THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
THE FALLING LEAF REVEIW A MONTHLY LITERARY REVIEW
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
The Falling Leaf Review (C) 2016 Jay V. Ruvolo
Publishing Editor Jay V. Ruvolo
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Table of Contents Page 04
More Perfect, In Order [essay]
Page 11
Abortion is a Woman’s Parachute [short story]
Page 29
Anonymous is Eponomously Woman [short story]
Page 41
Dissolution [a poem]
Front Cover Photo by JVR Back Cover Photo By JVR
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Bureaucracy is in itself always, and remains, in its raison d’etre, the singular guardian of the state. In America, though,
More Perfect,
we suffer a delusion that bureaucracy is
In Order;
the people themselves an institution of
here to serve the people, but it has been
An Essay Concerning Polemical Understanding
society that has been undermined, allowed to stand on faulty foundation. We the People of these United States endure a gross and vulgar naiveté
by JVR
about our standing as a people, about our irreducible personhood, and the meaning
We the people of the United States, in order
inferred by this shift in thinking. All civil
—-“order” is the only imperative for any
service agents, all governmental
State, and this state America is no different
administration and every organizational
than any other, federalist republican-
agency simply pumps out the propaganda
democratic, parliamentarian, totalitarian,
of their serving the people while they in fact
fascist, communist, tribal, feudal . . . To
protect the bureaus from the people at
what end, though, we might ask do states
every turn. There is only a state that mildly
organize? For what purpose, we might
serves a public in America, the latter itself a
wonder? Always a more perfect union?
transformation of the people into state
What is more perfect in the mind of
serving domestic animals. Bureaucrats are
any agent of the State, someone who has
public minded in this way alone sometimes,
come to believe or has been made to
if at all.
believe through his training that to serve the
In as much as we under educate at
state and only the state is the highest social
every turn in our standard public education,
ideal he can uphold. Any bureaucrat is of
we do not have nor will we have soon a
one mentality, and that is a mind that thinks
people savvy enough to understand their
of the state for the state, and all thoughts by
place or the role the state has them play.
the state, so help him God, or many
Controlled at every other turn and feeding
instances, the State.
the controllers at every one between, we
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have now a system of government in itself
we have sent none of their executives to
aligned with a program of service that does
jail, and they were instrumental in the
not serve—but the public has been
twenties for bringing on the Great
acculturated to expect this. This has been
Depression. But then Obama has four of his
so since the New Left had departed ways
Treasury Secretary’s top aides from this
with the old Left, leaving behind along with
company and others involved in bringing
older establishment ideas about order and
the economy of America to virtual collapse.
rule, the notion of service that at least was
When it is the public, however, and
the heart of the New Deal. Ask not what
never the people, that takes second place
your country can do for you is still the
to the packaging of state, you and I are
mantra of liberal American politics, right
never missed, not lost.
through the Obama Administration. The direction of government has
But we are closer to the New Deal’s 100th anniversary than we are to its
never been more strongly set at serving the
inception, and thus we have fallen victim to
government itself, or power and/or
a particularly American, and no less virulent
moneyed elites, particularly the corporate
for being American, socio-political virus, the
capitalist and economic institutions of
Cult of the New in the religion of Now.
America and the borderless empire of
Anything we have politically today, including
international investment capital.
political nothing, is newer than the too old
All thought and action is of the State,
for us now New Deal. So whatever we have
by the State and for the State. Nowhere do
now is therefore better in the simian-minded
we find a feeling for people, not in a
average American—and this includes one
poltique that has learned its rhetorical
or another lot of American college
strategies from marketing; Madison Avenue
graduates, even those who call themselves
and Wall Street corporate executives the
liberal.
new founding fathers of American politics.
The number of times over the last
As in all contemporary marketing, product is
two or more decades that I found myself on
second to package if that at all. Where then
the opposite side of an argument with fellow
do we think the people reside in this design
classmates who numbered themselves
—how many bubbles burst economically in
among the educated liberal establishment,
the last ten years and especially over the
those of the eternal left, as we used to like
last two that Goldman Sachs has been not
to say about Shelley and Blake--I used to
involved in, but the perpetrators of, and yet
number Van Gogh from among them
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because I had actually read many of his
cannot read on grade, or even attempt, in
letters--and this oppositional stance was not
any credit bearing course, the work most
because I was of the right or that I was right
college freshman used to be able to handle
wing, as too many of the more insipidly
on arriving in university, let’s say twenty-five
inclined college student who was always
years ago, let alone fifty. And this is in spite
going to confuse his knee for his brain, just
of Mayor Bloomberg opposing social
as he would the doctor's rubber mallet for
promotion. We’ve just lessened the
experience, or what he called experience;
expectations.
no. I could not get one of my closest
We are not likely to produce the kind
friends to stand in defense of liberty with
of literacy we once sponsored, but then I
anything but received ideas from the
am of the mind that thinks it is not possible
propaganda of the left or the media
to democratize literacy, which is to say, that
packaged slogans used to elicit
higher levels of literacy as we had
programmed repsonses.
encountered as givens in university are not
An articulate essay defending Roe
likely to be broadened at base, certainly in
versus Wade was beyond too many of the
society, but almost assuredly not even in
college educated. How coukld this be?
the middle of society. But then that’s what
What was next, as I had persistently
we mean by levels, by grades, by stages,
warned, was the Barbarians beating down
all of them hierarchically arranged in an
the gates. Liberalism had become
ascension of achievement. Toppling the
intellectually weak, effete, no longer
hierarchy and allowing every one to move
passiantate, overly eotional. It had
along a level field, easily moving from one
become ; prone to thinking in slogans, its
stage to another as from one square on the
minds molded by the media, reflexive in its
sidewalk to another is far from achieving
feeling rather than reasoned in its thinking..
advanced literacy. Hop-scotch with the
The chickens have come home to roost.
Truth, ping pong with ideas, randomly
Now we have a state bureaucracy only a little more than "functionally literate," which is just what the average high school
passing images in the mind are none of them what thinking is. Our solutions have consistently
graduate is expected to achieve—and note
been, for the last forty years, to reduce the
well that graduation is in itself the
standards or requirements of what is
achievement. It does not matter that half of
expected. In one short decade I saw CUNY
New York City High School graduates
make its entrance writing exam a lot easier
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to write, and in addition, twice as trouble-
from except mostly from among the fifty per
free to pass. Norming sessions in grading
cent of New York City High Schoolers who
the entrance writing exam became all about
do not read on grade--barely literate is what
how not to fail too many of the students.
we want from police officers, of course. A
From needing two passing grades, it went
man who struggles with the sports pages is
to needing one of two. From having to write
who I want to carry a gun among citizens in
a thesis driven essay on a topic that
public. Remember what Twain said; a man
required thinking like a freshman university
who does not read has no advantage over
student had been expected to think, it went
a man who cannot read. With a 9th grade
to writing a letter expressing agreement or
reading level, how invested in literacy is any
disagreement on a proposal in itself
man so beset, especially when his under
delivered as a thesis, something on the
achievement had been lauded for years as
lines of writing a letter to the editor of the
special.
daily news, itself written on the fourth grade level, or thereabouts. Still, the passing average is only
There was a time you could not graduate without reading on grade, and that was with standards of achievement in
around thirty per cent. I had had a seventy
literacy that were not reduced, that is
per cent pass rate from students in my
inflated, in order to raise the percentages of
remedial classes on this very exam, the
achievement. We do applaud everyone,
ACT, yet I ran into trouble with the Deputy
believing that even those who can’t must be
Chair of the English Department, one from
told they can in order to boost self-esteem;
which I have been left with a permanent
and of course, once self-esteem is boosted,
distaste for Community College
the one who couldn’t will become a future
Academia. Can a semi-literate person, one
can. This mentality more than any other
barely above functional literacy, graduate
mind, any other rhetorical strategy, proves
from any of our Community Colleges in
that no one is special, which is pretty much
New York City? The answer is most likely
what we’ve been getting, yet we fail to
yes—nonetheless, he would have to make
make the appropriate correlations between
strides to achieve what he should have in
how poorly we read and write with how we
High School, what most used to achieve
teach, how we teach with how we continue
upon graduation, otherwise graduating did
to mismanage our lives socially and
not happen. And where do we imagine that
politically. Literacy is one of the
our patrolmen police officers are coming
cornerstones of civilization which is not a
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synonym for colonialism or imperialism,
fiction readers are in general more sensitive
except in too many post-post structuralist
and intelligent persons, able to connect
in-formed grad students who have gone on
empathetically to others in a way that those
to get their PhDs and never graduate past
disconnected from either literacy or orality
adolescence.
