A Memoir of Youth, 1984

A hush silenced the crowd that moved like a single-minded entity in the dim, smoke-filled auditorium. People began to rise in their seats as two immense figures strode down the wide-aisle, their broad bodies nearly blotting out the bright spotlight that was trained on them. Slowly, a chant started to swell..."Road Warriors...Road Warriors..."

The shorter, more thickly built of the men looked around him with an intense fire that seemed to make his eyes glow. His Mohawk haircut seemed to bristle, his savage war-paint glowing on his face. His partner was not so taciturn … he growled and flexed like the beast he was, ready to attack. Hawk was always like that. Animal's fire was more submerged.

The chant continued to surround them. They were villains, yes, but what villains these men were, to command such respect from those that hated them.

One instant, the ring hovered before their advancing forms, surprisingly small. Two men waited inside, noticing that the adulation of their fans was becoming a fearful silence. Animal smiled cruelly; these opponents hoped their skill would be enough to withstand the raw power of the Road Warriors. They were wrong.

In an eye-blink, the two barbarian wrestlers rushed to the ring, diving through the ropes and charging their opponents. Their hammering forearms and knees pounded them unmercifully, driving them to the mat.

Only after both men lay stunned did the Road Warriors back off at the referees insistence. Animal moved to his corner while Hawk taunted one of the fallen men to get up.

Austin Idol, the blond one, was the first to his feet. Dazed, he fired two blows to Hawk's midsection. Then his eyes widened in amazement and he looked up with apprehension. Hawk growled, his own eyes widening in a killer fury, for Idol's punches had had no effect!

With one corded arm, Hawk reached out and grabbed Idol by the hair, his other arm whipping around to strike Idol with a meaty thud that reverberated through the auditorium. The blow carried Idol off his feet and back to his own corner, where he had barely enough consciousness left to tag off to his partner.

Hesitantly, Jerry Lawler stepped in to face the insane, slavering Hawk. Hawk gave him no respite, charging forward and striking up with his knee repeatedly, making Lawler double over in pain. Hardly able to move, Lawler responded with a desperate punch that connected to Hawk's stomach, felling the Warrior momentarily.

His vision blurred, Lawler seized what he knew was his only opportunity against such a large, evilly powerful enemy. Grabbing Hawk's head, he positioned it between his knees and tried to lift Hawk up for the pile-driver, a hold capable of downing the mightiest of wrestlers. Heaving, the veins stood out in Lawler's temples.

But Hawk did not budge.

Rearing up like some primordial dragon from the sea, grinning madly, Hawk flipped Lawler over his back and down hard. Consciousness left Lawler as Hawk heaved him to his feet and struck him with a forearm, downing him again and then dropping his leg like a heavy log over Lawler's chest.

Not finished, Hawk yanked Lawler up by his hair and reached to tag off to Animal, who paced and waited for his turn. As soon as their hands met, Animal exploded into the ring, slamming Lawler with forearms that moved too fast to see. .

Perhaps it was some manner of mercy that made Lawler pass out even as Animal heaved him into the ropes. For, as Lawler catapulted back, Animal reared all the way back and brought his twenty-three inch arm forward like a whip, powered fully by his thickly-muscled body.

It struck Lawler with a clothesline across the neck that completely lifted him up and hurled him down, coming dangerously close to breaking his neck.

Animal growled as he pinned the supine Lawler, pointing in the direction where he knew a camera lay. As the referee counted to three, Animal screamed, “Bundy … Buuunnndyyyy!!!” The crowd watched, knowing that the deep bellow was a direct challenge to one of their favorites--and even more than a challenge, a death-threat. But no one rebuked the Animal. No one dared shudder without permission.

ALL Faith is false, all Faith is true:
Truth is the shattered mirror strown
In myriad bits; while each believes
his little bit the whole to own.

What is the Truth? was askt of yore.
Reply all object Truth is one
As twain of halves aye makes a whole;
the moral Truth for all is none.

Ye scantly-learned Zâhids learn
from Aflatûn and Aristû,[1]
While Truth is real like your good:
th' Untrue, like ill, is real too ...

[1. Plato and Aristotle.]

