till the very end were still
those he had studied, the fauna of the night,
and shades that still waited to enter
the bright circle of his recognition

turned elsewhere with their disappointment as he
was taken away from his life interest
to go back to the earth in London,
an important Jew who died in exile.

Only Hate was happy, hoping to augment
his practice now, and his dingy clientele
who think they can be cured by killing
and covering the garden with ashes.

They are still alive, but in a world he changed
simply by looking back with no false regrets;
all he did was to remember
like the old and be honest like children.

He wasn't clever at all: he merely told
the unhappy Present to recite the Past
like a poetry lesson till sooner
or later it faltered at the line where

long ago the accusations had begun,
and suddenly knew by whom it had been judged,
how rich life had been and how silly,
and was life-forgiven and more humble,

able to approach the Future as a friend
without a wardrobe of excuses, without
a set mask of rectitude or an
embarrassing over-familiar gesture.

No wonder the ancient cultures of conceit
in his technique of unsettlement foresaw
the fall of princes, the collapse of
their lucrative patterns of frustration:

if he succeeded, why, the Generalised Life
would become impossible, the monolith
of State be broken and prevented
the co-operation of avengers.

Of course they called on God, but he went his way
down among the lost people like Dante, down
to the stinking fosse where the injured
lead the ugly life of the rejected,

and showed us what evil is, not, as we thought,
deeds that must be punished, but our lack of faith,
our dishonest mood of denial,
the concupiscence of the oppressor.

If some traces of the autocratic pose,
the paternal strictness he distrusted, still
clung to his utterance and features,
it was a protective coloration

for one who'd lived among enemies so long:
if often he was wrong and, at times, absurd,
to us he is no more a person
now but a whole climate of opinion

under whom we conduct our different lives:
Like weather he can only hinder or help,
the proud can still be proud but find it
a little harder, the tyrant tries to

make do with him but doesn't care for him much:
he quietly surrounds all our habits of growth
and extends, till the tired in even
the remotest miserable duchy

have felt the change in their bones and are cheered
till the child, unlucky in his little State,
some hearth where freedom is excluded,
a hive whose honey is fear and worry,

feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape,
while, as they lie in the grass of our neglect,
so many long-forgotten objects
revealed by his undiscouraged shining

are returned to us and made precious again;
games we had thought we must drop as we grew up,
little noises we dared not laugh at,
faces we made when no one was looking.

But he wishes us more than this. To be free
is often to be lonely. He would unite
the unequal moieties fractured
by our own well-meaning sense of justice,

would restore to the larger the wit and will
the smaller possesses but can only use
for arid disputes, would give back to
the son the mother's richness of feeling:

but he would have us remember most of all
to be enthusiastic over the night,
not only for the sense of wonder
it alone has to offer, but also

because it needs our love. With large sad eyes
its delectable creatures look up and beg
us dumbly to ask them to follow:
they are exiles who long for the future

that lives in our power, they too would rejoice
if allowed to serve enlightenment like him,
even to bear our cry of 'Judas',
as he did and all must bear who serve it.

One rational voice is dumb. Over his grave
the household of Impulse mourns one dearly loved:
sad is Eros, builder of cities,
and weeping anarchic Aphrodite.

Her breast of broaden chest
uncovered slight
by a sheet pulled across in the night
tangled by twitching feet
a mixture of movements
unsure toes singing
songs of unsettlement.

And her brow
furrowed as her teeth set
and clench
What does her throat yearn to garble?
instead of yarble
as her wrists slither along
like Cleopatra's snakes
that whisper trails of burnt red
and blotched white.

Bedded portrayals of lovely betrayals.

Because the guilt is clawing up
transpiring from the floor
like a mutant through a wall
weaving through taught bed springs
as a mouse after cheese
bursting from the indented mattress
like a monster in a horror movie
to grasp her
and pull her
until her screams ring out sharp
and scissor through paper dreams
before the weight crushes her.

Decapitated
as the Red Queen did to cards,
It was only a game
and always,
as silly games do,
someone had to lose.

And she
unfortunately
Won.

The man gazed at the weathered sheet of paper held listlessly between finger and thumb, its edges slightly ripped and not a little yellowed. The list was printed in varying shades of ink, the older entries significantly faded. The words were his life transcribed: a list of all he had accomplished. The list included both trivial and monumental achievements and covered the page from back to front.
His expression was not one of pride or satisfaction, however. It was instead one of deep unsettlement, despair. No joy was to be had from his successes; no reprieve from the sense of ubiquitous uselessness was found in the work he finished.
The feeling was dampened when active, but at night with only his list as company the weight of his utter lack of meaning tore his lungs from their cage and his heart from its socket.
He took a lighter from his pocket and resolutely held the flame to the parchment. The flame, however, merely curled round the edges and left the frayed paper unharmed; his life was so lackluster as to be absolutely inflammable, untouchable by any strong desire or emotion.
The apathy clogged his throat but forced him to breathe.
He sat down heavily and tried to remember how to cry.

It was strange when it started. I thought I might be sick. I wasn't sure, though. I assumed that I either was, indeed, going to become dreadfully sick, or that with a clip of time, I would be fine and I wouldn't get sick at all--I wouldn't even remember ever feeling like getting sick, because I would be fine.

