After the flood

 

After the flood

What some people dispute about climate change is whether it is caused by people or that it is a natural phenomenon. Whatever the cause we've had a climate roller coaster this summer. Forest fires, heat waves, and recently a downpour of rain here in Montreal so great that our infrastructure was not able to deal with it; in this part of our neighbourhood, many houses and apartment buildings had flooded basements. Right now the City is removing piles of wet garbage, broken gyprock, flooring, soaked furniture, papers, books, computers, microwaves, and just about anything else you can think of, all of it destroyed in flooded basements. I arrived home on the day of the rain ready to use a bucket and remove water from our basement, but it was a lost cause, the water poured in from a basement shower drain and toilet. I was not alone, for the following week, when driving on adjacent streets, there were huge piles of flood damaged stuff at the end of many driveways. As the week progressed the piles of wet garbage grew larger.

So, as I was throwing my papers from the last ten or so years into contractor bags, my soaking wet archives including letters, notebooks, manuscripts, and photographs, I wondered at how neat I had been, labeling every file folder, placing them in now soaking Bankers Boxes, and I thought what nonsense had propelled me into saving all of this stuff? But the fact is, the more I bagged the more relieved I felt, getting rid of this stuff, these many boxes of papers, now I wanted to get rid of them as quickly as possible not just because they were damaged and I wanted to get our home back to normal, but because I wanted to discard the mania of saving all of this stuff. And then the thought that I've been a fool, thinking this stuff had any value and that I could somehow defeat time by writing everything down, in diaries and poems and letters, and saving all of this junk. These papers would have been in my literary archives, the latest and possibly last accrual, but even these papers would have eventually ended up in the dust bin which is how the cosmos works, everything returns to nothing, and it does not favour permanency. I think of the Doukhobors who, finding one of there own has gone over to the side of materialism, no longer a "spirit wrestler", will burn down that person's big house and, they thought, restore the person to a spiritual sense of life. But, at the end, does any of it matters? We are all headed to nothing from the nothing we came from, leaving behind a few words, chalk on sidewalks, or a fragment of a poem, and even that is being optimistic, the rest is like Shelley's "Ozymandias". I am too old for this folly, or any folly for that matter. 

On the Solitary Life

I wanted to be a part of something and I thought I was. I thought I was on the great journey of individuation, that I was a part of something connecting me with the great ideas and experiences shared by other people. But, in truth, I wasn't a part of anything. If you believe nothing then all of the old constructs of life, the scaffolding that supported your existence, have collapsed. Belief is, in retrospect, nothing real or lasting, it is a pretence or an illusion of belief—mostly it is a pretence. The doctors are wrong in their diagnoses, the Ivy League educated poets and intellectuals have fooled even themselves with their self-importance, the imams, priests, and gurus are deluded, politicians are obviously liars, social workers want to break up families,  teachers are selling preconceptions based on their idea of what they stand for, intellectuals are filled with book learning but no wisdom or practical knowledge; even shamans are fakes and out for money and fame. I hear Buddhists chanting in their temple and it seems delusionary, what fools! I want to tell them that their hypocrisy appals me. There is no satori, no heaven, no hell, no enlightenment, no god, no prophet, there is nothing and on this basis we begin again, we look for something that transcends the everyday; this is found in poetry, in the fine arts. I asked myself, what if nothing I believe is true? What if all of my beliefs and assumptions about life are wrong? The Emperor has no clothes! He's naked and everything he stood for is a lie and a cheat of belief. I did not decide to believe nothing, I accepted it with difficulty; it was a huge disappointment in life. But then, one day, the scaffolding of belief collapses, there is no free will, there is no certainty about anything except that the Emperor has no clothes. Believe what you want after this, but for now, believe nothing.

(Mostly) Anonymous in Inner Space

All of the ancestors have returned and are living quiet lives in Inner Space.  

Choirs will fall silent, money will be thrown into the streets, and everywhere people will wonder what this dream was all about.

I was not cut out for childhood, I was already living part-time in Inner Space.

How can poets write anything without going down the spiral staircase to the darkness below?

I needed so many years to accomplish so little.

I'm back living at the Yew Tree Inn; nothing has changed, there is a Yew tree outside my window and children playing by the old wishing well.

There were some people dressed in colourful outfits, meditating and praying in Inner Space; we threw them out.

I no longer care what poets have to say, not if it's just more of the same old avoidance of Inner Space.

None of this was invented by me. It is what I found in Inner Space.

I was absorbed into the universe by cosmic energy; there's no playing around in Inner Space.

And now I'm a broken wheel going nowhere.

It's not bleak here in Inner Space, it's just a habit of mind to say that life is meaningless.

I liked poets but when I arrived in Inner Space I found few had joined me there, they were too busy trying to make names for themselves.

Most poets have nothing I want or need, they are not crowbars prying open the unconscious mind. Poets need to be crowbars.

  

If a poet can't be a crowbar he can at least be a hammer. 

                                                                       

Believe Nothing

When did I become a nihilist? I was born this way.

Inner Space is a hinterland of cosmic waste; here, everyone is either a nihilist, a poet, or both.

My defense is suited to one whose motto is "Believe nothing".

Poets used to be referred to as "ground breaking" or "visionary"; now they want to be referred to as "award winning poets", the visionaries are gone. 

I am well known in the territory of Inner Space.

About what am I incredulous? On most days, just about everything.

A whole new cohort of poets has arrived,  they are ambitious, self-conscious, and dedicated to self-promotion; in other words, younger versions of older poets.

The opposition of nihilists to all forms of censorship is famous in the history of Inner Space.

I am not the Pope's nose but I can still smell shit when it's all around me.

As we cross the green archetypal fields of poetry we reach the borders of Inner Space.

I have lived the nihilist's life: anonymous, introverted, and appalled.


Mister, in Inner Space we don't have room for anybody but poets and nihilists, so you'd better high tail it outta here before you're discovered.

Most religious and political beliefs offend my sense of nothingness.

A poet's apprenticeship can never be replaced with sitting in a classroom workshopping someone's poems.

Believing anything makes people stupid.

Photo taken at the Montreal Botanical Gardens, 2009

Believe Nothing

I wanted to be a part of something and I thought I was. I thought I was on the great journey of individuation, or that I believed in God, that I was a part of something connecting me with the great ideas and experiences shared by so many people. But, in truth, I wasn't a part of anything. If you "believe nothing" then all of the old constructs of life, the scaffolding that supported your existence, have collapsed. Belief was, in retrospect, nothing real or lasting, it was a pretence or an illusion of belief—mostly it was a pretence, as intellectual assumptions, beliefs, and considered analyses end up being. The doctors are wrong in their diagnoses, the Ivy League educated poets and intellectuals have fooled even themselves with their self-importance, the imams, priests, and gurus are deluded, the politicians are obviously liars, the social workers want to break up families, the teachers are selling a lot of preconceptions based on their idea of what they stand for, the intellectuals are filled with book learning but no wisdom or practical knowledge. There is no satori, no heaven, no hell, no enlightenment, no god, no prophet, there is nothing. I asked myself, what if nothing I believe is true? What if all of my beliefs and assumptions about life are wrong? Very few people are willing to say, "Look! The Emperor has no clothes! He's naked and everything he stood for is a lie and a cheat of belief." I did not decide to believe nothing, I accepted it with difficulty; in fact, it was what I always believed but never admitted to myself. But then, one day, the scaffolding of belief collapses, there is no free will, there is no certainty about anything except that the Emperor has no clothes. Believe what you want after this, but for now, believe nothing.