-Sir Richard F. Burton
"The Kasidah"

Basic Input Output System

(RITTERS NEWS SERVICE) MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
... and the word “karma” was scrawled over a wall of his apartment, in what forensic tests reveal to be the blood of a rutabaga.

While all accounts are S------ never believed in “karma” in the strict sense, his disappearance is even more unusual considering the recent publication of his short story, “The Shrew That Ate Rush Limbaugh.” The story appears in the latest issue of the magazine Tales of the Unanticipated, which the FBI categorizes as the subversive publication of The New Union of Soviet Socialist Postal Workers.

“The Shrew That Ate Rush Limbaugh” was written in 1983 when S------ was a senior at Irondale High School but more than fifteen years of attempting to sell it were futile and it was not accepted until S------ himself became a teacher.

Authorities refuse to comment on the suspicious nature of this coincidence. However one unidentified student did speak at Odyssey School, where S------ taught until recently. When asked what she thought of S------ as a teacher, she remarked: “He was good ... (urp) a little tough though. Definitely half-baked.”
_________________________________________________

RWSj, Case File # 3128221

(report of Dr. R. A. Gross, MD, PhD, BA, AB, Do-be-do-be-do)

Fri. 12/13: Patient's Messianic delusions continue. Has created short story with "Goddess" character called "Jenni." Can't determine whether he created her or she created him.

Sat. 12/14: Patient convinced someone named "----" has published his story, which was rejected by every other SF magazine multiple times over more than ten years. Patient says ---- has resurrected him so it ---- must be God.

Wed. 12/25: Patient insists I refer to today as 'Wotan's Day' and that he's gouged out one of his eyes to achieve inner vision. I tell him I see no damage. Patient tells me I need to gouge out one of my eyes. I ask him which one. He says, "If you don't know, I can't help you."

Tue. 12/29: Patient has come up with Trinitarian metaphysics re: himself, Jenni and ----. Prances tirelessly, singing, "There's Daddy, then Junior, and I'm the Spook!"

Off-key rendition spooks other inmates indeed.

Fri. 13/1: I ask patient if he knows what sacrilege is. He accuses me of wanting him to say it's a gum resin. I tell him that would be mucilage. "Right," he adds, "but you'll find sacrilege holds everything together better."
________________________________________________

Given RWSj's undergraduate education in neurophysiology, his graduate education in philosophy, his endless obsession with the mind-body problem, and his seven year stint doing research, you might be tempted to believe parts of the short story published in this issue are based on real events.

Nothing could be further from the truth. S------, for example, never has had sex with any real corpses. Only Lutherans.
________________________________________________

In a sophomore English class, RWSj was given an assignment to make up a story about a picture from samples posted on a wall. The picture showed a human girl and a chimpanzee sitting on a curb, looking at each other. The result, with only minor modifications, is the tale included in this issue, with its unique take on the Mind-Body Problem.

To this day, S------ wonders what would have happened if he had chosen the picture of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. At the very least, however, it wouldn't have ended up a story about anything with a soul.
________________________________________________

During the particularly harsh Russian winter of 1977-78, a small bundle was delivered to a babushka's door near Novgorod. It was apparently a mere frozen mass of fur, congealed blood and organ meats, but the babushka was near-starving and thawed the bundle anyway, hoping to find enough to make a broth.

When she did so, in the center of the bundle was revealed a small canister of microfilm, detailing the true nature of the so-called "Cold War," the secret role of America's CIA, and the lost Zoroastrian prophecies with which RWSj (the "new Tetragrammaton") would find his place in ushering in the new Golden Age.

Unfortunately, the old woman, by the name of Yaga, ate the canister too. S------ has been collecting and analyzing dried samples of her feces ever since.
_________________________________________________

The oldest recorded survivor of a prostratotomy in relief of hypognostimanic impotitus, RWSj now lives happily in a place not too far from Wisconsin, the home of beer, cheese, and serial killers.

There, Bob spends his time in the cattle-barn, catching mice, rats and other small rodents and batting them around before eating them, at least when he’s not writing advertising copy for God.

Neither Bob nor God is allowed on the furniture though. That’s for company.
_________________________________________________

As the only man in the history of the Church to have hemmorhoids declared legitimate stigmata, RWSj continues in his saintly tradition of humility and grace, steadfastly insisting that he is not worthy.
_________________________________________________

RWSj is a local writer and teacher, and the smartest human being who has ever lived.

