Hell, it still
seems these days,
is other people.
And it is not a consolation to know that in Hell – IN DARK HELL - there were stars outside.
All of these people become demons.
How easy it's been to
mistake survival for
l i v i n g.
GET ME OUT OF HERE.
All of these demons are in people.
Paradise,
the world,
outside,
has been lost.
We have lost our souls a wee bit too.
And with all that we’ve lost,
what can we even contemplate to regain?
There is no geography anymore.
As there aren’t enough archivists
out there anymore documenting
what’s in the world.
Finisterre,
I have realized,
has been at my door.
All along.
("L'enfer, c'est les autres"
Huis clos,
Jean Paul Sartre)
(Mephistos and Other Poems,
Michael McClure)
I.
I I.
This? This is Hell.
And in here you might choose to bury
your prickly little head
in the garden
under these circumstances,
hedge something
and finally learn
the meaning
of social distancing:
“Neither prick others, nor get pricked.”
Pull together by
standing apart.
The new presentation of our age old solitary ways.
Do you miss the feeling of familiarity
you’d have being surrounded
by your friends and relatives?
Sure. I do as well.
But more than that: I miss feeling like just another face in a crowd of strangers.
There is no outside. There’s only inside.
in
or
out
of the soil,
(Volume II, Chapter XXXI, ‘Section 396’
Parerga und Paralipomena,
Arthur Schopenhauer)
I I I.
Strange new world,
this cursed gehenna.
To be put inside, static,
in order to be protected
from a pirate non-living usurper
who, if given the chance,
would use my machinery
to reproduce its progeny.
As they say,
a human and a virus
are never alone together.
There’s always a third…
Don Mephistopheles from Hell?
They also used to say that G-d created heaven all by themselves,
mutatis mutandis,
Hell was built by the artifice of all dæmons.
All places are under heaven,
but how many places are above Hell?
Only one: Our world, the case.
The case that now became our world.
Is a case a cage?
For some of us, it Hella is.
Where can you find me?
At the genius loci of what’s
in between the edges of
meticulous and fastidious.
Where there’s – still – a crack in everything.
Otherwise known as the place under all places.
Find me there, within and without “the details.”
The Hell I’ve been living in, for so long...
(Don Juan aux enfers, Charles Baudelaire)
Like
realizing
that
this
is not
about
Y O U.
Well, better to survive at home than to die outside!
What an envy I feel, of who I was before all of this...
And better to reign in Hell than to serve in heaven!
At this point of anguish,
I’d even go to Hell
to get Lucifer
on the record
about his plans
to welcome
more dæmons
to his retinue,
before my ashes
turn and languish.
Well, better to survive at home than to die outside!
What an envy I feel, of who I was before all of this...
And better to reign in Hell than to serve in heaven!
At this point of anguish,
I’d even go to Hell
to get Lucifer
on the record
about his plans
to welcome
more dæmons
to his retinue,
before my ashes
turn and languish.
(Paradise Lost, John Milton)
(Night Film, Marisha Pessl)
Juan Francisco González writing from Bogotá, Colombia, May 2021
Nicole Garzón writing from Orlando, Florida, May 2021
Yianni Anastos Prastacos writing from Mendocino, California, May 2021
Mark Mumm writing from Leicester, NY, May 2021
Santiago Flórez writing from Bogotá, Colombia, May 2021
Luis Basurto writing from Washington, D.C., May 2021
Stephanie Decker writing from Chicago, Illinois, May 2021
Shelby McNabb writing from Los Angeles, California, May 2021
Claire Breen writing from Oakland, California, May 2021
IV.
At this point
while sheltering in place
I wonder:
Am I Mephisto?
But this place
I find myself in,
a home,
is not a prison.
Confinement is different
than the respite found in shelter.
Or even the refuge of asylum.
And to see this as a lockdown? Come on, now.
That is now a prevalent meaning of
privilege.
Hell hath no fury like...
