Friday, August 3, 2007

From my personal depths, a noise emerges

Just bought a Dell (something called an "Inspiron"). This is my first posting.

I gaze out upon my 600 acres and think to myself, "This landscape--so historically, monetarily, and botanically rich--is, in actuality, quite worthless."

As is my life. My land, trodden by the feet of druids and vikings, is dead under my kingship. I question my validity and worth as a poet-priest. I am more Vortigern than Arthur, more Coleridge (that opium fiend!) than Wordsworth; and yet I am less than a Vortigern and Coleridge (two zeroes) combined. Nigel Tewksbury is undefined. History shall forget me like children forget long division.

To hell with calculators. To hell with technology. Call me King of the Luddites and drown me in wine! I shall pretend it is the blood of a caveman. But, no, wine is wholly unsatisfying--for tonight I feel otherworldly and only the Green Faery will do. Absinthe, you ravish me; I am your most devout servant; your bottle is a holy relic and your liquid substance is the only true part of me. It is my soul!

Buried beneath noise, conscience--that aged, dying rat--whispers in my drunken dream:

"Nigey Wigey what is that you say? Absinthe is your soul? Awake now, or you shall piss your soul into your silk pyjamas."

I stumble to the toilet with a bulldozer brain. I wretch dryly--more! more!--and my greatest desire is to vomit it all out and to be pure again but with rotten teeth, eaten away by the acidic bile... Oh this is why a king must hide in his castle... The vomit comes--a spewing success. In utter humility and smallness I send for my servant to mop up the mess. I awake him from peaceful slumber.

"Dear slave," I ask. "Dost thou hate thine life?"

"No sir."

I weep and break into human noises. The king has been crushed; the social pyramid, abolished. In my dreams I am tormented by the riddle of the Sphinx. I solve it easily but upon awakening the confusion remains. I am half in love with it.

In the morning I ask my servant to order me a computer. Today I was welcomed to cyper space. I find it cold and empty--in other words, true.

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