That is, next to the person who ends up proving why.

Enoch

(published as part of the novel EYES, 1993/4 by xaos Books/Chaos warrior Productions)

"by Cadmann Warner"

Heat waves shimmer and distort visions in front of him. They turn the desert to dun-colored illusions.

There are no oases ...



His boots scuff across the grainy sand. Water has come, has fled, has left the earth to dry. The ground is cracked into patterns that do not match. It is nature's form of tile floor. Perfect, fashionable tile for a perfect, fashionable four-bedroom rambler in a perfect, fashionable suburban cul-de-sac.

He has three layers of cotton socks. All are damp and make his feet itch. He needs the socks. He needs to prevent blisters from his heavy boots. He needs.

The boots. There are snakes in some places. He has heard this.

The buttes are towers of sienna and burnt umber rising from the floor of the desert. They were towers. They seem towers.

He thinks of dragons and kings. Stories. Parables. They are only images, caused by desert heat.

Patches of dry grass grow more frequent. The boy looks to the horizon. Just over it the terrain varies even more. He knows this. He knows much.

He stops. He removes his olive-drab canvas backpack. He uses the pack as a backrest when he sits. The slightly rolling, dry fields are where he will set up his pup tent.

He reaches behind, unstraps one of three round canteens from the backpack. He drinks. The water is lukewarm. It is sweet. It hurts when he gulps too hard. The flesh inside his throat is dry and raw. But he thirsts.

He wets his palm, with it his cracked lips and the skin near his eyes. He sighs, and he coughs.
The boy's thin legs are sun-bronzed. The cutoff wool military pants offer no protection from the sun. The face is young and not yet angular. The hair is bleached now, by sun. The gaze is dull and too-aware. He has had German classes but does not know about angst. His feeling is unnamed.

He looks up. He sees a figure move slowly across the desert toward him from too far for the figure to have whispered and the boy to have heard. He hears the whisper retroactively. The stranger's gait is casual. He has his hands in his pockets. His outline is distorted by the heat waves. His shoulders are broad, powerful, but the man seems incapable of harming anything. Or simply unwilling.

Aura, the boy thinks tangentially. But perhaps, he thinks, it is only the impression from the heat waves.

The man strides forward without blinking or averting his gaze. He comes close enough for his face to be visible. His hair is medium length. His beard is trimmed close to his face. The face is neutral. It does not yet smile, but seems to. It says hello.

The boy responds. He does not wish to avoid response, but could not hold it back even if he so wished. The distance between them is too close in the vastness of the desert. The stranger asks if he is going up to the buttes.

Yeah, the boy says. He guesses so.

The stranger's face does not change. An impression of a smile intensifies. The boy feels relieved. He has been told "yeah" is a bad word. One must only say "yes, sir." Especially when one does not mean it.

The stranger asks why. Why does the boy go to the buttes? The boy shrugs. It was nice, being out there alone sometimes.

Alone, the man ponders out loud. Out here, there is not much else.

"It depends on what you know to look for."

The stranger's nonexistent smile widens. The boy feels the man's comment was a test and the boy has somehow responded correctly. The boy knows this is only a feeling. He knows he is an unnecessary romantic. Or, more correctly, he has been told he is a derogatory word meaning "unnecessary romantic."

"There's an eagle that nests on one of the buttes. I watch him sometimes.

"Want to walk over there with me? It's still early."

The boy starts setting up his tent a distance from the cliffs. The man watches. The boy says he needs some distance to see the eagle well. He can't see anything looking straight up. The man nods.

"You can see him too. Just wait." The boy brings out something swaddled in heavy padding. He unwraps it. He does so gently. It is Christmas season. He cannot afford the risk of breaking this thing. He is only allowed to ask for something during Christmas.

On Christmas Eve the boy goes to church. He does well in Sunday School. Everyone there says he is such a good and smart and polite young man, but he knows they lie. If they did not they would not just tell these compliments but fight if need be to make them believed in the boy's house. But it was good that the church-people lied. If they did not, what kind of home would he have? It was so good that church-people lied, thought the boy, or he would have to admit that he had no home and be without it and soon starve, in the desert of the world.

