Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...

[Phil Talbot]

... they/we/i/you have 2 much to say for/4 ‘them’selves ... like ms o’kelly ...
ps ... & no one said it was go’ing 2b ‘easy’ b.tween ‘gilgamesh’ ... & ... ?! ...

[Phil Talbot]

... I actually ‘forced’ to be ‘re-assigned’ here ... because I ‘liked the look’ of ‘humanity’ ... but then I ‘saw’/otherwiseexperienced ‘the horrible howling of the Yahoos’ [$wift] ... & I watched, eg, Israeli massacres of Palestinians, (as the rest of ‘their’ world looked on) & I thought-feeled/felt ...

[Phil Talbot]

... there are always other ways ...
... you are ‘damned’ because Eve&Adam ate from the TreeOfKnowledge ...
... Prometheus gave to ‘humanity’ the KnowledgeOfLight ...

[Phil Talbot]

... (universal) tragedy? ... (universal) comedy? ... you decide ... ) ...
... trgycmdy for the spacetime being ...

[Phil Talbot]

  remembering ‘TheFool’ ...
Even his death was doubtful.
Even his death was ‘doubtf’l’
The world had seen so much, it’s sad weight
Crushed to nothing concern for a fool’s fate:
General woe, great decay, made it but a trifle.

He disappeared as if to spite Morning/mourning;
Going to bed at noon,
Not too late, not too soon;
Outside, a naughty night was storming.

Fool-father Socrates takes the stand ...
etc, etc, etc

[Phil Talbot]

Anyway ...
If I had gone off .,, given into Clare/Claire that night, in the taxi ..,. into my ‘home’ of that time ... she would not have married a ‘millionaire’ .,, & I would not have ‘turned’ out 2b ... a chain-smoking piss-artist paranoid schizoid manic depressive ‘fucking arsehole .., ! ... ‘funnny how ‘things’ turn out ...

[Phil Talbot]

2024 ... new year day ... the ‘pilgrim’ wakes to find her-/him-self lost in a ‘dark wood’ ... terrified @ b’ing alone in so dismal a place ... he/she ‘rambles’ ... until ... a hill ‘bathed in sun-light’ ...

[Phil Talbot]

... nearing the ‘end’ of my journey in (‘this’) life ...
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
For I had wandered/rambled off from the ‘straight path’.

How hard it is to tell what it is/was like ... ?!!

[Phil Talbot]

On (too) many occasions I have thought-felt life ‘worthless’.
But ... if I were to say: Destroy ItAll in a nuclear war ... would that make me more of a ‘nihilist’ than those who actually build/create/envisage/support/‘champion’ those terrible ‘things’?!
Anyway ... the ‘suicide’ kills him/herself because she/he believes his/her life has no longer any enduring ‘meaning’ ...
Was I ‘there’ yet?!
Not ‘quite’/‘quit’ ...
But ...
Could the world/God/gods/Cosmos/call’it’what you will ... have an ‘end-point’ ? ... after which ... ‘no more ... for better or for worse ...’
‘It’ was not there yet ... but there was a sense among a growing many that I/we/they/it was reaching (towards) some sort of ‘endpoint(.)’ ...

[Phil Talbot]

‘Might/May I suggest “ravingsofamadman’ as a title (4 these ramblings)? she (BigC./littlec. = ‘C/cunt($)’wondered/ suggested) >
I made no reply.

[Phil Talbot]

Even his death was doubt-ful.
The world had seen so/too much, its sad weight
Crushed to nothing concern for a fool’s fate:
General woe, great decay, made I but a trifle.

He disappeared as if to spite mourning/Morning
Going to bed @ noon,
Not 2 late, not 2 soon;
Outside, a naughty night was dawning/storming.

Truth-teasing in life, he left behind
Ambiguous death-clues. The poor fool was hanged:
King’s knave mourned? Or dead daughter affection slanged?
Uncertainty, the fool’s eternal bind.

Gone, lost, but not leaving nothing
(He was no altogether fool),
A ‘discarded’, but ‘umbrageous’ tool,
Those who scan can still note him.

*****

[Phil Talbot]

Innocents followed him:
Noble savages; holy simples;
Skin-saving whimsicals;
Ingenues, bright and dim.

But never again were coxcombs couched
Or crowns cut and egg-middles eaten:
Denied free range, yoked and beaten,
Caged and crestfallen they crouched.

Victims now, someone told lies of them,
Tricked them with travesties of the fool’s dilemma,
Tying them to form-clause catches, 22 in number.
Then, like dogs, they were killed, ad hominem.

*****

[Phil Talbot]

Victims now, someone told lies of them,
Tricked them with travesties of the fool’s dilemma,
Tied them 2 form-clause catches, 22 in number.
Then, like dogs, they were killed, ad hominem.

*****

[Phil Talbot]

Alas, poor Yorick,
The sigh was not 4 a single [=1] corpse,
Nor death’s dissolution of human hopes,
But for/4 a loss more/2 general, 2/too ‘specific’.

[Phil Talbot]

Parson Yorick’s ancestors
Followed a dying calling:
Hamlet knew that (his own antics palling)
Cold calculations made cod-pieces of jesters.