(an oral folk culture that is not lesser than
However, and herein allow me to go
what we expect and defend in the highest--
off on a tangent, the political and the literary
yes, the vertical axis--ideals of literacy) can.
have for always been mutual antagonists,
Those who do not either read other than
at least metaphysically—and yes, there is
perfunctorily in an alphabetics that
metaphysics. I know, it is just another dirty
masquerades as literacy for the purposes of
word even among academicians, and one
being better disposed to media packaging,
we recoil from as much as we do the word,
or who have lost their connection to an oral
nigger; the latter a word become rock
folk tradition, complete with a firm
become method of execution, execution
foundation in ethical teaching as we have
here the assault on person, personality,
always gotten from de-politicized or a-
psychology; psychic warfare at its
politicized religion, are lost to the received
fundamental. The former was a misstep
ideas disseminated by the media, media
taking things correctly, intellectually. We
being the messages of the elite, by the elite
have become notorious for throwing
and for the elite. The empathy I speak of
puppies out with flea bath water.
here is not the insipid way some solipsists
Nonetheless, politics will for always
selfishly (and yes egoistically) demand you
remain an adversary to the leading role that
to connect to their pain, but actual empathy;
literature could play in the advancement of
right action, a Buddhist would say, and
democracy, the highest achievement of
that's not from the one's who pander
those democratic ideals we once stood for
Buddhist ideas as a cloak to cover their
and think we continue to stand for
own human impotency, but someone who is
(mistakenly). That is, in any theater of
connected to the bare Truth of Buddhist
being, the literary stands at the vanguard of
right action. There is strength in the Dalai
all civil liberties. You know that readers of
Lama, strength in Gandhi, strength in
literature, and now we have to say literary
Jesus, if we want to understand these
literature--another absurdity in our
figures in ways our narrowed and
semantics born of our degraded ability to
increasingly narrowing hop-scotch around
read . . . ; you understand that literary
received ideas promotes.
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Yet, no sane person could ever think of becoming proficient at a higher than perfunctory level in both reading and
October 22, 2016
criminal, one and another of the three, all of piece. The soul of the people and the anti-
writing, collaterally; unlikely, if love is not at
soul of the governmental administrators—
the heart of one's expression in either. For
and soul is as self-evident to me as mind is
any of us who do aspire to higher literary
to most educated Americans—are mutually
expression than most of what we read
exclusive; they share nothing in common;
seems able to sustain---and I’m not talking
each one cannot tolerate the other’s
about what we read that has no business
existence long before the move is toward
even trying to achieve higher literary
annihilation. They are as close to matter
election, but that which we parade as
and anti-matter in physics as any two things
literary---there is a way of making even the
could be in this universe.
perfunctory writing we do more literate. I
Fascist and communist, for instance,
note at every turn a debilitating ineptness in
are more like salt and water than the literary
literacy skills, even from among those
and the political are when mixed; the public
required to read, even those whose
good is only ever a debasement of what is
guardianship is literacy.
best in the people, yet the people in the
Few of us who respect the literary
worst of times will always trade their liberty,
enough to love her too much should be
barter with their freedom for a few more
surprised that writers and governments
crumbs. This has been evident from some
have always had a tenuous relationship at
of the most advanced and intelligent
best, certainly precarious and mortal in the
societies—presumably—but mostly
worst of times. Writers have often found
societies basely literate, as in the case of
themselves hanging by a precipice
Nazis Germany, a society that voted for the
whenever they have been too closely
Nazis. This is the excuse most Russian
scrutinized by political leaders, or those
Ashkenazim offer for having been members
agents of government who maintain loyalty
of the Communist Party: I had to be a
to their state in counterbalance to any
member, they forced me if I wanted to make
fidelity to art, or to the people. But then a
more money for my family.
bureaucrat’s only link with intelligence is a
A better standard of living for a lot
base and state serving pragmatism. Theirs
less than is always significantly more than
is the cleverness of the businessman or the
nothing—which is why we used to compare ourselves always to the most horrible
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places on earth; even our charities
many grotesques, and this election is a
broadcast by fundamentalist Christian
carnival of lost souls.
organizations here in America, often the
This is not to say that there is no
most conservative politically, are always
genuine charity in US, and that we
propagandizing the suffering around the
shouldn’t feel grateful for our blessings—I
world against a better life here. The
believe that we should, that there is a kind
fundamentalist right works on the
of arrogance that takes for granted
imaginative interplay of America being the
whatever we have that is beneficial for
best of all possible worlds. We are fast
living rather than merely surviving. But don’t
going from the last best hope of humankind
tell me there isn’t propaganda too in the
to the first best delusion of a future world
messages delivered through the media any
order of elites, powerful and moneyed. Big
time you see an infomercial about famine
Brother has nothing on the kind of Matrix-
somewhere in the world. And we shouldn’t
like control we will soon see and have been
take our need to be grateful for what we
seeing in part from our mass media popular
have as a signal not to advocate for change
culture; the aftermath of Michael Jackson’s
where change is necessary. Now of course
death for example.
I recognize that it is just this idea of what is
Look at how lucky we are to be here
and is not necessary that is at the heart of
in America seems to be all that any Trump
how much change happens in a society,
supporter thinks of saying, expects
and we must be aware that there are
everyone else to say; jingoism and
hundreds of thousands if not a few million
Chauvinism (in its etymology) are the
people living in America for whom a far less
thumping cries of the Trump throngs. Greed
gentle America than I remember, or a far
and nastiness, a baser meanness than I
less generous social serving America than
have ever noted before this campaign . . . I
we once knew, is still a lot better than
think never before has it been clearer who
where these millions come from, so
to choose. Particularly interesting is how
however America might change for the
the other choice is herself less than
worse, complaint is not only thin, but
desirable. Hilary is only viable because
gratitude exponentially greater.
Trump is so heinous, which is why Bernie
One of the great horrors we face
Sanders was as viable for as long as he
every election and especially this election is
was; Hilary is actually the lesser of the
that when we vote for any candidate, that vote is actually a vote for the status quo.
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Exercising your right to vote is exactly that,
themselves as the solution to politics. The
saying that what is is good enough,even if
problem with politics really is that it is not
only for now. We have yet to radicalize
political enough; it is corporate, it is
voting, but then I am going to get into my
litigatious.
Pro-test Vote cast for no candidate--protest non-vote does not say it. It is confusing and
The End
I realized that a long time ago. What I really miss from politics are career politicians, not lawyers or businessmen packaging
self-promote. What does get to be called a story? Once more, I story or I do not story,
Abortion is a Woman’s
infinitively constructed, again without gain to story or not to story is every narrator’s to be or not. That might be a question? Inquiry
Parachute
itself posing a question upon yet another by JVR
questioning, all questions are quests of kinds; Perceval wanted to know.
What is narrative? I have asked, and I have
And so on until the last syllable of
avoided asking,knowing that perhaps I
the final spoken question . . . now, whether
should have asked, or maybe that this
it is nobler in the mind to endure how we
question has been asked too often by too
dance around asking for the Truth;
many reflexively, or rhetorically, as if the
questions are inquiries which should be
asking or the posing ( I should say
searches for the truth if not a setting of the
imposing) were to have said enough. What
compass heading to that place on our
should I subject my self-to as narrator; to
metaphysical horizon. Big words or big
proscriptions too narrow in analysis of what
wind; I do blow hard the sails of this ship.
gets to be called a story . . . to story or not
Every essay is a journey; all explications
to story; I story well, I think, say if I may
journeys of discovery? Inquisitions are yet other manners of approach. What am I
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trying to say about how we avoid doing
histories? Is that not how most of us do tell
what we need to do, and here I am using
what we tell. Lions have no story-tellers,
we because it makes more comfortable
you know, without tellers . . . how much of
than if I were to use I, I, I . . .
history has not made it into any
We do want to inflict harm; we are hypocrites this way. We do hate too many people too often with an ever increasing
historiography? All stories of the hunt, you know. Historiography has been what we
intensity it seems. As easy as it is to do,
call history in itself since the dawn of
and a lot easier than those who insist they
writing, and even before, really. Orality had
do not hate are able to admit, we are
its official versions, anyone could know.
malignant. We cannot love appropriately
Yes, what then is fiction because a story
even those we say we love. We are, as
that I tell you is true before I tell it, even if all
suspected, very, very stupid? Is stupid the
of it is a lie, is accepted as non-fiction. Now,
word? Narrow minded? Could say that.
vice-versa, if what I know to be the truth,
Insipid? Afraid? Eager to a degree off the
and nothing but the truth, so help me, I tell
scale it seems to me, thus I say I think, I
you is a fictional story, and I tell you so you
think, I think therefore I am anxious. Â
can have no equivocation over accepting it
The human psyche is masochistic,
as a fiction, what then does that make it?
no? So, who gets to tell his story, her story,
Fiction, of course. What I tell, I tell as I do;
mine, this story I tell, as I have begun to, as
to tell a story is to narrate? Everything told
I have in a way you--what do I know of you?
is fiction of a kind everything argues,
I should know something. Know your
defended, insisted, said, remembered,
audience was a mantra from Freshman
recalled, recollected . . . what else have we
Comp.Classes. Who does not get to tell his
in words . . . no two words share absolute
story; who is not allowed? Permission not
synonymy. What then is connotation?
always a thing we ask for, think we must,
Narration is to tell a story, is to give a
know we can, give freely.How do we
spoken or written account of something that
prevent others from telling.
happened, but it is also a set of choices in
Telling a story is what history does,
the saying. Perception is not the only
history is what? What it should be? All in
verification of the real, but it has an awful lot
the ‘ography,' history is historiography. But
to do with what we think is real, what we
then is not history all about historiography?