He was in the desert now. He had often been here, and knew to find food. But this desert was only a game. He had been told that any desert he walked in was only a game.

He unswaddled his baby: a spotting scope, 5-30X, with zoom magnification. You can use it too, the boy says to the man. "Just be careful. I saved up summer work money a long time for this."

"How long?"

The boy shrugs. "Does it matter?"

"How long?" The man repeats so softly the boy can hardly hear him.

"Three years."The boy whispers back.

The man's sad eyes say that three years is a long time for a boy. The boy shrugs. He is used to it. The hard part was not the saving. The hard part was having such a prize and having to keep it hidden at a friend's house. The friend was good but might still steal the scope,though the boy shared it often.

If "the old man" had known of the scope he would have broken it before the boy's eyes. His "old man" is a priest. He is also an electrician but he preaches of the value of a dollar. He harasses the boy with chores so long as he is at home and is angered at the boy's sometimes-habit of going off without permission; he made the boy toil at the local work farm each summer to pick string beans and told him this was necessary employment for the boy would amount to no better. The boy picked beans in the autumn too, when he was ridiculed for being no good in the sports he was not allowed to play.

He should have been good at these games without playing. He picked beans when he should have been doing his work for school, but made top grades anyway. This was good for had he not it would confirm he "would amount to nothing." At least he was not in the deserts, and starving.

Mother said nothing, or sometimes a little. The boy knew he had to be grateful. If he was not, they said, no one else would have him. No one but the desert.

All knew and hated the boy for getting top marks, for he was as a sissy and a nerd and a freak; all thought this, the old man sneered, did not the boy realize all thought this? No one at school said this but the boy knew him right.Despite their words of praise the church-people thought this.

However, the old man is equitable when he sneers at the boy for being "sensitive." It was not only men who are not supposed to cry. Women also. Women should not cry because they should not think big thoughts, or know anything but elation in his presence, and at the things he can buy them. The old man has no daughters. It is better that way. Perhaps the old man would make a radical exception with daughters, but the boy does not know what good that would do.

The boy is not allowed nice things. He is not allowed nice things, even though the old man is "well off." The boy saved three years and three days for the scope. That he already understood how to work hard and be a man would not have pleased the old man, who is not really the boy's own "old man," and not so old anyway.

"I like your scope."

The boy shrugs. It is a common reaction of his.

He cannot keep the scope in his room. He cannot look on it with pride as he lies in bed and the lights wink out. The scope is not an object but a free and conscious friend. The boy does not consider it his. In this world, he possesses nothing. He has grown to like things this way.

The man walks from the camp. The boy is surprised. He follows to the foot of the pillar of rock. The man unslings his backpack. He removes rock-climbing gear: chockstones, nuts, karibiners, webbing, nylon rope.

The boy asks, You're going to climb the butte? The stranger nods. Alone? the boy asks. The stranger takes the circular piece of webbing and folds it into a diaper harness around his waist and legs. and connects the harness with a locking karibiner.

"Why?" the boy says.

The man shrugs. He starts to climb.

The boy returns to his camp. He positions his spotting scope to watch the man's progress. The man's advance is slow. He places very few anchors at the low points on the rock. The boy does not know if the man is reckless or conserving them for when the need is greater.

The boy repositions the spotting scope. He aims it to where the eagle's nest sits on a small ledge near the summit. He focuses. The bird is present. This is unusual. The eagle likes to soar on the updrafts at this time of day. It hunts. He is unsure what it hunts for. Sometimes it just circles the butte.

The boy zooms in. The movement of the eagle's wings are wrong. The boy refocuses. One of the wings hangs at an odd angle.

The boy licks his lips. The eagle is too high. It cannot return to ground. The precision needed in the descent is too great. It cannot descend. It cannot return. But the break is too large. It will not heal of its own accord.

With no other choice, the Great Bird of Prey might try and fall and crash, pained and delerious.

It is later. The climber moves up the rock. The boy sees him place each anchor. The man is halfway to the summit. It has taken until noon to get that far. His path will take him up through the ledge where the eagle roosts.

