Planet of the Blind

Uncle History wouldn’t kill a fly
He’s been forced to witness
Murders and huge violence
He walks through smoke
His private views don’t matter
Ay there’s the rub
He thinks of Wittgenstein—
“Death is not an event in life:
We do not live to experience death.”
If this is true
Uncle is already dead
It’s not funny
But it is

The past isn’t simple
One shouldn’t
Personify it
But Uncle History
Is necessary
He remembers
The Great Cat Massacre
And the gruesome music
Of emigration
And Isaac Newton
Nearly starving
Because he ate
Only fallen fruit
Sadness
Like vanity and fairytales
Can’t be forgotten
If the past had a mouth
He thinks
It would sound
Like lady Macbeth
Then: lets count backwards
As in the hospital
The day is dark
Its going to rain
He suspects Wallace Stevens
Saw Bishop Berkeley
In a light bulb—
Stevens was almost
Innocent
Mind over matter
Let the lamp affix its beam
Shine here…

Though he has opposable thumbs
Uncle History seldom uses them
He doesn’t grasp objects but instead
Let’s things fall to his palms
“Higgledy Piggleldy” he says
Vacuum tubes, tea cozies
And Teddy bears drop
He lives in a debris field
With a dented angel
Who carries fruit
In her purple stained robe
They say purple originated
From the mucus of snails
But Uncle knows better
Thinks of Neruda
Addressing a rose
That has yet to appear
He puts his hands out

He’s like an old automobile
His body parts keep falling off
You can see where he’s been
By following junk in the road
He asks the doctor
How much longer
Nobody knows
They repair his universal joint
Patch up his transmission
“Planned obsolescence”
The surgeons whisper
One says:
“It is better to travel well than to arrive…”

Of “the self” one may ask
“What’s the answer to this or that”
And hope for refinement
I think that’s right
But as always, twilight
And destiny have me
By the hair—
Don’t pretend
You don’t know You know
Imagine tonight
When you stretch sleepily
At a window, seeing
In a glance
A handful of crows
Resting on a wire
Wings ruffling
And you recall the child’s prayer
if I die before I wake
Then see what you can do without poems

I make things up. Here’s a one act play featuring Aunt and Uncle Benevolence. It takes place in the United States. I’m calling it Thumbnail Purgatory:

Purgatory, from purge: “an abrupt or violent removal of a group of people from an organization or place.”

Purgatory, in Roman Catholic doctrine: “a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven.”

“Well that’s it,” said Aunt Benevolence, “the good times are over. It’s time to send the lame and the halt straight back to the dirty boulevard.”

Uncle Benevolence wasn’t so sure. He scratched his purple wen. “I don’t believe, my dear, that there IS a dirty boulevard anymore. It’s been replaced by a heated, closed to traffic, “promenade” with decent shopping.”

“Well,” said Auntie, “we’re going to have to send them somewhere. Once there’s no Medicaid to speak of, and no health insurance for the knock kneed elders and the scoliatics, etc..”

“Well I hear North Dakota is empty,” Uncle said. “It’s mostly empty, anyway.”

“How will we get them there on the cheap?”

“Everyone knows boxcars are cheap.”

They sat for a time side by side in silence.

“It was easier on the old days to just take care of people,” Auntie said after a little while.

“Yes,” said Uncle, “but they’ve gone Pagan now. You know, Horace and shit. The best days are the first to go.”

“When did they forget Jesus?” Auntie asked.

“In America?” Uncle asked.

“Yeah,” Auntie said, “you know, Christian’s bundle, noblesse oblige, shit, even just a minimal sense of national regard for appearances…”

“It was never a Christian nation,” Uncle said. “And the Devil loves a vacuum.”

Gibbous moon
Sleep but not yet
Hunger over for the day
Uncle History wants nothing
If someone asked him
To make a wish
He couldn’t do it
What do you give history
When its feeling content
When its forgotten
The long ditch
And ashes
When it feigns satisfaction
You sing tsuris:
Aggravation

It’s a game Uncle History plays—
Supposing some people
Were never born
Stalin, of course
And Pol Pot
But also Humphrey Bogart
And Bridgette Bardo
He goes from horror
To the trivial
Hitler, Captain Kangaroo
It’s all Morse code
Dit dit
No Freud
Dot dot
No Lotte Lenya
He keeps Brecht
But doesn’t know why
Sometimes it’s more important to be human, than to have good taste…
Neither pertains to Uncle

Uncle History knows
About wishes
How the Puritans
Made iron
So their souls
Wouldn’t sag
But he doesn’t know
About the neural connections
Of consciousness
Or how to put an electric probe
On the skin of the past
He does recall John Winthrop
Inviting men
From their hiding places
To make spears
Sometimes the worthiest ideas
Are best when
Not enacted
The Pequots who
They didn’t slaughter
Were sold into slavery

“Who has time for anything?”
The big question
In the age of machines
Uncle History is a Luddite—
He hates artificial intelligence
Calls it the “kitsch of destruction”
He’s not wrong, right now
A clot of computers
Builds a suspension bridge
Melville’s books are torn by bots
Who has a moment to himself?
A meadow would be nice
He once saw a donkey
Beside a ruined house
It brought tears to his eyes
O mordant habituations
How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone…
He loves Emily Dickinson
Thinks:
Once I aspired to tallness like the oak…
Now it’s seeds I’m after…