Like the Colombian people,
when their rights
are not being respected.
Like
understanding
one must
look within
before
placing a
burden
on this
already
shattered world.
Like being told “No,”
when you’ve ALWAYS
been told “Yes.”
Like the first gasp
after the surgeon's
wrong cut.
Like acknowledging hunger,
as there is no greater emptiness,
or vaster injustice.
This world is plentiful,
with enough to fill every mouth,
when hoarders hoard so much
to keep billions starved.
Like the one that saved the selfish.
And although the zeitgeist
pushes us to only worry about us,
it is crucial to think about
our fellow messmates.
Like the American people,
when their 2nd Amendment
rights are being threatened.
Like those
who couldn’t
take time to mourn.
Like a person who
has just been told
to "calm down."
V.
But then you recall – thanks to a devil beating around the bush – that some angels
can’t afford the privilege of fear.
They have to go drive patients to clinics.
They have to teach and stimulate minds.
They have to deliver our mail and bring us the news.
They have to treat those with diseases and conditions.
They have to produce food and goods and bag groceries.
They have to march on the streets for their dignity and against the existential threats they face.
And here I am, in good health and fortune, complaining,
that never have I been surrounded by so many demons.
My demons,
those fuckers,
charming as Hell.
Walpurgisnacht’s magic doesn’t even compare.
Solomon’s lesser key doesn’t stand a chance.
And here, in this purgatory, known as the office,
and in Hell, known as my home,
I recognize how they are one and the same device.
And seven hundred years old at this point.
At the Gates of Hell
once lived a Thinker,
who after pondering
if anyone would ever come back
stopped the vice of thinking
and just decided to wait.
I’ll still be waiting...
Mark Antokolski, Méphistophéles, after 1883. Marble. Photo: shakko.
V I.
(Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky)
But find me here complaining,
all over the place,
which right now
means no place at all.
At my home office:
The kind of workplace
that doesn’t respect
the boundaries of defining
what is a home.
(De Caelo et Eius Mirabilibus et de inferno, ex Auditis et Visis, Emanuel Swedenborg)
Everyone must have somewhere to go.
Since there are times
when one absolutely
must go somewhere!
These are those times. Because even a jinn needs a place to hide.
But find me here complaining,
all over the place,
which right now
means no place at all.
At my home office:
The kind of workplace
that doesn’t respect
the boundaries of defining
what is a home.
But why does it feel like there’s only two false options?
Hell yes! Heaven’s no?
The seven sins of heaven
or the unseen and unheard wonders of Hell?
To sink or to swim.
An oil lamp or a vase.
Life or
livelihood.
Are you serious?
Premonitions, forecasts,
and all these dichotomic projections,
make me weep.
I gnash my teeth,
go back into my cave,
and it is now that smiles disappear.
But why does it feel like there’s only two false options?
Hell yes! Heaven’s no?
The seven sins of heaven
or the unseen and unheard wonders of Hell?
To sink or to swim.
An oil lamp or a vase.
Life or
livelihood.
Are you serious?
Premonitions, forecasts, and all these dichotomic projections, make me weep.
I gnash my teeth,
go back into my cave,
and it is now that smiles disappear.
V I I I.
Just imagine…
A world without you.
A world without those that are gone now.
What a stark moment in time.
But grief can bring us back our memories with them.
That’s how we will keep them with us.
Are you going to stay?
Is it going to change?
How the Hell have you been?!
Wanna play telephone with me?
After I wash my hands I find the essential sacrifice in its creases.