The boy wishes he could call up to the man. A wounded eagle might strike out. It might not comprehend that no harm was meant. Such a bird's talons could cause much damage. And this eagle can go nowhere. The man could easily avoid it if he so wishes.

The boy does not so wish. He does not want to warn the man. He hopes the man would come upon the bird. He wishes the man will save the bird. The boy knows it is unrealistic to hope. He knows he only hopes because he is an unnecessary romantic. Or a derogatory word that means "unnecessary romantic."

The eagle is clear in the lens of the scope. The wing is broken midway along its length. When the bird tries to move the limb the outer portion flops.

Dusk comes when the man is twenty yards from the summit. Darkness makes viewing through the spotting scope impossible.

The boy can see the man reach the ledge. The eagle will not take kindly to the intrusion. The boy expects commotion.

He looks. He sees none. He listens. He hears nothing. It means there is nothing. Sound carries far in the desert.

The moon happens to rise behind the butte. The boy sees the man and the eagle silhouetted. It does not lash out at him.

The boy does not sleep. He writes in his journal. He writes poems. He writes them in a notebook always kept hidden lest it be ripped before his eyes: the eyes of a sissy, and a nerd, and a freak.

The boy wakes. He sits up. The sun tops the butte. The brilliance sits upon the ledge. It blinds him. He still cannot see the man or the bird. The man will die. He has not come down. He has no water, the boy remembers. It has been three whole days, or perhaps four.

He must thirst, thinks the boy, for I do. I thirst. The boy cannot wait much longer. He will be missed. He has left without permission. "The old man" will be angered. The old man does not care about the boy's welfare. But he has been gone without permission.

The boy walks north. When he goes a mile he can see the ledge. He sets up the spotting scope. Looking through it he sees neither bird nor man. He does see the man's climbing rope. It is just now cut loose, though the boy can see no one release the top end. It tumbles off the butte to the ground.

The boy scans the butte. Nothing living clings to the rock. He looks up from the scope. The eagle, circling off the butte, is a familiar shape. It flies strangely as if in pain.

It tries to soar. You cannot soar, the boy thinks, it is too late and your wing is broken. You will fall and you will die. The boy does not speak, however; not that the eagle could understand such speech. But the boy does not speak, for he understands that the eagle would die anyway, in the desert, in the nest. It merely would not fall.

The boy sees the eagle's wing buckle at the apex of the ascent. Momentum carries the shape into the glare of the sun.

The boy waits and watches, though the light burns his eyes. He waits for the bird to fall. It has to. He knows it has to. He has been told it has to.

The bird does not fall.

The boy waits for perhaps a half-hour but the heavens are silent. He wonders what to do. But he is still a boy, and this desert only a game.


He takes up his pack. He starts to return.

He has been gone without permission. He will be punished.

Heaven fell on herself tonight
As the devil met me in the wishing well
And in that moment I found myself knowing
That in the end it's just about you and me
Nothing smaller or larger
Though dragons are good for the soul
Nothing can be better than baring yourself for another...
Open for scrutiny, ridicule, and indulgence
Therein lies the balls, and the mind, and the heart...

When nothing is left...
Everything is gained...

Though endings are never ever happy
It's the happy moments along the way
That in the end
Make it...ok...

-Five for Fighting, "Nothing"

The Weeping Dragon

a Childrens’ Book

by Cadmann Warner
illustrated by Marcus Laurinaitis
______________________________________________________

There is a Great Dragon, who lives among a settlement of elfin people, and forever weeps.

***

There once was a dragon. He was not like the legends described dragons. He did not eat elfin people, or burn them with fire, or spit acid on them, or step all over their houses.

And the dragon came upon a surprise. If for a time the elfin peoples were allowed to grow old and not be burned, or stepped all over, or spit upon, some of them became dragons themselves.

They were not all like him; some had no wings, some could not breathe fire but only spit acid, or lightning, or even merely spittle. But all had one thing in common: they also did not thoughtlessly burn or eat elfin babies, or children, or step all over their houses, or spit upon them.

And all other dragons watched over the elfin peoples, though none more than the first dragon.

And, in time, all these other dragons went on, in search of other elfin peoples' to watch over, that they might one day be dragons themselves.