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question as the only thing to believe. All
and say about what was is appalling to
philosophy is fiction, is it not?
listen to because what is most disturbing to
Now what is true and what is the
me is just how bad most people are at
Truth--and note the capital 'T here, which is
telling stories or just remembering them. I
important, yes, it is significant because it
used to think that storytellers probably
denotes something for which far too few
remember things better than people who do
today in Academia have any trust . . . in its
not tell stories, whether the stories are
validity . . . but back to it signifying . . . what
categorized as fiction or non-fiction.
does it signify? How many want to conclude
But what is this with respect for
that it does signify nothing? Â And you
objective truths . . . how facts, facts and
should be able to get this without much
more facts . . . what is it about facts that
explication.
has so many of us foaming at the mouth,
Of course, we could ask ourselves
salivating dogs? Just what is it I am saying?
just where memory fits in this explicating
People remember what they think they
fiction and non-fiction? How much of non-
remember, what their emotional baggage
fiction is after all fiction, is after all
allows them to carry with them, what room
constructed after the fact, no video tape to
is left for truth when all space is filled by our
go to, huh? I am not trying to be coy. Even
emotions . . . images in the mind, events as
a video tape is not the everything there is to
recalled lead to what in most heads?
say or hear. Fiction, from the Latin, is anything
With all the stinking refuse that streams out of mouths today, tomorrow,
made. Memory, being mostly a construction
yesterday, all time I know you know you
of the mind in the process of recollection or
should believe is one, all of it singularly
the happenstance of recall, is thus a fiction,
comprehensive . . . they drop the ball on
as I have said. Whether you agree or not is
telling. If this appeared on most social
not the issue. A thing made, I think I have
media, you would have no idea how many
said about memory many times. Yes,
impossibly inane comments there would
nothing but the facts, right? Facts, facts and
be . . . if you were anyone who read and
more facts; factory made; Henry Ford would
read deeply as if a text were a multi-
be proud of the mind’s efficiency at making
dimensional journey belied by the flatness
facts.
of the page, the linearity of the text in words What most people remember comes
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regurgitate across all social media think
October 22, 2016
The one you have assumed is your
about what they say, if thinking about what
mind remembering, recollecting, recalling—
they say were really possible because the
they are all not the same things, you know,
hop-scotch most people play with words or
the three of them: to remember, to recall, to
with the Truth does not equal what
recollect. What do you know? How much do
thinkning is or should be—yes, there are
you know with certainty? What is it that I
shoulds.
know? Can I know something? And I do not
I do want you to tell me, though, just
want to culminate with doubt, doubt and
what memory is, yes, what is it, what do
more doubt. I do not want to end with
you think it is, know it is. I do not want you
doubt, doubt and more doubt as we do, as
to tell me what you think I think it is, or what
we have done for so long now. You are
I imagine it is, what I know it is and what I
supposed to begin with I know nothing to be
do not know it is, but you, my hypocrite
able to determine what you do know, what
reader--all readers are hypocrites, my
the limits of knowing are, where knowing
brothers, my likenesses, all . . . and so
begins or ends, what it is we can call
again we return to What is it but fiction, this
knowledge. I am sure that knowledge is
thing memory? Yes, a fiction, a thing made,
possible, and I know this only because I
gaps between the images, fractured events
have not succumbed to the mandates from
as they happened? Nothing is as it
the Cult of Doubt pervading our culture; a
happened when in the mind we see it. Is it a
place where doubt, that is, doubt first and
thing or is it a place, or is it an entity? Is it
ultimately doubt, is the highest wisdom.
alive? If not entirely fiction, then partly,
I can remember without recollecting;
right? Although, how much partly we do not
when I recollect, I am remembering . . . and
ever consider, do we? How many conflicts
so on, I say, cutting short this tangent.
do you have in your life with others very
Fiction is fiction, right? Non-fiction,
close to you when facing contrary accounts
non-fiction, of course? So then, the essay—
of what you are so sure you remember?
what is it we call the essay? To essay is to
You know what I am talking about. Do you
try, to put on trial in the mind with thought.
let it go? No? You go to the video tape you
Speeches are essays; letters as essays;
have in your head, don't you? Of course
journal entries as essays? Not always.
you do, and most of all, most of us do too.
Sometimes? How often?
We are not fools, right? No? I know I am not, so what then do you think? A Monthly Literary Review
Essays in fiction, fiction in essays, essayistic fiction, fictional essays. I am not 14
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October 22, 2016
going to sort this out for you; I have not
another and another also know what they
sorted it out for me. But the fact that I am
know, don't we? Even if it is what we call
writing an essay does not mean that what I
non-fiction, a true context, it is a persona I
write is not fiction, and here I mean the
wear as the writer, narrator, expositor,
traditional or conventional notion of
teller--who am I for you? Even if it is me the
fiction. You do know that I am a fictional
editor of the in-the-world review I edit and
narrator or expositor or both--and so who I
publish, but this is not the case or is it? And
am here on the page or screen for you my
now the person and the persona have been
readers becomes a question to ask, to
conflated.
answer or at least respond to, not
Persona is person, of course . . . and
necessarily the same.
in a way, yes, personality is maskality, or so
If I were to examine what gets said by most
you could say, as I do, have . . . the masks I
reasonably intelligent persons, I would
wear, the many,many masks I wear on this
cringe; if most persons speaking or writing
and other stages around my world. The
were to examine what they have said or
many you wear as well. I have said this
written, they too would cringe.
before and I will say it again, and again,
There are days when I come to a
one story told after another story told,
place where I can accept an old notion that
narrators conflated with other narrators; one
philosophy is another kind of fiction, no?
narrator the same unnamed in one text
But then, that would not subtract from it as
after another after another together
philosophy, would not subtract from its
speaking in motifs. Wearing masks is not
veracity, its Truth-value, right? You know
what makes you phony. Sometimes I wear
that proving God does not exist--and let's
masks in my essays,the non-fiction pieces I
pretend that you can do so (just as I let the
write. Does it matter, really?
devout think that they have proof of God's
Here then is the story as entitled
existence)--if you were to find proof that
above. All titling an entitling; what is this
God did not exist, that would do nothing to
story entitled to, for, as . . . yes, everything
the veracity of the Gospels . . .
about personality is all about maskality. You
What's it going to be, then? I could
do know that /p/ and /m/ are minimal pairs,
ask. Homage is homage wherever you find
don't you . . . I am not going to insist that
it. Successful or not is another question;
you should. Should would and could;
relevant? Appropriate? You know what you
beware the moralizers telling what you
know as I know what I know as another and A Monthly Literary Review
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
should do should think should want should
in his boat without buckets. Maybe
say, would say if I could say what I should.
parachutes are not--what did I mean
So then, bailing out, bailing out,
maybe? The White Star Line did not think it
everything here hinges on this bailing
needed enough life boats for all the
out.What is this bailing out I speak of now?
passengers--is that what I am trying to say
The plane's going down in flames? Â A
about airlines and their policy of no
parachute or a bucket? What then do I use
parachutes for passengers? Having enough
to bail myself out? The President had other
lifeboats too was impractical . . . why?
ideas, didn't he? Bitch of the bankers, no?
Because of space, because of greed; how
The current election is a sidestep into side-
is it we do not see that the flip side of greed
show to confuse or confound the American
is being cheap.
voters and make them believe again that
Poor people who are cheap are only
there are ideological differences between
wishing they were rich so they could be
Republicans and Democrats when there
greedy. Being cheap is the only way poor
are not and have not been for too long. I
people get to be greedy. But that's not why
cannot trust the sincerity of the Donald. We
White Star Line did not have enough life
were just about to arrive at a place where
boats on the Titanic.
we recognized that neither party served our
It did not have enough life boats on
interests and along comes Donald T. and
the Titanic because very simply, Money has
confounds and confuses with his carnival
always said "fuck the poor," and the British
barker show. And this is even more
especially so when the poor were Irish
appalling to me and appealing to too many
Catholic. Yes, the British have always
others than Obama's Minstrel Show. Black
sucked if you are Irish and Catholic--and I
men in blackface is not a stretch. I haven't
do know that there are many (too many)?
gotten to White men in white face, the many
Protestants and Jews in America who are
minstrel shows of the American socio-
saying right now that this is too much, that
political stages we erect everywhere we
this is not a fair assessment of British policy
want to pretend to be free.
and history because when it comes to
So, whatever it is we think, if my
struggle or suffering, oppression or
airliner were going down in flames, I'd most
repression, everyone is fucking greedy. I
likely be dead soon. Airlines never think
have as much love for the poor in America
parachutes are practical. I had a friend
as I do the rich, and as much for the rich as
when I was a teenager who never went out
I do for every other fucking neoconservative
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
working man who has been streaming beer-
see, meet, know, befriend, fuck and love;
shits out of his mouth for so long he's
women. Women are women, have been
drowning in his diarrhea the way some
women wherever they have lived, have
drunks or junkies do their puke.
loved, have been abused, have been
So now the shift . . .
contracted for as breeders of men's brood,
How are women in the world in a
a brood mare, yes, women become
better position than Irish Catholics were on
domesticators because they have been
the Titanic; black women, white women,
domesticated? I question the accuracy.