And recognize Time as a valuable resource. I decide to take a walk outside, and I pass by a few of my favorite landmarks; neon purple flowers sunning themselves, and the man who sits on his porch watching videos on his phone and laughing out loud. That’s when I get a call from an unknown number. I usually don't take calls from these, but it’s probably about a job posting at that newspaper that I applied to last week and I really need some dough right now. I should really answer. I’m gonna answer. I answered. It was the doctor’s office. They told me to stop treading so lightly on the bones, and that their protests are my own projection. I guess percussion doesn't ask for forgiveness. So I heed their advice and take a deep and invigorating breath in, followed by a slow and calming breath out. A moment of peace. There ain’t no rest for the wicked, though. And just like the short life of Cherry Blossoms, that fleeting moment of peace is gone with the wind. I start walking towards the river. Although I was walking with a purpose I couldn’t arrive at my destination; I seem stuck on the same loop, over and over again. Although monoatomic, I ended up finding some tranquility in the repetition of my surroundings. A certain calm in the repetition around me. Until suddenly, there I was, standing barefoot, the cold water running through my toes. My soul had been cleansed from within but I was not fully there. Not yet. My mind kept going back to all the names. It was hard for me to fathom they were only one percent. Imagine all 100,000 names in the paper. Imagine that people are dying all around me, but here I am, fazed and unfazed at the same time. But between all the bold and the black and white, my eyes quickly found him. Sweet Elene’s “baby” brother: Gene Zahas, 78, Oakland, Calif., fierce advocate for educational opportunity.
But there is another kind of grief too.
A melancholia and a longing.
An agony for a world,
now
dead and gone.
The pause to normalcy brings about many things.
Like realizing how you might not pause
as often as you thought, between words,
but do so mostly when you need to take
a breath.
This spatz is about what it is about most of the time:
the oldest dance, the one between life and death.
A sense of dread and a sense of life.
A sense of happiness and a sense of angst.
At the same time.
A world that only exists in our minds now.
EXQUISITE
NOTHINGNESS.
This real fear and unintended risk,
do not compare to the abyss.
A pandemic,
my ass.
Cadavre exquis.
This feels like we all
live in the same
pandæmonium.
Stephanie Decker writing from Chicago, Illinois, May 2020
Shelby McNabb writing from Los Angeles, California, May 2020
Juan Francisco González writing from Bogotá, Colombia, May 2020
Mark Mumm from writing Washington, D.C., May 2020
Yianni Anastos Prastacos writing from Los Angeles, California, May 2020
Luis Basurto writing from Washington, D.C., May 2020
Santiago Flórez writing from Bogotá, Colombia, May 2020
Nicole Garzón writing from Miami, Florida, May 2020
Claire Breen writing from Piedmont, California, May 2020
Just imagine…
A world without you.
A world without those that are gone now.
What a stark moment in time.
But grief can bring us back our memories with them.
That’s how we will keep them with us.
Are you going to stay?
Is it going to change?
How the Hell have you been?!
Wanna play telephone with me?
After I wash my hands I find the essential sacrifice in its creases.
And recognize Time as a valuable resource. I decide to take a walk outside, and I pass by a few of my favorite landmarks; neon purple flowers sunning themselves, and the man who sits on his porch watching videos on his phone and laughing out loud. That’s when I get a call from an unknown number. I usually don't take calls from these, but it’s probably about a job posting at that newspaper that I applied to last week and I really need some dough right now. I should really answer. I’m gonna answer. I answered. It was the doctor’s office. They told me to stop treading so lightly on the bones, and that their protests are my own projection. I guess percussion doesn't ask for forgiveness. So I heed their advice and take a deep and invigorating breath in, followed by a slow and calming breath out. A moment of peace. There ain’t no rest for the wicked, though. And just like the short life of Cherry Blossoms, that fleeting moment of peace is gone with the wind. I start walking towards the river. Although I was walking with a purpose I couldn’t arrive at my destination; I seem stuck on the same loop, over and over again. Although monoatomic, I ended up finding some tranquility in the repetition of my surroundings. A certain calm in the repetition around me. Until suddenly, there I was, standing barefoot, the cold water running through my toes. My soul had been cleansed from within but I was not fully there. Not yet. My mind kept going back to all the names. It was hard for me to fathom they were only one percent. Imagine all 100,000 names in the paper. Imagine that people are dying all around me, but here I am, fazed and unfazed at the same time. But between all the bold and the black and white, my eyes quickly found him. Sweet Elene’s “baby” brother: Gene Zahas, 78, Oakland, Calif., fierce advocate for educational opportunity.