And it came to pass that the first dragon realized that although he watched over them, the elfin people feared him.

And he gathered them together and said, "You have no need to fear me. See, I pull aside the scales of my breast, and whoever would strike a blow may do so. I am your protector, and defender, and shall always bare my whole and vulnerable heart to you." And none of the elfin people struck him with their elfin swords, and the dragon was glad.

But the elfin people had each murmured to himself or herself, and to each other: "If we struck but did not at once destroy this dragon, his rage might be fierce, so we had best not strike at all."

And so one day the dragon said, "I must walk together with these elfin people, for I know that though they accept me and would not harm me, yet do they fear me."

And the dragon called upon the magic of the Creators, Sky and Earth, and all the Others, and they granted him to walk among the elfin people as a human, though They insisted he not be quite so small as they, but tall and proud. And the dragon walked among them.

And as he walked, he did not hear the elfin people say to himself or herself, and to each other, "This dragon is more a threat to us than ever.

“Before, as our protector and defender we could tolerate this threat, of his power. But now he is one of us, and even of no use to us, and weak. But in his weakness still is the potential for strength, for he could yet become again a dragon among us, and be as we know dragons really are, and eat us, and burn us, and step all over our houses.

"Yet if we strike now, unlike before, we may even with our tiny, elfin swords eviscerate him with one blow, and split his heart, and he may die, and we need never again fear dragons."

And the elfin people said to the once-dragon, "Do you remember how you used to pull apart your breast scales and bare yourself to a blow, and say, Whoever would strike a blow may do so, I am your protector and defender and shall always bare my whole and vulnerable heart to you?'

“Would you show us once again, for old times' sake?"

...And the dragon spread his arms and began to speak ...

But before he had finished the first words, the elfin people fell upon him, and tried in vain to eviscerate him with their tiny swords, and in vain to with their elfin swords split his great heart.

And the dragon stood for a moment, surprised, for even as a man their tiny, elfin swords could scarcely make so large a heart as his bleed, and could not kill him.

But the once-dragon realized what they had meant to do to him, and from within his heart broke, and burst. And he fell.

And suddely the sky split with lightning, and dripped with acid, and even merely spittle ...

***

...And hundreds of dark forms descended upon the elfin people, the many forms with wings carrying those without.

And the dragons surrounded the elfin people and said: "You fools! You nest of vipers! We have searched long and hard, yet have still no found any other elfin peoples.
Did you not know that we would have watched over you, that some of you might grow into dragons yourself one day? And none more so than he, who you have killed!"

And the many dragons snatched the spirit of the First Dragon as it fled his body, and they returned to it its dragon power, and each living dragon infused it with a little of their own. And the slain dragon rose, and his body changed into a dragon once again, more powerful and fearsome than any dragon had ever been.

And in their anger the dragons said: "These fools! This nest of vipers! Come, what matter is it that some would be dragons? Let us burn them all, and eat them all, and and step all over all their houses!"

But the once and now-again Great Dragon said, No. For there are those among them who will yet be dragons themselves, one day ...

"Go," he said. "Find your own elfin peoples, while I watch over these. Though never again may I bare my whole heart to them."

And the Great Dragon lives among them, and watches over them still, and now, and in all ways.

Even unto the end of the World.

The Boy Who Walked On Air

Once upon a time there was a Boy who walked on Air. He walked not high on air, only a couple of feet. He walked not high on air, for it was only because his beloved, the Earth-Princess, would not let him touch her.

Others touched her. All the other people he had ever seen walked on her up and down in fact. However, the Earth-Princess told the boy: “You are special, you are my chosen. But as you may not touch me until we are wed.

And so the boy went, into the world, that he might find one to teach him what it was to be a man, and have a man’s work.

The first creature the boy found looked like a man, and worked on an anvil, hammering out golden horseshoes. this creature had many wives, all twisted and chattering and ugly, drooling all, and all surrounding him and fawning on him and even interfering with his work to gain his attention, though his work was to make the very gold horseshoes that fascinated them.

The boy told the creature his story, and the creature said, “If you would be like me, then you must provide practical services! See how many horses stand in my stable to be shod!” The boy looked, and saw horses that stretched in a waiting line all the way up to a far mountain, and beyond which the boy could not see. But most of the horses appeared old, and very old, as if they had waited long.

