The Writing Beast

I am compelled to write.  Why is that?  Why, particularly when I agree with the sentiment of Ecclesiastes 1:9:

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."

Every idea which can arise in the human mind has been thought, spoken or written many times before.  That is my assumption.  Originality is overrated, perhaps impossible.  Reformulation and restatement is all we can hope for.  Countless ideas are nestled deeply in the culture we inherit. We stumble upon  old thoughts and mistakenly believe we express them for the first time. We restate ideas in our time.  Others restate them a bit differently.  

First, writing is my method of thinking carefully.  Setting down naked thoughts makes errors and shortcomings more visible.  The process of rewriting grades the road, modifies the syntax and listens for images.  I may write a thousand words to craft several hundred in the final draft.  I follow thoughts where they lead and filter out the irrelevant later.  Often I discover what becomes the central point sifting through tangents and eddies. I write to discover what comes out.  As I rewrite I push all the unused sentences to the bottom.  I have learned to erase very little.  Often something I previously rejected resurfaces, with a few changes, as just what I need.  I save this detritus along with each of several drafts.  I may return to a subject and find them waiting.

Our Greek fathers first put ideas into writing, a form that coincidentally lived after them.  Before that, ideas were forged and sharpened in debate with associates.  Socrates belonged to the last generation to hold discourse more accurate and useful than any written work. Some ancient texts read like lecture notes.  They were set down to remind speakers of points to hit along the way.  They read like outlines rather than finished exposition.

and impossible to validate.  I write to demonstrate, first to myself, that my head works, that my process is accurate.  We write to prove we understand.  We publish so others can decide if we do understand. 

I started this exercise as a poem.  Poetry is one damn lot of work.  Perhaps some day I'll complete the verses.


Fragments, then sentences
flow onto the glowing surface
probing paths which never lead
to the destination which sat me down
and pushed the button. thoughts
now recoiling from exposed concreteness
worms squirming for any shadow's relief.

Once again, writing.
Taking courage from the blank space
not every previous piece completely failed
at every level. Hopeful, optimistic process
may birth a timeless truth freshly stated
might expose my foolishness in a new way
or establish my uncertain feel for some
concept the ancients beat to death.
May not strike every note false,
could resemble worthy discourse.

My thesis will premise,
The world recreates itself in every child,
We grownups porter shards of word-hoard
until we falter. By what art can we know
how faithfully we transmit our part?
Only by writing can we discover if we
got it or simply cooked up what might pass
for truth on a dark night.


And so I posit the inevitable, innocent effusion
of derivative and duplicative restatement
in contemporary clothes ad infinitum
Nominally searching for one original idea,
we half-wittingly draft restatements
of our assimilated culture's foundational assumptions
for all to view and judge by what degree
we miss the mark
and muddy sacred heritage bequeathed,
obscuring every concept through
perception's foggy glass. Then trickster memory
forms sentences masquerading as original
thought in fact restating timeless concept.

Originality is overrated, perhaps rare,
perhaps a fiction to keep us moving,
mistaking old thoughts in stylish hats
for the real thing.


Did we understand?  are we successfully
shouldering some scrap of intellectual
inheritance.

The likely ignorance of readers
will fail recognizing original thought
however accurately restated.
The clear idea we so boldly, poorly parrot.
All-round confused, we sense originality.

As I was saying, the world recreates in every child

Mature faith and finely-graded comprehension
subtlety of movement, carefully tested assumption
varieties of ignorance, suspicion and hate
highest art, deepest faith, what never works
all winks out at each soul's passing.
The basics repeat, crawl, toddle, walk, run
Isolation, helplessness, parenting, society
individuals variously bound-up in the whole
language, communication, interdependence

We learn by falling, learn from pain, dislike coercion
converge on the normal gait because bodies
cover the most distance with the least energy
exactly the same way, always, without observation or example.
We grant fire respectful distance through burns endured.

Questions yield answers. Right answers, wrong answers,
many answers, no answers, choices, differences without
distinctions, nonsense possibly intentional. Lies and truth,
complementary and contradictory, paradox,
faith maintained in the absence of evidence.
The bedrock of one's own experience. Authority.
Innocence, the-first-time, first love, first heartbreak, rejection
repetition, routine, satiation, boredom, work, sweat, rest, indolence.
Novelty, sensation, pleasure, intoxication, loss, grief, death.

We select milestones, enshrine and enrich explorers, saints,
discoverers, leaders, rulers, battles,
inventions, debacles and defeats.
Culture is immense piles of stories and objects,
sung by parents to children, celebrated . . . . . . .

Surely, good Sir, this longish litany leads some where?
To some lesson worthy? Your welcome wears thin so lacking
reputation, so unlettered, so contemporary.

The words seize life, dearest reader,
they would write themselves
most generously.  Very well.

I write to think more clearly. 
To face ideas on the page
where they will sit still. 
Writing to recognize my own foolishness.
Writing to demonstrate that I have learned
something that feels important.
I rarely write to convince anyone
of anything.  I have learned
no one who would benefit
from my experience will absorb it.
I know how impossibly stupid, deaf and credulous
I was in my twenties.

I remember how strong and irresistible
sex is, what tales we will
invent to render others willing
to come to our beds, how they
will transform kindness into
a perception of being loved
when the evidence is so very thin.
I remember how weak I can be,
how careless with the hearts of others. 
I know these feelings and drives
exist to perpetuate the species. 
I marvel at their power to make
me consider throwing away real love and loyalty. 
I never actually fathered children. 
I escaped being yoked
to unsuitable, unstable women.  But only barely.
I missed the satisfaction, trials
and joy of natural children.

I have always known there are enough children in the world
because I was a surplus, inconvenient child.

I know I was sired by young people from strong Lutheran families,
families that worked with Lutheran social services
to place me with another strong Lutheran family.
In so doing I inherited the social, cultural and physical
advantages my birth parents would have given me had
I not had such poor timing been born.

I expected to be vaporized in an atomic explosion.
I was stupid enough to believe in free love, to be exceedingly
careless with the feelings of others and with my own.

I had a serious argument with God.  I sensed that no God
worth following could be cruel enough to condemn
the vast majority of His children to perdition.
I was not imaginative enough to understand
the subjectivity of Truth.  I was too blind to see God
at work in every religious tradition.  I had no concept
how much strength believers could receive from their faith
and their churches. Not that my parents did not plead with
me in every possible way.  I lost faith and nothing anyone
would ever say ever resurrected my child's faith.
I would not participate
even though I was so well socialized Lutheran
that every way I rebelled against that tradition
failed to serve me.
 

Wars start when the veterans of previous wars grow old
When heroes and cowards boast of Glory
When veterans finally lock away their nightmares.
The young can always be incited to war and glory
For the futility and obscenity of war are difficult to render pornographic
The disillusionment of war is does not transmit well culturally.
War looks promising to those who never lived one
to warrior professionals, to armament industrialists
to the insane, to the greedy past enlistment age,
to politicians on the flimsiest pretext.

War appeals to civilians treasuring an imagined history
of suffering and oppression who can be stirred up to
imagine the satisfaction of revenge and retribution.

2013.