But there is another kind of grief too.
A melancholia and a longing.
An agony for a world, now
dead and gone.
The pause to normalcy brings about many things.
Like realizing how you might not pause
as often as you thought, between words,
but do so mostly when you need to take
a breath.
This spatz is about what it is about most of the time:
the oldest dance, the one between life and death.
A sense of dread and a sense of life.
A sense of happiness and a sense of angst.
At the same time.
A world that only exists in our minds now.
EXQUISITE
NOTHINGNESS.
This real fear and unintended risk,
do not compare to the abyss.
A pandemic,
my ass.
Cadavre exquis.
This feels like we all
live in the same
pandæmonium.
IX.
There’s accidents of the mind,
like the ones found when one’s concerned
with nature’s call,
and by doing so
one develops an interest in scatology.
Let the demons
out,
to come in through the c a k
r c s.
Yes, there’s smiling faded faces
inside of coarse video rectangles.
And from the digits,
I am summoned to appear
with my true form.
Nuanced. Liminal.
Hybrid. Cyclical.
Hyphenated. Criminal.
While you see me appear, I do so half mesmerizing,
but you don’t know about that other half that is hygge,
rest assured I am
a full c y b
o r g.
Anyways… everything will end, one day…
But will this ever end?
There’s accidents of the mind,
like the ones found when one’s concerned
with nature’s call,
and by doing so
one develops an interest in scatology.
Let the demons
out,
to come in through the c a k
r c s.
Yes, there’s smiling faded faces
inside of coarse video rectangles.
And from the digits,
I am summoned to appear
with my true form.
Nuanced. Liminal.
Hybrid. Cyclical.
Hyphenated. Criminal.
While you see me appear, I do so half mesmerizing,
but you don’t know about that other half that is hygge,
rest assured I am
a full c y b
o r g.
Anyways… everything will end, one day…
But will this ever end?
(‘Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way,’
Girl With Curious Hair,
David Foster Wallace)
XI I I.
The urgency doesn’t encompass the importance.
You cannot control this any longer. Nuh-UH.
Especially when seeing productivity and its guises becoming uncovered.
No time to be stressed with such a busy schedule, am I right?!
What about your self value and self worth
being dependent on your day’s work
and the appearance of being busy?
So glad we can choose to see beyond that now. Or not?
What about those whose work is so tied to who they are?
What about your performance reviews? How’s this sprint looking?
What about these KPIs, page views, goals, and numbers?
And what day is it anyway?
Everyday is fucking Blursday.
What I talk about when I talk about love.
(What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver)
Hell yes, holy shit! Living in the office sure as Hell doesn’t feel like working from home anymore.
But how fortunate it is that even in the end of days... days still end.
And then, if we’re lucky, we get a whole new day to spend together.
A revelation. An end.
And eschatology.
With all the hell we’ve been through,
haven’t we learned a thing or two?
And finally, maybe now,
the right to the city
is ours to share.
Everyone deserves to live in a cocoon.
Everyone deserves to have a respite.
To understand this rhythm,
inhale and exhale with your mask,
setting the pace to our new pattern:
The hammer and the dance.
Nature was always there. It’s still there.
The city is too.
We just have to pay attention.
Breathe in.
With pizzazz and chutzpah.
And pause.
Con perrenque y berraquera.
Just. Pause.
Do you hear the hummingbird’s flutter?
Do you see the snowy mountain’s peak?
And while you take a break,
it becomes clear,
the picture isn't looking good, huh?
You better shine more light on it, then!
(Le droit à la ville, Henri Lefebvre)
X.
XI.
What a fake empire!