And the first creature swung his hammer, and gold exploded in thin flakes as he struck the horseshoe, and his blow exposed the dull, rusty iron he had plated. The boy saw the creature’s wives scatter as they realized what little gold he actually had, and the creature wept for awhile. But then he rose and started to plate his horseshoes with gold yet again, only to have scores of new wives drawn by the glitter, and the horses neigh outside as they paced in the cold, unshod.


The boy went on and found a second creature, who held a parchment tablet. With careful measurements the second creature was examining drawings of horseshoes. The boy told the second creature his tale, and asked why he examined drawn horseshoes.

And the second creature replied: “If you would be like me, then you must understand the essence of the gold horseshoe. You must understand the essence, for even the most solid gold horseshoe you may cast is but a pale reflection of the essence. Then, when you understand the essence of the Gold Horseshoe you may manipulate any base metal, even lead, even any object, yea black soil itself. You may manipulate it into the form of a gold horseshoe, and you will be a man, whose wives will never run away.”

But the boy looked about and saw no horseshoes, nor wives. He spoke of this to the second creature, who said that he could create a golden horseshoe at any time he pleased. He said that he could make a gold horseshoe, and attract many wives, and he simply chose not to at this time.


The boy went on to a third creature, whom he found poking a finger into he sand. The boy told the third creature about the first two foolish creatures, and the third creature said: “Those two foolish creatures! The golden horseshoe indeed has a pure essence, but the essence cannot be captured. And because the essence of the gold horseshoe cannot be captured it can only be reflected by the humble hand of an artist. See how I have drawn a gold horseshoe in the sand?”

The third creature told the boy to try this, and the boy drew a horseshoe in the sand. He drew a horseshoe, though it did not look much like one, and reflected that this artist’s drawing did not look like a horseshoe at all. But the boy felt better and said: “At least I can do this."

More, he soon found that, unlike this rather bumbling artist that the boy still knew he must call master for now, the boy was quite good at this. "I can do this, and now I am a man with a man’s work, and may wed wives, or at least the one wife whom I love.”

And though the boy had but whispered the third creature rose, red with anger. “Wives? Wives? Do you not know it is bad to be a Man, and that those who are Man walk all over Princess Earth’s face? They walk on her face and defile her, and should be ashamed.”

And the boy said, “But are you not as a Man, creature, and do you not walk as all creatures but I do, upon Her?” And the creature said, “Yes, but I am properly ashamed.”

“All I wanted to do was touch her face,” the boy said, and walked away, doomed to trod only upon the air.

Starting in a hollowed log of wood - some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning ... I ask myself "Why?" And the only echo is "damned fool ... the Devil drives!

-Sir Richard Francis Burton

Snakes and Snails, and Puppy Dogs' Tails

Behemoth strode the Plains one day, the earth shuddering with each thundering step. Trembling in the grass, Rilke the Snail heard someone call his name.

Voice quivering, the snail replied: “Hello there. Who are you?”

“I am the great Behemoth,” the voice said.

“Are you anything like me at all?” the awefilled snail asked.

“In few ways,” the voice said. “Yet more ways than you think. I simply can do many things you cannot.”

“Like what?” the snail asked.

“For example, I am so large I need fear no predator,” Behemoth said.

“That would be nice!” the meek snail exclaimed.

“And while your eyes sit on two stalks,” the voice said, “my entire head looms high on my body, allowing me to see farther vistas than you could travel in your lifetime.”

“Amazing!” the snail said. “What else?”

“Where you crawl, I walk on legs thick as trees, the voice said.

“That is hard to believe,” the snail said. “But I suppose it is possible. What else?”

“I have a voice that can thunder across the Plains and strike awe and terror into all who hear it,” the voice said.

“I noticed.”

“No--I have not yet even begun to thunder!” the voice tried to boom. “And now I bid you--crawl here and bow and submit to me!”

Rilke the Snail pondered the last command for a moment. Then he stammered, “W-w-wait a moment. Why is your voice such a quiet whisper now?”

“Because ... er ... because I choose now not to roar,” the voice said. “Now--come bow to me!”