Asian women, Latina women, Muslim
Women will be women remain women as
women, Hindu women, Catholic women,
women have always been women
Protestant women, Slavic women, Jewish
everywhere for all time the only way women
women, Native American women, Indino
have been allowed to be women which
women, Zoroastrian women, these women,
might not have anything to do with how
those women, fat women, ugly women,
women have wanted to be women. Did I
beautiful women, stupid women, thin
forget lesbian women; all or any of the
women, hateful women, loving and caring
many kinds of women above applying to
women, motherly women, mother-fucking
those who are lesbians?
bitch women, saintly women, devilish
The British are real pieces of shit?
women, generous tall women, tall women
The Japanese are real pieces of shit; the
with hideous legs, tall women with long
Chinese, the Russians, the French, the
gorgeous legs, sexy women, funny women,
Polish, the Arabs, the Pakistani, the
sexual women, women with big tits, women
Germans, the Italians, the Swedes, the
who laugh a lot, women who cry a lot,
Canadians, the Australians, the Americans,
women with small tits, women with medium
the Mexicans, the Brazilians, the whoever
sized tits, women with tits too big for them,
else you want to list from wherever else
women with huge tits not too big for them,
they may be from.
women with small tits just enough, mentally
Human is human enough when homo
fucked up women, sensible women, rational
sapiens is what most people believe,
women, sensitive women, reasonable
everywhere in the world. Cain is Abel's
women, rich women, educated women,
brother. So just what do you think I think the
poor women, uneducated women, hard-
Russians, the Chinese and the French are?
working women, cheap women, highly
Can you imagine what I think of Americans?
literate women, whatever women you find,
What do you think, if it is thinking that you
A Monthly Literary Review
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
do . . . because randomly passing images
Prefatory remarks made by a man who has
in the mind is not thinking, nor is playing
been made to stand for a chorus in an
ping pong with the pros and cons of ideas,
imagined play in an imagined theater? All
nor is playing hop-scotch with the Truth?
the world, you know; my hypocrite brother
Yes, what do you imagine I think of
Jacques is with me more than I realized.
Republicans and Democrats. If you really
I do recall the medieval Everyman,
need me to explain this to you . . . how is it
but then that, I have assumed from time to
we keep playing the political ping pong we
time, but never persistently past the time of
do and tire of it? Alice asked.
its arising, that Everyman should really
Don't imagine I think the Irish are not
have been Any-man, as I have alluded to
also big pieces of shit because I imagine
here above in the reference to anywhere.
everyone everywhere every-when to be big
But even more specifically, it should be any
pieces of shit. There's nothing like a real
person, even if the woman contained by the
poor piece of Irish Catholic shit in the ghetto
boundaries of any text were to bleed to
of Belfast for trying to fuck-over and keep
death from a botched abortion, presumably
down another Irish Catholic. Muslims kill
an illegal one, thus one that was not
more Muslims annually than were killed
medical practice but some other form of
throughout all of the Crusades by Christian
bodily invasion more akin to alien probing
armies. Christians kill more Christians every
or rape of one kind or another—and there
day than all the Islamic terrorists have killed
are many kinds. This would be about any
Christians since 9/11? Are these
person, as it is this anyone that I have
questions? Do we need to be on such
attached myself to, here, the presenter, the
quests? Aren’t these prima facia?
speaker, the writer, who he may be is what
I feel as if I could think that this is
he is by context given, the one who does. I
true for you in your mind, but what is in your
am not apologizing to Protestant or Jewish
mind I do not want to find out about, no, not
friends or colleagues. If they do not
really. No one wants to be in another
understand what is present here, no
person's head. You think you imagine that
apology is going to help that level of semi-
you want to be like another person, be like
literacy.
someone else, have someone else’s ;life— envy is a devil?
Yes, everyman is any-man, is anyperson, woman is person, the compound is imperative here, and we must note the connotative distinctions between 'man' and
A Monthly Literary Review
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
"person," although in Anglo-Saxon, 'man'
as we understand it, this past, this present
meant what we mean by 'person," so then
and this future, are all of them, all of it?
we have man and person and mask, what
One. Time is one; all time is one. Past,
'person' means in Latin, 'persona,' as in
present and future are illusions,no? What
"dramatis personae." My mask, my
happens when I recall something? What is
character, my personality; my manhood or
this act this happenstance this event this
my personhood; what then is a person if all
process to remember? Thus—thus what?
of these or only some of them, any one of
Can we then say, to remember or not to
them at any time—I go for all, all at once,
remember . . . I recall an essay by Oscar,
every day, any day, all the days of the rest
“To Read or Not to Read.” I recollect the
of my life have been affected by what I am
title page in an edition of his collected
living what I have been living.
works, collected, not complete. What then
The day and date are no longer important; in fact, they never were
must I say, must we do, must then do I . . . When I was a boy and my father and
important--except, perhaps, they could be
I were avid followers of NASA and the
important to someone somewhere at some
space agency's progress to the moon, I
time, concerned for the historicity of what is
learned that in every command capsule
said and how and to whom, when . . . time
there was a rather conspicuous red button
is and is not of the essence--I never knew
to push if the mission should need to be
anyone who ever knew what he was saying
aborted on the launch pad. Less than a
by half of what he said. There were many
decade after this, the Supreme court
who had no clue of more than half of what
majority decision in Roe versus Wade
they said. There were some who still have
established a woman's legal right to have
no idea what they were saying anytime
an abortion, although no red button was
anywhere to any-whom. Everyone is talking
forthcoming.
to himself--no? What she used to say, I can
In the seventies we had too many
still hear her say. Is historicity in the date, in
discussions and not enough argument
the hour, in marking the calendar? What I
about a woman's right to choose an
remember and how I remember is of no
abortion, a right I did not oppose, a right
never mind in the manner with which events
she had always had in spite of legislation to
happen in what we call time or thew time
the contrary. I would eventually come to the
we imagine we have handled with veracity
position that it is not the law that gives a
and acuity and objectivity, when in fact, time
woman the right to choose, that that right
A Monthly Literary Review
19
THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
exists in spite of the law. What the law does
woman's right to choose, which may be to
or can do is provide legal sanction, thus
have the baby, as it is also to have an
hopefully legal protection, thus a loosening
abortion. Having a baby became more
of the grip that social conventions might
about a woman's choice than her obligation
impulsively tighten around her, and in our
as a breeder after Roe versus Wade. I
contemporary political climate, a hard rain
cannot tell you how many women there are
is about to fall, Alice said her older sister
who are set against women, who do not
had said.
support women in their struggles for
To choose to end a pregnancy has
equality or liberation, she said. Alice
always been a dilemma, and after Roe
Buconiglio said as much in these and in
versus Wade the number of rocks and hard
how many other words for what she
places did not quickly lessen. If a woman--
believed, wanted to say and say again to
what woman, which woman, do you know
drive home the point. I did see how many
any woman for whom she had come to the
women were set against women, were Cain
point where she needed to make a
to every other Abel woman; and do not
choice . . . again, to choose or not to
confuse or confound the issue or the
choose became every woman's to be or
analogy. Please do not be pedantic as it
not. At least after Roe versus Wade, she
seems most people in most societies
was not a criminal for choosing one way,
cannot help but be, I would have liked to
and was expressing free-will if she should
say here, but decided against, as you can
choose the other. To have a baby or not to
see why, or should that be, hear why?
have a baby, how long had it been for
You do know that the only thing you
women feeling they had no choice but to do
need to know to tell you anything you think
what a man wanted,and how easy it was for
you might want to understand is that the
a man to deny, to abandon? Is that also
voice herein is the only voice you should
true? The Right to choose also frees the
listen to, and anything else you might want
woman who wants to have a baby. Pro-
to know is truly incidental. The story is me
choice is not only a position for a woman
telling, not what I have said alone . . . there
who wants to have an abortion. How can
are choices you make in your reading too.
anyone side with the fucking moral freaks
All women choose between having a child
that are our homegrown fundamentalists?
and aborting the pregnancy when the
The legally sanctioned right to choose an abortion honors, fore-mostly, a A Monthly Literary Review
choice arises to have a baby or not, although not quite as easily or safely as 20
THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
missions to space. There have always been
October 22, 2016
Hamlet's dilemma is to be or not to
ways to induce miscarriage, some of them
be, which is also any woman's who has to
frightening and almost concentration camp
decide if she is going to carry her
like in manner, others just dangerous, but
pregnancy to term or not and thus choose
choice is always elemental.
to terminate it. Hamlet did not raise the
The idea that an induced
issue of having a parachute or not having a
"miscarriage" has not always been an
parachute because there were no
option is a mistake. The difference in a
parachutes . . . the way she decided, how I
legally sanctioned abortion is the matter of
imagined she had . . . there were the
safety. It is the difference between having a
equivalents of life boats in the sailing of the
parachute and not having a parachute
time. When a woman wants to have a baby,
when the plane is going down in flames. Of
tries to have a baby, gets pregnant and has
course, this is not practical in contemporary
no apparent dilemma before her, she has
commercial air travel, but fighter pilots still
chosen not to abort. To bail out or not to bail
have parachutes and ejector seats to save
out is always a question. When the plane's
their lives. This is the idea. Presumably,
going down in flames, it would be great if a
under sanction of the law, a woman now
parachute were available. It's sensible; it's
has the option to safely end her pregnancy,
rational; it's reasonable to expect our
where before she did not.
culture, our civilization, to support a
Our medical establishment assures
woman's inalienable right to choose.
us of the safety involved, yet more women
However, this is not the case in America
die annually from medical malpractice than
today with how many religious nuts getting
from breast cancer. Another essay is
behind the move toward eliminating laws
needed, one addressing the persistent
that support a woman's right to choose. I do
second class status for the still second
fear the Republicans. What was it that we
sex. Who then am I if we are still puzzling
used to say back in college? If the people
over who she is, a woman is? Who would I
want to go to hell in a handcart . . . fucking
have to be to say what I have so far said,
democracy in a society where systematic
the way I have herein said it . . . for her?
under-education is the rule to keep the
Who am I to speak for any woman
welfare roles full and unemployment down
anywhere at any time? Who am I to speak
by insuring there will be a steady river of
for me? I could ask. Alice spoke for herself.
applicants for McDonald's and Walmart.
