The Suicide, or on Eliot

We fear what we do not know.

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I dreamed a vision where my flesh unwound itself
From sinew, where my legs collapsed
After supersonic death passed, and my intellect
Leaked out in streams from cracked cranium.
One measure of burned smoke soaked my soul
Better than ninety-seven ounces of ether ever could.
There are only personal apocalypses.

No motion pictures present the notion of darkness
With any accuracy.
None, nothing.

For me no more the obstinacy of no regret--
Black can absorb any color;
No more the tenacity of living with no water
While disembodied voices tell me of ancient history.
(Aeschylus's epitaph does not fit my life
Of all pen and no spears; just stilettos
Stabbing through meager armor.)
This brain is not dry anymore.

No motion pictures present the notion of darkness
With any accuracy.
None, nothing.

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A box closes softly loud
Where Gerontion lies still.
The box is a size too big
For a small stature to fill.
The coffin portrait shows him in his prime,
A mocking and libelous crime.
No one has skill; they dream of it.

The best party only occurs on a man's death,
After life steals his breath
And the galaxy-traveling train scoops him
For a free ride to eternity.
The conductor's dark form hides nothing sinister.

A poet's soul hides in some dark abscess of the cave,
Chains broken, ready to escape
Fearing no consequence in pursuit of real landscape.
Shadows' shadows cannot satisfy unnatural eyes;
Now those eyes acclimate themselves to darkness.

Beethoven ordered Sonata 14 his way for a reason:
The final verse of an artist's life
Is filled with tempestuous light
Coming from a midnight storm.
A final symphony for the end of a man.
At eternity's gate two hands clutch a head with no eyes
Weeping Kurtz's last words.
Virgil leads us inevitably on,
A mad intensity residing in the eyes
Compelling feet forward at any and all costs.
War is necessary to understand peace.

Apathetic wires and black-and-white keys
Somehow compellingly sing of human desires.
Ten digits capture the soul of millions;
A power to make dreams reality.

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Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.