It's strange how when one is well, she feels so strong and forgets the feeling of being ill and assumes that it must have been a small thing last time she was truly ill; that she could easily handle it again. But then, with the smallest twinge of intestinal unsettlement, she remembers in full and would almost rather die than be ill again. Sometimes it's good to forget.
Bump!
"Hold it together, you're almost there", I told myself. "It's ok."
Sometimes it's good to lie to yourself. You become your own child, and tell yourself to cover your eyes and all the bad things won't be able to hurt you--the monsters won't be able to see you, because you can't see them.
Children are much better than us.

Bump...ba-bump!
Yuck. I needed something now. But, just as I was fully prepared to *****, it was fading...as quickly as it came. Yes, it was gone now, and nothing was going to keep me from feeling positively elated (except, perhaps, the descent, but forget that for now).
It was surely a wonder to sit on a seat, which was mounted in this small cabin, which was surrounded on all sided by absolutely nothing, and supported from below by the same--save some vague equations of space that permitted its reality.
"If this is a reality, I'd rather not dream. My dreaming could get quite out of hand after this."
Goodbye, city! Goodbye mountain faces, with the sharp jawline of a movie star! So long! What is that, now? I can't make it out. Never mind. Dust. Particles of dusty sky sweeping up around us into clouds. Cough. Cough. Like it hasn't been swept in years. Loomy fogs of two or three varying thicknesses. And then the light.

A light so strong it seemed like death, for sure. The look of all that light made me cringe. I thought I might melt like the wicked witch on The Wizard of Oz--the wicked witch I was. Ha-ha. The once dusty, sky was now a majestic and glowy quilt. It looked pearlized--like if you landed on it, you would just slide smoothly up and down the billowy bumps and around the polished curves. We could be over an ocean, for all I knew. Why was I so lazy to not investigate this before the trip? It would have been fantastic to know I was over some great sea, deep with crawlies and creepies with fins and tails and gills and hangies. Swishies and swooshies, faster than land types, that only could run or climb.

Yikes forget that. It would have been better to know that I was not over the ocean. Now, due to my uninformedness, I was merely left to ponder the terror of falling into the sea, in the event of a crash. These cushions on the seat before us, or so the little booklet told, could be used as flotation devices. I wondered how close we would have to be before we could jump out. I imagined exiting the aircraft into all this light, down, down, falling through the pearlized quilt, through the dusty billows, looking down at a vast sea a mile below, holding onto my cushion from the seat that had been in front of me, bracing myself. The sea would look uniform on the surface, but through the surface, one could make out divisions. Separate depths, maybe, or different mixtures of water. Shades of blue, blue-green, and green as the layers beneath the initial surface.

Back to reality. It was getting dark out. Night. Wait--no. No way. It couldn't possibly be night already. I talked to myself again, "are we supposed to travel into another time zone, or something? But it should be still morning and we've only been in flight about an hour..."
Were there storms above the clouds? I don't know. This...darkness...hmm..

But then I saw it. A shooting star. I only saw it for a flash of a millisecond--not only because it was travelling with such hideous speed and momentum, but also because in that instant, I was blinded. permanently.  I felt my way toward the cockpit. All the passengers besides me and one other man seemed to be sleeping. I stumbled on, using those reflective upraised strips that mark the hallway to guide my feet. I couldn't see a thing. This blindness prevented me from really accomplishing anything in this circumstance, but I had to get to the captain.

"Captain! Captain! Are you awake? What's going on? Where are we?"
It is now that I notice that the captain had been dead in the cockpit for some time. There was no co-pilot. I double-checked for a pulse. Nope. My assumption is that we had managed to fly into space, with nothing above or below. I felt for the breast of the captain's coat and shook him violently. Then, I began to weep.

becoming the subject of a muse,
merely an object as the muse.
i see the discomfort that comes from
having your story told for you,
displayed without your consent.

i am the director of my own life.
i wrote you out of my script,
so leave your idealized version of me
out of yours.

the unsettlement i feel
to be spoken of so highly,
with a glaze of gold outlying my skin,
stuck to a pedestal.

i am not your trophy,
i will never be your wife!
your version of me
projected through the eyes of obsession.
infatuation.
did you see me as your possession?

and so here it lies.
here lies the irony of making you a muse,
to preach my uttermost desire
to be shed as yours.

a crevice carved
deep within
cutting through
the unnecessary
hacking away
at the undesirable
pieces
of things
unneeded
unwanted
but still
there

why?

the scrambled thoughts
i've organized
have urged me
to be rid of
to toss aside
this garbage
that fills my thoughts
fills my mind
consumes my head
with
darkness

an unseen truth
yet a suffocating
existence
of what is real

this unhappiness
this unsettlement
a wavering reality
of
discontentment

and it cannot
or it will not
leave me

and so
i live my life
nodding
smiling
urging those around me
to embrace
to love
to feel utterly fulfilled
in an envelope of plastic
that cannot
be
real

but that which
is a totally acceptable
form of
life.

So
what is this strategy?

Put the beggars and tramps in
unsettlement camps
take the homeless off the streets?

I have yet to see a government plan
that helps any man.

The years go on
the lines get longer
the anger builds

if only anger could build
and replace dreams
unfulfilled.

That shower in power
or rather any shower in power
feather their own nest
that's what they do
and *** the rest.

Owing the day its homage
I writhe just in recollection
of its intensity

I am pulled thin
my eyes flit about
breathing in gasps

The unsettlement
of intense delight
Spread over my daily dread

A persistent sore
stings this side
of my face

As you kiss passed
hesitation
and ham hocks

into surrender
and pistachios
and frozen concoctions

and likenesses
of fantasies fast forwarded
to the good parts

Oh this day
rattles to Dionysus
of its deeds

I am smiling
unsettled
and so satisfied