I am not speaking for her. A Monthly Literary Review
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
I could have come to many of the
October 22, 2016
When? Where? How? Why? What then
same conclusions, have made many of the
does that say about her or about me,
same assertions, without having known
whatever I might be.
Alice Buconiglio--and I do not know exactly
When I was an undergraduate for
why I am using her surname when
the first time, there was an argument in
everyone I know and she knows know that
college that went as follows: You can't tell
we were together in a way that would never
me that a fifteen year old girl is ready,
require surnames--but then I am not me
emotionally or psychologically, to have a
here as I know I am who I am in these lines,
baby; that it might not be a stress in these
and this narrator expositor is a persona, as
ways too much for her to handle.
I tried to say above, but whether I was
Pregnancy was traumatic. I understood this
successful or not has not yet been
argument. I too felt the emotional power
determined? Even with me being who I was
behind it. I was sensitive to it, or so I
with her; the mask of narrator worn covers
assumed; perhaps I should say I was not
the mask of boyfriend having been worn.
insensitive to it. The former and latter,
We are on our way to this; I am sure
sensitive and not insensitive are not the
there are those of you who have greater
same thing, stating the obvious? Nothing
optimism as I am sure that there are those
more easily overlooked than the obvious?
of you who have greater pessimism. What
Nonetheless, a pregnancy for a fifteen year
then do I say about what we then must do?
old girl in any middle class home or
To try is not to do a Speech Professor once
community would be traumatic, perhaps as
told me with mock derision. What world do
much, if not more, for her parents. I am not
you want to live in? I do not want to live in a
so sure it would be equally devastating for
world where there are too few life boats,
girls in other communities, or from other
that's all. Is it important to you if I am a man
economic classes, but let us assume that
or a woman? Why? The same topic. The
bourgeois mentality and morality have
same intensity. The same speaker to a
pervaded, which is not to say that ethics
similar audience. Is he preaching to the
and morality (and they are not synonyms)
choir? How is preaching to the choir not
only exist among those of the American
integral to the preacher's sermon? He is I; I
middle class. I am sure there are a plethora
am he; I am we in the many pages I write--
of responses from parents or elders of any
what then the story line here . . . can a
back ground, some of them sane and
woman use he as a general pronoun? A Monthly Literary Review
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
reasonable and others quite irrational and
the merits of the perception, only present
frightening.Â
that the perception exists.
Could I be a woman writing a
If there were a boy to marry and
fictional essay as a man who then tries to
marriage ensued, I presume any parents
pretend to be a woman writing? Can I wear
who would have been shocked ethically or
the mask of Alice as I do sometimes inside
morally or in their sense of propriety would
me, the masks I wear within should be
suffer a lesser shock. The matrimony that
examined, Eugene, I know?
might ensue could soothe their previous
If there were no boy to marry, this
embarrassment, but any parents with
would pose a problem for a girl who was of
aspirations of the daughter's self-reliance or
any religious or cultural tradition, or
career advancement as a result of her
economic or educational status, for how far
advanced education beyond the B.A. would
have we come in this world from the
not be assuaged by the baby having a
condition of women in society since Ms.
father present. I am not herein considering
Wollstonecraft wrote her Vindication of the
the psychopathic, whereby a woman's, or a
Rights of Women? The fact that any girl
girl's, life or limb is in jeopardy, from those
who was accepted to Harvard, let us say,
who say they love her when she becomes
and who also became pregnant at 18 would
pregnant without marriage. Emotional
be a shock for any family is easy to
trauma correspondent to the level of
understand; the presumption that any girl
ostracizing a girl would endure from her
accepted to Harvard as an undergraduate
community would have to be measured
might make an acceptable candidate to any
separately. I make no assumptions for how
one of number of top tier PhD programs in
progressive all of us are; history is anything
whatever field she was to choose would
but progressive.
increase the anxiety. What is her pregnancy
We do have to see that if the girl
at 18 going to do to any of her family's
were of an upper-middle class family where
imagined prospects, if they were in fact
one or both of the parents are university
pinning their hopes of future advancement
educated, perhaps where both or at least
on the daughter graduating from Harvard,
one has a post-graduate degree--the
whether fairly or unfairly? No one is going
expectations would be for her to go to
to assume initially that the girl can easily, or
college, and not just college, but as
if at all, complete her education once
aforementioned, graduate school. A
pregnant. I am not going to argue against
pregnancy, even if there were a boy to
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
marry, would be an impediment to her going
Again the right precedes the law; the law
to college and then to graduate school, at
gives the guarantee that the right of the
least in some minds. Of course, the
woman is protected and supported by the
economic aspirations of the girl's family
legal justice system, thus supported by the
would be stunted, cut off; and this might be
government bureaucracies, thus a normal
especially frightening to a family with
mainstream event. Please spare me the
bourgeois aspirations who are not yet
simian responses born of a simian
bourgeois, or bourgeois by proxy through
understanding of your religion and your foul
the social advancement of the daughter,
place in the cess of dogma you
who is now "with child." Ah! With child. No
misunderstand and dis-understand so you
embryo can be called a child if the
can continue to be the narrow-minded neo-
argument sides with pro choice against con,
fascist you have become in complete
can it? Yes, it.
betrayal of your youth.
Under any of the aforementioned
Do you imagine that you have
circumstances, medically induced
thought all there is to think about on the
miscarriage would certainly be less
issue of safe medical procedures when the
traumatic, or as many of the so called
choice of terminating a pregnancy arises—
middle class arguments in favor of pro
and it is the issue of safe medical
choice would go. I am not as certain as
procedure because the legality or illegality
some of these who support this line of
of abortion is not going to either eliminate
reasoning. I do not assume the only
the need for them or the wish for them if
traumatic thing for a woman in this
illegal, nor is it going to proliferate them if
predicament is to have a baby she does not
otherwise made legal. A legal abortion or
want. Even when choosing an abortion
illegal abortion does not give nor remove a
under the best of pro-choice circumstances,
woman's Right to Choose; her right to
there is loss. Women, after having an
choose is apart from whatever the law says.
abortion, have felt in a way quite similar to
The law cannot give her rights she has
women who have suffered a miscarriage of
irrespective of the law. The law can only
a baby they have chosen to have. When life
help or impede her acting on her rights. I do
begins is not invited here. This is not
not know what you imagine? The story is
support for those who are against the pro-
inferred by the telling, the saying, what gets
choice position. I am not arguing for or
said and how. I loved Alice Buconiglio.
against a woman's legal right to choose. A Monthly Literary Review
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
Creating a social context (I did have
October 22, 2016
insemination, pregnancy is still more natural
to bite my tongue not to say matrix) where
in the ways drawn herein. I am, though, a
we honor a woman's basic human right to
bit puzzled by anyone who claims that
choose, and where respecting and
abortion must be made available to a young
protecting a woman's unalienable right to
girl because we would be saving this girl
sole proprietorship over her body are sane
emotional distress by doing so. Does
and reasonable to all rationally minded
anyone who puts forth this argument listen
persons in our society, seems the only right
to what he is saying when he says this:
solution for what some see as dilemma
abortion saves a girl the trauma of a
where others see the choice between
pregnancy.
bearing the embryo-fetus-child and having
Legislation that sanctions a woman's
an abortion as lacking in predicament,
right to choose an abortion is put forward to
whether they are on the side of pro or con.
ensure that it is safe, if it is chosen. The
But my question is this, and I feel that it is
argument presented above, inferring that an
most important to present--do we think that
abortion may or may not be as traumatic for
a girl who might not be emotionally and
a girl as a pregnancy is not a rebuttal for
psychologically fit to endure a pregnancy is
abortion, but one against what others see
able to an abortion?
as a crucial point in their argument. The
If I am not mistaken, a pregnancy
best argument for legislation to get behind a
and a birth are both natural occurrences. I
woman's right to choose is to ensure a
have not yet assumed that an abortion is
woman has a safe choice and not a horrible
also natural, unless that is what we are
dilemma (safe and antiseptic have become
saying, that the natural flip-side of
motifs in the pro-choice argument). The
pregnancy and birth is abortion. I do not
choice is between safe and unsafe abortion
know if this is viable. Disputing the validity
because abortion has been and will always
of abortion being a natural occurrence as
remain an option for anyone so inclined.
