Psyche-Logical

They say our problems are psychological
Psyche-logical; soul- words, breaking out
The Logos of the Soul, they say, has plagued us.

The plague has deftly arrived,  but no words from the soul are inscribed; just dry lines that describe and are imbibed by dull denizens sipping coffee on a train on the way to work: a quirk, a quark – what does it matter?  They found it so we can sound it; tell the savages to cease their pagan prayers, for the minute has been discovered, named and set loose to leave spirituality in flames; strictly no dames; not here, in the twenty-first, for here there is no thirst – haven’t you read? the Lord God is dead; Professor Nominal rests now, in His bed, his feats phenomenal, his heart abdominal; forget the tell-tales of childhood, forget the magic you thought you sought in those dark woods – a tree is a tree, is a tree is a tree, is nothing more than a bird or a bee; indeed, if you see more than neutrality our doctor’s will inform you: YOU ARE IN NEED; you have a sickness, of the psychotic kind – certainly not divine – one which you might find in the poet’s mind, an artist’s line, anywhere the world appears ill-defined; but don’t fret, stress, caress – don’t dare think yourself less – you will convalesce, back at the nest, where it’s safe and warm, where you’re nurtured and torn and simultaneously raped and burned, left to slowly fade into abstractions, distractions, awkward social interactions, political factions, ideological fractions, all who deny, despise and give rise to inner turmoil and dissatisfaction; all who differentiate between those who love and those who proliferate; life, they’ll say, is a blank slate, designed by the mind and born to initiate; forget the memory of DNA, that infinite line of connexions and braids; forget the contact we’ve made with the infinite array, the collective and divine dismay, at a world all sullen and grey, blunted and lame, limited and thus infinitely frayed – what we have now has been packaged and sprayed; it lies on a shelf, shining, brilliant, effortlessly made; read the label, better than fable, better than reason; generic, geriatric, jelly-active and ready-made, for your impulse, your pleasure, to keep You (writ large) at bay; hail no cab to this infinite dismay; you’re already there, scared, in conflict with the object of that thirsting and beautiful stare; I was there, I was scared, I was homeless with no care; and then, like Zen, I was there, am here, now here, now here, now here; now HEAR, as in, like, with your ear, the echoes rebounding from one eternity to the next, over, over, over; sober, left to be, ego-free; the latter may still be a dream, but it would seem, from what I see, that this dream is in me, is in thee, is all around me: the Man, in His coat, has just failed to breathe; see it is He, it is He, who has crucified thee.

The Oaf Who Ruptured the Peaceful Night

The night stood still; not a limb moved.  The moon, near whole, beamed across the sky and into the worlds below, tinting all things its unique shade of blue.  The winds had fled this silent night, gathered underground or over the hills.  Nowhere here showed a single sign of animation.  It was as though the earth’s inhabitants had all but died off.

But then a stirring, like the movements of primal waters before a world is born, a universe created.  Something was coming.  The night was not to be left at peace.

The Oaf stumbled from a small wooden hut, much like a cabin.  It had awoken from some deep slumber; a sleep which was always meant to be eternal.  Just something had gone wrong.  The Creator’s attention had waned; something had slipped through the divine cracks.

Stumbling sleepily from its abode, the Oaf rubbed its eyes, squinted at the breathtaking moon.  It belched, scratched its groin and then slowly, very slowly, sauntered ahead of itself, in some direction, apparently with some aim in mind.

The silent world looked on in horror, following the great, lanky thing with its omnipresent gaze, lamenting the mistake it had somehow made.

The Oaf took no notice.  It moved placidly on.

The only sound now was the sound of the creature’s movements: its feet crunching on the earth; the heavy panting of its ill-used breathing apparatus; the various scratching sounds from its vastly irritated epidermis.  The inanimate nature of the entirety of its surroundings did not seem to disconcert the Oaf, as it wandered through.  It’s face remained impassive, its eyes fixed ahead.

Dishevelled, the creature finally came to a standstill.  The stillness, the silence around it, waited.

What is it doing?  Has it found what it wanted? Will it return to its slumber now!?

A moment of bafflement…

And then, without warning, the Oaf began to urinate.

It had stopped by a tree, stopped for a brief moment in reverie, and then grasped its apparatus in readiness for micturition.  The world stood still again, for that small moment, as the creature dreamed; and then, as quickly as it had come about, it was annihilated by the sound of the creature’s watery waste, splashing noisily onto the exposed roots of a beautiful old tree.

But the tree did not groan, nor moan.  The silence waited.

And waited.

The Oaf had apparently been in lodging for some time, as the stream seemed to flow and flow.  Steam rose.

Finally, with a relieved sigh, the Oaf’s urination slowly ceased.  The rain had stopped.  The universe watched on, awaiting the strange being’s next move.

Again, scratching and dragging its feet, the Oaf sauntered back along the path it had taken.  Slowly, certainly, it made its way back to the log hut, its eyes still fixed, its movements still noisy.  But now it seemed lighter, less burdened.

It walked up the two steps to the door, went inside, closed the door—and was gone.

The world breathed a sigh of relief.

The sky still beamed moon-blue.  But now, unlike before, the sound of a small stream of urine could be heard, meandering from the tall tree down into a valley.  It could be seen, too.  No longer was the world silent; no longer was it still.

It was animate.