“Al César lo que es del César,
y a Dios lo que es de Dios.”
There’ll be Hell to pay.
For my soul.
What did it cost to build the firmament,
and what was the labor it took to divvy up
the coastline and the sky?
Don’t make this go on, forever.
Please…
In six words or less, what does justice mean to you?
Marta Gonzalez, Miami, Florida, United States
The road to moral rightness and ethic
Not having to beg for peace.
Sirena Rayes, Bogotá, Colombia
Restoring the polity, ameliorating the harm.
Drew Johnson, Williamsburg, Massachusetts, United States
Balance. Many sides. Laws. Power.
Nicole Garzón, Orlando, Florida, United States
Repairing the damage, repairing the perpetrator.
Mark Mumm, Leicester, New York, United States
Accountability for unfiltered, non-subjective truth.
Rolf Erik Sjogren, New York and Washington D.C., United States
Gender equality
Stephanie Decker, Chicago, Illinois, United States
Listening & action
Erin Breen, Kihei, Hawaii, United States
Justice = liberation
Claire Breen, Oakland, California, United States
After this storm,
find me in the brim, full of passion,
acquiring some clarity
n o w.
That’s when I realize:
Sometimes we should let the year burn.
Sometimes it’s burned us already.
So we b u r n our grief to Hell anyways.
Because Hell, this one, could so utterly destroy a man from within…
At the very least - inside, on this cold night - I felt some heat.
Intensifying its radiance,
deepening and widening it,
enjoying its strength.
After this storm,
find me in the brim, full of passion,
acquiring some clarity
n o w.
That’s when I realize:
Sometimes we should let the year burn.
Sometimes it’s burned us already.
So we b u r n our grief to Hell anyways.
Because Hell, this one, could so utterly destroy a man from within…
At the very least - inside, on this cold night - I felt some heat.
Intensifying its radiance,
deepening and widening it,
enjoying its strength.
(Diablo® II)
XI I.
Marta Gonzalez, Miami, Florida, United States
Sara Castaño, Florida, United States
Claudia Aguirre, Orlando, Florida, United States
Claudia Aguirre, Orlando, Florida, United States
Marisol Leal Acosta, Bogotá, Colombia
Well, how about you try something new?
Camilo Garzón, Oakland, California, United States
Juan Francisco González, Bogotá, Colombia
Karla L. Escobar H., Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt, Germany
Julián Yunda Yepes, Tabio, Colombia
(Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature,
Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers)
(Worstward Ho, Samuel Beckett)
Because Hell, this one, could so utterly destroy a man from within…
At the very least - inside, on this cold night - I felt some heat.
Intensifying its radiance,
deepening and widening it,
enjoying its strength.
Difference will only be bred by difference.
How about you try to not perform anymore
but learn to enjoy what incubates within you
and succubates thanks to you?
Do not fail fast, fail often...
Just fail again, fail better!
Then you’ll realize what a Hell of a run you can have.
Difference will only be bred by difference.
How about you try to not perform anymore
but learn to enjoy what incubates within you
and succubates thanks to you?
Do not fail fast, fail often...
Just fail again, fail better!
Then you’ll realize what a Hell of a run you can have.
Are you in or are you out?
Separations might happen.
Am I just inside out?
Unions might also ensue.
Can you see me coming undone?
Or are you that comfortable
with your known demons
that you’d rather stay
exactly where you are
instead of taking your ass
to a place of your own choosing?
What the Hell?! Did I just become a bare, gooey tenderness at my core?
Brave new world, this Hell, I’m out of it.
Or at least, I want to be. Outside in.
(Brave New World, Aldous Huxley)
XIV.
XV.
Pause is good.
My walking radio says it too:
“Una pausa y volvemos.”
I guess that plasticity shapes both ways.
Because Hell, this one, could so utterly destroy a man from within…
At the very least - inside, on this cold night - I felt some heat.