are pregnancy and birth is not by necessity
Dilemmas will always exist; problems can
a pro or con argument. In the ways that
ensue. However, with the legal right to
biology and psychology are connected,
choose, abortion presumably will not be the
interconnected, mutually influential, I am
nightmare it was before Roe versus Wade.
not so sure that abortion is a natural
And before Roe versus Wade, the options
occurrence in the same as let us say
before a woman, likely a girl, were
getting pregnant is--even by artificial
nightmarish. But then there were not
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
enough lifeboats on the Titanic, and the
not take Muslim Theocracies to produce
dearth was felt by steerage. Parachutes
men who act on the impulse to control
and lifeboats, however, of whatever variety,
women and seek to put them or keep them
have always been available for the rich.
in second class/second sex status socially;
If every woman is macrocosmic to the universe of being as I hold to be a priori
we have it right here at home in our own homegrown Christian Fundamentalists.
true, then every galaxy of argument for or
What more is there to say about him,
against the legal right becomes irrelevant.
about who he is, what his name is, what his
She is. Her choice is. What happens,
educational background is, or what his
happens for her and to her and to no one
ethnicity is, his religion, his politics, his
else. Is the embryo a someone? The fetus
epistemology, if you will, what are his
is what? Where does personhood begin is
philosophies, and that should be made
going to be a matter of faith for a while, so
plural? All the women on either side of the
we are going to have clashing metaphysics
Pro-choice issue do not countermand a
for a while? I am not here to argue, as I
woman in any of her decisions. They do not
have already asserted above, when life
outweigh her. How could they; I already
begins. I know there are cultures where a
hold this truth to be self-evident, each
child has to undergo a ritual initiation into
woman is macrocosmic to her gender/sex,
becoming a human being and before this
to humanity, to society, to all institutions
his parents have the right of life and death
seeking to levy their weight against her. If
over the thing the child is in the eyes of the
we could prove there was or was not a
culture. I am not here to justify or condemn
personhood present in the fetus, then what
cultural practices in the social context in
would we have to say, on either side of this
which they have arisen, but their can be no
issue? Are there not more than just two
allowance for any cultural practice or
sides here. If we remember the Triangle
religious law that enforces misogyny here in
Shirtwaist Factory fire, we again will realize
the United States, or places a woman at the
that the working poor, the immigrant poor,
whimsy or fanatically narrow minded
the minority poor, the poor poor are not
religiosity we see across the world in some
worthy of parachutes; parachutes of all
religious contexts. A man being allowed to
kinds and forms are expensive, they cost a
kill his sister for eloping is not the same
lot of money to make. Just ask the builders
thing as a woman choosing to have an
of the Titanic. Why should we have fire
abortion, and part of the problem is, it does
exits, or fire escapes; and why not lock
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
teenage girls inside unsafe workplaces,
concerning Republican candidates, that is
and, she said, do not tell me wanting to
horrific. Words are all we have to defend a
deny a woman access to safe medical
woman's right to choose, which is every
procedure is not the same as the greed that
human's right to choose. I cannot take up
lead to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
arms against what is no longer the lunatic
tragedy.
fringe of the Republican Party but the
I am an old fashioned humanist that
mainstream of the Party itself . . . the by-
believes in a universal human nature that is
product of decades of systematic under-
not only worthy of protection but mandates
education and raising semi-literacy as not
our protection. We are obliged. Yes,
only literate-enough, but literacy to emulate
humanity demands noblesse oblige from
and praise, but then we live in a country
every human being toward every other
where a rose by any other name becomes
human being. The simple separate woman
something else. I have to say that anyone
facing this dilemma is everything in this;
who wants to vote for Trump is either an
she is every thought, every choice, every
imbecile or too semi-literate or just greedy
fear, every emotional pang, every anything
enough to imagine himself as a big player
else she might feel. No one can feel for
in the economic world, like so many
her--embryos cannot feel it for her. What
Russian Jews, for instance, here in New
can the fetus feel? Does medicine tell
York, Alice said, deluding themselves as
us? All the arguments for or of the
Jews in Germany deluded themselves right
psychological effects of abortion are mute
up to The Final Solution passed into law
before her singular solitary irreducible
1942. Doing business in Germany as one
voice. Only she faces this; only she can
professor's father had; I had her for a
choose. This seems simple enough to say,
history course back when I was an
but remains difficult for us to believe. Just
undergrad, Alice said. She said the
look at much of what you hear at
professor had written a book about how
Republican rallies, and the mud that gets
Jews in Germany
slung around the issue of abortion and what
Abortion is a woman's parachute, if
has been coined in perfect propagandistic
not her lifeboat, yes, those same things
pitch, Pro-Life. But actions do speak louder
denied to the passengers of steerage on
than words, and the near simian rallies of
the Titanic and why there were so many
the Republicans are scary enough, but
deaths--the lifeboats were filled by class
when Donald Trump leads in most polls
first, and no one thought to have enough for
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
everyone on board. Screw the Irish
who I am, who I might be, could be if, would
Catholics, must have been the collective
be somehow when, where . . . questions
unconscious mandate in the minds of
begetting questions, as I have said before,
contemporary Englishmen. Let's do the
as I have read elsewhere, in other texts,
same to women because legislation must
essays, speeches, stories, both fictional
be punitive first and punitive last and
and non-fictional, blogs, what else have we
provide nothing but lashes between. And
in places where people write or in contexts
why do we continue to lament our nature,
within which they express themselves in
and it is our nature, isn't it? I mean, can we
words written?
say that this propensity we have for . . .
I write. I am a writer. I am writing
what? for creating and enforcing pecking
here. I have written on this elsewhere, in
orders, for fabricating and maintaining false
other words, yet similar words.
hierarchies of socio-economic status and
What words, when words, which
allowing this to dictate out ethics, for
words where, how, the words Alice
perpetual inhumanity to our fellow human
Buconiglio? I used to believe that I did not
beings, for allowing ourselves to
know what I thought unless I wrote; who
understand the idea of human being without
was she, is she, has she been, will she be,
being humane, for permitting fear to rule
will she have been by the time it comes to
our impulses and choices, for thinking
her end? Whatever this says about me,
greed is the only appropriate response to
about her it says about you . . . and you
our insecurities, for applying greater
would have to decide which me this is
pressure on the Self by trying to maintain
inside the text and what that then could say
an unrealizable singularity of being,
about who it is outside the text, if you insist
cracking the shell, so to speak, by this
on there being an outside the text because
gross enforcement of one and only one to
as far as I am concerned, nothing but what
be or not?
is in the text is valid for interpretation . . .
Of course you know that the "bell
interpretation, interpretation, interpretation,
tolls for thee." Why would I assume that you
interprets in its petty pace, how often can I
do not know that? Why should I assume
refer to the same things, over and again
that you do? That in itself speaks volumes
MacBeth and Hamlet follow me until the last
about me, does it not—what I have said
syllable of this written record.
herein at the close in these epi-logic words afterwards; that is, if you were wondering A Monthly Literary Review
Shakespeare has been everything to me, I tried to mean, not knowing for sure 28
THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
what it is anyone could mean by saying thus, Shakespeare has been everything to
the mirror, which is the way any man or any
me.
woman is most successfully an impostor, I wish I could say more—no I do not
wish any such thing. What is this posture—I should, imposture; an impostor I have been
mirror me, mirror me, mirroring, mirroring, mirroring me. The End
before—there are times I am an impostor in
expect is another thing. I often miss the mark. I don’t have the patience, the tenacity, the something whatever it is I would need to hit the mark let alone the bull’s eye. Targets, she used to say, give her vertigo. I do not have to do much with my beliefs
Anonymous is Eponymously
other than having made them, holding is so
Woman
still used to be a problem she said. I never
much of shaping, and how to keep my hands know what to do with them in company. I remember when she took a ceramics class, she
by JVR The difficulty anyone faces when trying to connect with another is the I is already a
said she needed to, that she thought it would be good for her, I said I understood. For a time in the beginning, I used to
plurality. There’s no room left for anyone else it
like coming early before they’d wrap up and
seems or so I presume. Assumptions mature
leave, wait outside the room and watch her
into beliefs, believing into a way of life, living
shape a vase on the wheel; beliefs accrete of
only a way to convince us we either believe
themselves, everything has weight of some
what we think or do not believe what we think.
kind, mass of some kind, even light must weigh
It's only ever through regret that I question how
something, must have some measurable
I live; but I do regret too little too quickly for that
density. The best analogies for the human soul
to be of any use. What else can I say about
are drawn from geology or astrophysics, stellar
how she left?
evolution, if you will. Of course, my beliefs will
Living is always something more or something less than what I suppose; what I A Monthly Literary Review
gain mass and displace space within me; believing can warp perhaps even the time it 29
THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
takes me to think. There is something of the
notice never notice I led myself to believe; I had
physics of stars in the mind; time, space, light,
always made the assumption I could tell special
being, she used to say that they were all of a
things about others, something about how they
piece. Everyone’s to be or not right there
feel their mood at a moment when I caught
within him.
what other others would not did not because
She made beautiful pieces, something
they did not look as I looked, never watched as
Spanish I thought Catalan said to her about
I would watch, as I knew I could. I used to look
them as if they were from Picasso’s Barcelona.