“N-no!” the snail said, summoning his resolve in the face of his fear. “No--you are a liar and you have gone too far--and I shall not obey your order until I hear the thunder of your true voice!”

Just then one of great Behemoths’s footsteps hammered the earth, making Rilke believe he was about to be crushed underfoot at any moment.

“Did you do that?” Rilke the Snail said.

“Uh huh,” the voice said, smooth and hissing.

Rilke summoned up his courage and said, “I don’t believe you--do it again.”

But just then, the footfalls thundered again, except Rilke realized the tremors were growing faint, moving away from him at a fast, if bone-jarring trot.

The instant’s relief soon gave way to despair, however. He crawled along his path, despondent. All the great Behemoth had asked was unquestioning obedience, and in reward who knew what the snail would have been given? Would he have been brought up to ride upon Behemoth’s head as if on eagle’s wings? Would he have seen the world from the clouds, more world than he could ever travel in a thousand lifetimes?

And Rilke the Snail wept.

*******************************************************************

Then the next day, as Rilke the Snail moved along a leaf on a large tree’s branch, the earth started to quake again. Not daring to look, the snail dropped his head and prostrated himself (at least as much as is possible for a snail). And he cried out in his very loudest voice, “Oh great Behemoth, forgive my unbelief!”

Suddenly, Rilke’s entire body was moving through the air! He opened his eyes and raised his head, to see the enormity of the being before him. Even one of the appendages was enormous, holding Rilke and the entire leaf by its stem with amazing gentleness and control.

“What is this? What is this?” the giant face said, one moon-sized eye peering at the snail as the giant creature’s voice made the whole forest shudder.

“Forgive me, Behemoth,” the snail said. “For I see now that your voice can thunder just as loudly as you said, and how wrong I was to doubt your power.”

“And when did you do this?” the great Behemoth said, curious and with humor.

“Why, just yesterday,” the snail replied.

“We had no conversation yesterday,” great Behemoth chuckled, his chuckle like an earthquake. “Little snail, do you have any idea how many serpents hide in my shadow, claiming to be me and enticing their prey to come closer? Little snail, the only way you survived was by being willing not to fall for this trap--even if to do so you thought you were challenging me!”

“But ... if I had questioned you would I not have been crushed?”

Great Behemoth shrugged. “Perhaps. But then, why would I feel threatened by the insult of a pretty little snail?”

And Behemoth placed Rilke the Snail upon His great back. “Come, snail, ride upon me,” he said. “The world is so much larger than even Me, and there are such wonders to see!”

There’s a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There’s a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
Ther’s a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There’s a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

King of Pain ...

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running ’round my brain
I guess I’m always hoping that you’ll end this reign
But it’s my destiny to be the King of Pain

-The Police, "King of Pain"

Intensive Care

No heroic measures, she said,
partly lying.

Like bannered knights
in stainless steel they
prance, scalpels, forceps like
sharp hooves sparking from tile
cobblestones, or
rattling old bones; though lions
roar lightning, against darkening skies,
and turn on them
permanent, overcast eyes.

In hospitallers’ whites
tight jerkins still unstained,
not long, as the clouds rain
thunder. And in Fenrir’s
very face they don
their armor, but for it all
are swept under the rush
of the Waters
and the roars
of Leviathan.

Hangatyr

Ghosts winter
in my house, and I allow them, so long
as they do not bother the pregnant Man
who gnaws down the walking tree
the World Tree, where Sky hangs.

“Do not muzzle the ox,” I make sure
to say, “ - that carnivorous ox -
that treads out for you the
Ghosts, of holy
men.”

I took a guess and cut a portion out of my heart
He said that's nowhere close enough but it's a damn good start
I wrote the secret that I buried on the wishing well wall
He said I've seen one... it follows that I've seen them all
We spoke of human destination in a perfect world
Derived the nature of the universe (found it unfulfilled)
As I took him in my arms he screamed I'm not insane
I'm just looking for someone to understand my pain...

It's a long way out...
I'm gonna make it out

-Five for Fighting, "Devil in the Wishing Well"

Blaspheming

One cannot sacre
who would not profane.
One cannot prophecy
who would not blaspheme.

One cannot love
what he would never
kill.