Intensifying its radiance,
deepening and widening it,
enjoying its strength.
Like that holy shape that becomes a devil best.
I’m glad that it does!
A beat.
To be beat, to feel beaten.
To beat upon the drum that is life.
You will only know this rhythm,
if you’ve known its beats.
To follow the beat of my own drum.
Forever.
Like when you read that book, walked that path...
But do you hear the beat in my heart’s conundrum?
I’m glad that it does!
A beat.
To be beat, to feel beaten.
To beat upon the drum that is life.
You will only know this rhythm,
if you’ve known its beats.
To follow the beat of my own drum.
Forever.
Like when you read that book, walked that path...
But do you hear the beat in my heart’s conundrum?
It sounds like when Kurt
didn’t rent a yurt
but rented a tent,
a tent,
a tent.
It sounds like when Kurt
didn’t rent a yurt
but rented a tent a tent,
a tent.
Rented a tent, a tent, a tent.
(Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe)
(Radio Ambulante, Daniel Alarcón)
(The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut)
XV I.
Wanna make a Faustian Deal?
I made one of those before. I exchanged my soul away a long time ago.
When looking at it on The Devil’s Dictionary, it says:
“Wherever you come from, that’s where you shall go in to leave.”
As the agent, let me just scatter the documents,
get us in a position to acknowledge what’s damned
but liberate what can still be saved!
See, it’s not that big of a deal to enter into this agreement… this meandering logomachy.
What a soulless place I find myself in. Since that bargain.
I think – at least once, back then – I knew how to deal.
XV I I.
And now?
I guess
what were once errands
now became chores.
And wanna set up shop?
Sure, but only if
we talk shop,
while we’re
Six feet apart.
And while checking my pockets just now:
Oh, I mask?!
found a
Six feet apart.
And while checking my pockets just now:
Oh, I mask?!
found a
What is something you've been fed up with over this past year?
COVID vaccine denying
Lucas Pearson, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
Julián Yunda Yepes, Tabio, Colombia
I guess this is a common place, but solitude. Yeah, after 8 years I came back "home" with my family, but during the last year and with a few exceptions, I have not seen anybody else than my brother, my mother, her husband, ocassionally my father, and time to time a friend from school. But I miss my Friends, the ones which I used to see three, four times a week, hanging out on the streets or in my downtown apartment.
The incredible difficulty in separating work from everything else, especially with my office in my bedroom.
Erin Breen, Kihei, Hawaii, United States
Apathy
Juan Francisco González, Bogotá, Colombia
Being away from people I care about.
Sanjay Rana, Nice, France
It hurts me that governments and medical companies have not vaccinated frontline people in exposure to COVID-19. I’m tired of being scared of every COVID-19 long term effect I am having or can have.
Sara Castaño, Florida, United States
Inconsistency. Trust the science, man. Filter the particles, not the facts. Starve this invisible beast with 6 simple steps, or is it 9? Don the sacred rectangle. One layer or 2? Only inside, but also outside. If only we knew. Give it a shot! Get a shot. Try hard to lay it to rest. It's not hard. It dies, or you die.
Dale Peacock Breen, Kihei, Maui, United States
The lack of apology.
Jonny Starko, Silver Lake, California, United States
Zoom meetings!
Isabel Lara, Washington, D.C., United States
Blurred/disrespected boundaries
Anonymous, Berkeley, California, United States
IPerpetual racism and police brutatlity
Anonymous, United States
The stupidity of the American people
Alexander Boguslawski, Maitland, Florida, United States
V I I.
This is not a drill.
This is the kind of break we never wanted.
Virgil wouldn’t have guided us in here
unless there was something worth learning
from this kind of experience.