at her intently wherever she and I were
I had always wanted to go to Barcelona since I
together, wherever we would walk sit talk just
was a child and I studied Spanish in school. I
hang around together doing nothing, nothing I
spoke it well, castellano, unvoiced /th/ for ci,
used to say was the sweetest thing to do;
voiced /d/ between vowels; the Puerto Rican
everyone I knew I could imagine just as intently
kids made fun of my Spanish in Junior High so I
as I would when I watched gazed stared at
stopped speaking Spanish to Puerto Ricans
them too.
who were the only people speaking Spanish
My eyes I fixed on her as she had hers
when I was a boy. My Spanish deteriorated,
that night on the silhouettes of the branches of
definitely.
the tree outside my window on the wall in my
She hadn’t been happy for weeks. How
room, night dark, streetlight shadowed dim I
many before I did not add up. There was this
tried to mean say as I looked around me around
terribly unhappy nowhere further she must have
her she and I sitting together apart on the bed
thought, I imagined, I did, I saw it, her eyes, the
not that big actually. I had watched her sitting
world enough full of sorrow look, and I can see
on the bed in the dark before and one time I
her now the same. My world view is horribly or
think I recall she was back lit as she was this
wonderfully Catholic, and I don’t mean
night, the streetlight entering the room then as
universal, but I do, in other ways, the Church
on this night through a triptych of windows like a
was ever present even when we stopped going,
herd of elephants I remembered having said
even when we stopped believing as we should
some time ago how long before I did not
before we stopped believing as we might have,
remember then and do not know now nor will I
stopped believing at all no one had the stomach
again think about calculating, everything in our
for.
lives calculated counted quantified in ways I assumed I could tell little things about
other than counting but counted nonetheless
her, that I could see things in her movements
we see day in day out our lives added
her step her reach her touch of objects about
subtracted nothing ever again of quality in this
her on her face her expression reflection
horrid terribly overburdened by statistics life.
inflection of voice something barely distinguishable in tone that others might not A Monthly Literary Review
I could have, I think, if I had wanted to, calculated just how long, just how much, but 30
THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
what of it now then any when to bear something
used to knowing how far across the evening sky
meaningful in my life her life our life how many
Orion would travel in an hour then mark the
lives do we live anyway? It seemed useless
night sky like a clock.
then and in the future as well. I used to count
I was precise within reason more than
days, though, from one point to another in time,
what someone would say was approximate how
keeping track of events happenings occasions
much money I spent and where over the course
steps through a day no one would care to
of a week ten days maybe more perhaps near
remember let alone be able with certainty to
to the penny impressive the way I could tell time
recollect; all in a day or during a week or weeks
in the night sky to one friend or how many
over the course of a month or months over a
minutes had passed as we walked walking
year; how long it’s been to another, to keep an
along the promenade in Brooklyn Heights one
account in my head, to be able to add up them
night she was impressed I thought how long
with correctness, yes, right and wrong ruled the
ago I can’t recall being able to tell within a few
reflexes of my mind you could say.
minutes how much time had passed whenever I
All of this as I was able to count minutes too, to count hours, judge time passing as I had learned to tell time at night by the passing of the
would wait for her just stepping into a shoe store to see she said. Who is she? A question no man ever
stars across the sky , how many things I used
asks, not really. But who is she? I ask I don’t
to keep track of I lost track of; how many I was
wonder I don’t persist I want to but I don’t.
able to judge round about near enough to
Where has she been in her life? I then ask, ask
something someone would think was
again, think about long I think; her life, this she,
impossible to mark as I had tracing the path of
not the one she has thus far spent with me, but
stars or the sun across the sky; to know the
every or any she she has been before knowing
time by situating celestial objects in the sky
me? Why should it matter who she was before
seemed straightforward enough, I mean, the
knowing me, who she thought she was, who
sun is always present ever there at hand I used
she wanted to be, who she imagined she could
to play when I was a boy at blotting out the sun
be would be, to be or not who she might have
with my thumb when the sky is clear day in day
fantasized about becoming?
out of course not on cloudy days gray skies
She looked ahead at the wall with the
terminal gray for days one week when we were
shadows of the branches of the tree moving in
out at Land’s End it wasn’t the whole week
time with the breeze that blew, the wall
most people do not pay attention to the sky
perpendicular to the wall with the windows that
during the day or at night the moon is the object
let in the light casting the silhouettes of the
in the night sky most reported as a UFO the
branches on the wall opposite the foot of the
clouds continually day in after day up over the
bed, my bed, the bed she and I were on for a
horizon I did tell time by the stars passing got
time after dinner after dark the very same that
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
put us right where we ended up; all this twisting
October 22, 2016
There is also the problem of selection,
and turning of time, of space movement bodies
you know, of making a choice, how to choose or
people places things events arrangements
not to choose, you cannot not choose she used
whatever have we in words or emotions
to say I agreed how the many selves Self
feelings without words.
presents a surplus of choices from which to
She looked at them as intently as I was
select, this option of options we oftentimes
looking at her, as I recalled having looked
reject choosing one and only one from which to
intently at her many, many times before, as I
be. Do any of us make out which one of the
had always looked at her, tracing the figure of
many selves we should decide is most
her legs in pumps, she had gorgeous legs, slim,
important, once more, one and only, is there
firm, words were useless at expressing what I
really only one to choose, one to be, one to
felt for her, with her, around her, the anticipation
segregate from all the others of this Self of
of meeting her sometimes the most intense.
many selves, how many times can I say that,
Silhouettes of branches appear, the
the way I would, a phrase I became captive of?
shadows of bone fingers at play I remember
How then does anyone decide? What index
she had said, or did I, the branches look a lot
could we use? How many could there possibly
like skeleton hands moving scraping clutching
be from which we make our choice? Question
at something invisible on the wall. The curtains
following question into one response after
up abruptly once again before falling all of
another; responses are many, answers are few.
sudden to a pause a moment between gusts. I
Who am I is a question I oftentimes
watched her, yes; she ignored me; I continued,
avoid or simply do not think to ask, when I want
she continued, as she had, as had I,
to let myself off the hook for not asking what I
unremitting, my eyes fixed on her, hers fixed to
should have asked. To ask or not to ask who,
the wall.
but sometimes what I am is the most asked
She did not turn a sidewise glance my
question of all. How many of us are our jobs
way as she gazed at the shadows, the dark
are our titles are our relationships, what never
around the room but between the bands of light
who? I could ask who now, but more
as they blared through the windows, a trumpet’s
importantly I think at present is the question,
flare in sight I said something out of Africa I
which one am I, who are we is who am I, this I
thought Kenya again imagining elephants in
am in total, questions begetting questions, a
stampede or maybe some Jazz as of the thirties
totalized Self of selves in perpetuity, yes
I think as we said in the seventies all of it out of
continuously continuing, change the only
Africa too, maybe, but too much is made out of
constant she used to like saying, I didn’t agree
that; those are not African instruments in the
but then we didn’t mostly.
hands of Coleman Hawkins or Charlie Parker or Miles Davis. A Monthly Literary Review
But once more I have to ask if there is one and only, if there is at least an inimitable 32
THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
me more important than any of the others at
October 22, 2016
There are masks we wear in the world,
any other time in me what time is there for me
and that’s nature; there are masks we put on
in me where the same as when; no time other
the masks and that’s society, civilization, and
than now, the real horror of existence is the
then there are the masks we wear inside, by
horror that this here now and only now is the
nature, and then the ones that we feel
entire world’s stage, everywhere a stage, every
impressed upon to wear on top of the masks
situation a play to play the play is the thing we
inside, masks on masks inside one persona
know; all the Self as well a stage and
wearing another—we do have a degraded
throughout the life of the Self each Self plays
sense of wholeness but what of the masks we
many selves; we should know this. But what
wear on the masks, outside or inside, how is
happens when the Self adopts the worldview of
this then whole? What makes us complete,
the world, when it marks the rhythm of being by
how do we ever find perfection in things we look
the pulse of today now what is and is by
for when in ourselves we abandon such an
consensus could we ever conclude that where
effort deciding on an incomplete sense of
we have come is only the asylum?
completeness, another delusion by which we
To be at home in the Self, what does it
live day to day, hour after hour, in the minutes,
mean to be at home in this way, I was at home
you know, only moment to moment we live, only
with her wherever we were, but this place, the
moment to moment; the real way by which we
Self’s a place each of us should be at home in.
experience time, image to image, in the
In order for there to be we we have to kill I let I
moments. Life is momentary, that’s all.
be subsumed by we, don’t you agree? She asked.