Stephanie Decker writing from Chicago, Illinois, May 2020
Shelby McNabb writing from Los Angeles, California, May 2020
Juan Francisco González writing from Bogotá, Colombia, May 2020
Mark Mumm from writing Washington, D.C., May 2020
Yianni Anastos Prastacos writing from Los Angeles, California, May 2020
Luis Basurto writing from Washington, D.C., May 2020
Santiago Flórez writing from Bogotá, Colombia, May 2020
Nicole Garzón writing from Miami, Florida, May 2020
Claire Breen writing from Piedmont, California, May 2020
I guess?
There are Consequences:
Daring George and restless Lauren met at Heaven’s waiting room to find out where the virus that ended it all came from, or to read the magazines and grab a cookie.
George said: Is the cookie helping with this never ending wait?
Lauren answered with another question: Taking into account our present context, do you have a more original question to ask me?
They both kept going on and on, with their own minds running, Lauren reading her magazine and George stress eating all the cookies, impatiently.
This is the world telling us we need to slow down. Or at least that’s what they say. But the world has been telling us a lot of things. We just haven’t been listening.
Are you doing your part, too?
Woah there, easy now, this devil-may-care attitude
you want people to notice sobre tus cuitas y peripecias,
might be peremptory, if you’ve danced your way to Hell and back.
As I said, there are consequences...
(Divina Comedia, Dante Alighieri)
And what else have you found?
And what else have you found?
X I X.
Paradise has been regained, eureka!
Let’s drink up le vin nouveau. But together.
The great darkness,
we have started to see,
is living in this delicate absence
inside of a void of loneliness.
We will regain the willpower to live with nature.
If you did start,
don’t fret, don’t worry,
you did the hardest part.
Seeing you from this vantage point is a Hell of a view!
And whenever we see a place
that is devoid of stars,
fiat lux.
This illumination becoming reflected
in the things we’ve lost,
and in the things we now see clearly.
To Hell with it all.
Yeah, Hell yeah,
at least I know
heaven is all goodbyes
anyway.
My faith is restored,
in something else.
In someone else.
In you and in me.
In us.
Hell, the only real one,
is no other people.
Because Hell, this one, could so utterly destroy a man from within…
At the very least - inside, on this cold night - I felt some heat.
Intensifying its radiance,
deepening and widening it,
enjoying its strength.
It sounds like when Kurt
didn’t rent a yurt
but rented a tent a tent,
a tent.
(Paradise Regained, John Milton)
(Heaven is All Goodbyes,
Tongo Eisen-Martin)
XV I I I.
Look at that!
The machine!
Has created a vaccine!
We all won the lottery!
Devs has come to save us!
Hopefully we’ll all be living the Life of Riley!
One can only wish.
But for those still going to work,
while this vaccine is distributed,
every day is essentially a journey into
a dangerous and uncertain world,
with new rules about masks,
washing hands and staying away
from one another.
And for those who have lost work,
there are intense new stresses
about income,
caring for loved ones,
lack of health insurance,
and “the future.”
What even is the future of The Future anymore?
And what use is it to be considered “essential” then?
Those inside must recognize this from the outside: Homo homini sacra res.
Mankind is not the virus of this world.
This coronavirus straining the world is the virus.
And to call each thing
by its right name,
is the hardest thing to do.
Satisfying other hungers,
we might regain the paradise of society,
and meaning is then found again.
And we are to act to remind one another of this.
Bear witness. However you can.
And – please – do your part.
If you can do good things
for other people,
then be responsible.
You’re not a viral exception to the biological rule.
Know that your decisions do not affect only yourself.
Remember this word:
I N T E R D E P E N D E N C Y.
Smiles will then reappear, on top of masks,
where our eyes will be looming from.
Sunshine will caress our skin once more,
and we will learn to read the love
in our distant gestures.
Because Hell, this one, could so utterly destroy a man from within…
At the very least - inside, on this cold night - I felt some heat.
Intensifying its radiance,
deepening and widening it,
enjoying its strength.
It sounds like when Kurt
didn’t rent a yurt
but rented a tent a tent,
a tent.
(Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak)
(The Life of Riley, 1949)