The veil, life covered by a veil of illusion draped by another veil of other illusions
Where is the I, the It, the We of this Self
delusions lies hopes wishes what we like to call
of selves, again how many seems to be an
dreams day dreams fantasies confusing one
important question but couldn’t be more
with the other confounding the other with
insignificant; we are innumerable, and I am only
another . . . if she could only be a little bit any
speaking of myself, we, the I that is when I say I
the less miserable, I thought; terribly unhappy it
I say we mean we question following question
seemed she was; I said I saw she was
again and again, one after another after another
unhappy, but to myself only, inaudibly, yes, she
and so on, response once more following
was miserable, her mood shifting, changing
response, they are not answers as we know or
rapidly, and afterward simmering long.
should. How uneasy we must feel in ourselves
I knew I saw it in her, I heard myself say
if so many of us inside the Self are strangers to
I knew I saw she was depressed; I heard her for
one another, and we are, you know, estranged
a week, the entire before, her jaw bones
from the Self, each one to the other, alien.
working all the time in the week prior to this night, you could see it just under her ear at the
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
hinge of the jaw, the muscles there getting buff
the failure of all wisdom—who does not think
you might say working-out working-out. She
that he is the wisest person, that what he rests
used to at night while she slept work them her
on is his wisdom as good as any other man’s.
uppers on lowers getting at something deeper
To be the one and only me I needed to
by digging again grinding all drilling in the Self
be at the moment; what would that cost? I
came out in her mouth, a beautiful mouth lips
paused I listened more intently I heard what I
when pursed sometimes in thought inviting, her
had heard before I wondered a moment then
teeth taking the brunt of every dejection every
moved closer to her where I thought the sound
sadness every downturn in life her life lived as
was coming from it was awful I thought before I
she said she wanted to live was not going to
laid my head back on the pillow and fell asleep
live by anyone’s leave by her mother’s ideas of
teeth grating teeth, upper and lower in constant
how a woman should live her grandmother she
battle to win something Pyrrhic who was she? A
said she loved but could never understand how
question I asked but do not ask anymore; a
she lived the way she did but then said she did
question for a time I thought I could answer
understand how it was for her neither one
then thought I might not be able to answer but
particularly accurate.
asked nonetheless then thought I would never
She said once that her dentist had told
answer but continued to ask in awe of its futility.
she should wear some kind of tooth guard while
Who is anyone? Just as valid.
she slept, that if she didn’t she would grind her
Remember, responses are plentiful, answers
teeth down to stubs; everything went into the
very scarce. What time is the right time to know
gutter that week, he said. She imagined that
who another is, the right way to discern what
she could have what she wanted; she said she
should be discerned but never gets discerned;
imagined that having what she wanted was not
is there something anything to discern about
beyond reach. She had not told me a thing, he
another you are in love with, or anything
said, about her decision.
anyone we desire too much to endure not
I remembered at night one time in bed
having? What is it? What is her? What was it
she had let me know about the dentist who had
about her that I loved more than anything in any
told her how she grinds her teeth. I heard her
other at the time, any other of any time I
one night, waking in the middle of the night; she
imagined thought believed said pronounced to
was gnashing them what the hell is that, is that
her why I can’t explain?
her teeth? I asked myself as another self inside
Was it her eyes her legs her smile her
me willing to talk to the others inside of me; I
laugh her cunt? I did love her cunt loved being
pretended well that I was more in touch with the
inside her cunt her wet swollen sometimes
selves of the Self than I imagined others to be
dripping as it would ooze cunt, lapping her cunt
not as well as me of course who does not think
like a dog, as I said to myself walking home
that the smartest or the wisest person—really
after having fucked away a night at her place
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THE FALLING LEAF REVIEW
October 22, 2016
over my lips her cum still in my nose the next
asks mask by mask we bury our selves inside,
day as I woke alone in bed. I clutched my
the layers, an entire archaeology of the Self, the
pillow as I inhaled.
search for Troy was similar? Do I change
Do we have words to describe what
selves the way I change clothes? If there are
another feels when she so apparently feels
so many, why don't we change them as some
something yet nothing feels anything everything
do socks? She asked.
else the same, each fixation all of a piece,
Overcast for more than a few weeks, the
contrary wise nonetheless? What could she do,
skies had begun to break up the morning of the
what would I, should she—all other questions,
day; we were up at seven, dawn came at a few
do you have one? Where was she going? No
minutes before six forty-five. Clouds overhead
one at home, right? Alone at night when she
every day for weeks, we were in at nine, early
was girl, no one home, father working nights,
for ten. I said the night before that we should
mother visiting friends. Ill at ease all week. I
hurry up and wait if need be. Who can say if
could see it. Which one, though, we still have
we must or not, she asked. I said nothing. I
to answer, is chief among all the others inside
don't care if I'm late; it's not a hair appointment.
you me her any one of us, the one, the only, the
We'll wait; they'll fit me in.
I that everybody else sees, hears, has revealed
She had brought her credit cards; she
before her, before me, you and me, which is it?
took one out. I had brought mine; I held it in
Is the I now an it?
hand, I wanted to pay, I looked as if I were
Freud talked of Id, really Es the German
hesitating. I only imagined this later, but
for It; yes, it lives in us, each one of us. Who I
whether I wanted or not worried me for a few
am, though; ego and id what is that It monster
minutes later in the evening as I prepared
that comes up comes out from deep inside you
dinner. She did not want me to pay; I did not
the darkness? Who understands the dilemma a
pay; she paid; I said I could have paid; she said
person faces whenever she decides who she is
nothing. I think of a pair of switch blades in a
going to be, who she is going to become with
movie about teenagers and gangs. I do not ask
whom with what with how to be or to become
myself why. Every human life is plural.
one the other never the same as which one
What kind of person insists on
should I wear among the many masks I have
remaining one and only one, being the same
for wearing in public? The self is not a
always everywhere with everyone everywhere
costume; the masks are the costumes we wear
every when? So much of sanity rests on what
in this play that is life, a dream perhaps as they
others think, so much of it comes out as an
used to say how many centuries ago, life’s a
invisible social straitjacket, keeping you bound,
dream, not as in pop songs from fifties America,
keeping you in, under, tight, the knots, it’s all
but right out of sixteenth century Spain. Which
about the knots, the knots inside the ones out,
mask I ask, you ask, the I asks who it is that
the ones that are called family the others called
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October 22, 2016
friends co-workers bosses police politicians
mythology for me for her for my life for our life
bankers teachers other people everywhere
together.
always other, this other I this other you this
Time spent day-in after day-in, day-out;
other we this other they them those people
she sat for hours on my bed staring at the wall
again for sure how they are.
with the shadows of the branches of the tree
When will anyone ever be free, she
outside the windows, skeleton fingers again I
asked; she used to add, when has anyone ever
had said, how branches and icicles looked alike
been? There are still so many who dispute
and how both looked a lot like bone fingers the
what the I is by nature, she said, how it is plural,
branches shaking in the breeze that blew. We
that it has always been plural, that this
sat together for hours the first night we were
individual human life of mine is multiplicity, yet
together.
remains singular, whole, entire unto itself each
Fierce gusts then long lulls between, the
time, in every appearance. A paradox, for sure,
breeze that blew, skeleton hands, trembling
this is; we face one mystery after another
bone fingers, once more I remember the movie
variable following variable, newly introduced,
Scrooge with Alistair Sym in the title role we are
and with revised calculations, all of them life
islands, all of us, isolated at the same time we
long.
take part in everything connected to everyone. Jigsaw puzzle pieces falling down,
falling down life is a riddle she said over
I think I whispered I love you. Donne was wrong she said. Likeness
Sancerre with mussels, a bistro on ninth by
with others easily disappears, even though it
Little West 12th, how long ago? One afternoon,
persists, arises again; every resemblance to
after she had found out before I knew but
another dissolves without fail. Our power to
when? I see a picture of the Old Man in the
draw these comparisons seduces us into
Mountain my Aunt kept on the wall in the
making them over again; our inability to hold
basement by my Uncle Martin's draughtsman's
them lets us treasure them beyond worth What
table, we were up there, I saw it in New
is there for any of us to take hold of, though, if
Hampshire, one summer, it was so cool in the
so much of what we are is ephemeral: all
mountains that July. It had begun to fall apart
holding, passing; all embracing, fleeting,
the year before she died, decades before it
temporary; all memory, virtual, brief, nearly
crumbled after millennia of wind and ice and
perpetually amorphous. To remember she said
snow and rain, my Aunt Catharine died before it
is not to recollect; to recollect is active.
entirely collapsed. Alone, yet in company;
Wordsworth was onto something. I do not say
populated from within, apart from all things, all
remembered in tranquility. Everything liquid
people, among them. Who am I beneath this
evaporates.
apathy I endure. I tried to write an entire
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We walked the beach along the shore
October 22, 2016
prunes from plums, of course an unavoidable
out by Land’s End one summer together, hand
consequence of all this, this splitting oneself in
in hand I like to think, say I can see one
two: Je me deux, she said Rimbaud had said.
morning, early A.M., she had taken one of my
She herself had become like the
favorite photos of myself as I had in hand her
shadows on the wall frozen—architecture music
camcorder to take motion shots of the waves as
stationary in stone, she was and was not
they came to shore on their way to high tide; all
everything, all things that you could imagine;
along the shore on our way to Ditch Plains,
everybody is everything we can imagine and
walking as we would at the lip of the ocean
not anything we can imagine, imagination is not
meeting the shore at low tide; how many times
dead, it cannot die, it is eternal. The portal, the
out there along the ocean by Land’s End, we’d
doorway, the parallax between, in the between,
walk along the lip of the shore, the high or low
to between or not to between yourself . . .
tide surf, barefoot I’d be most of every day out
It's interesting how things lie between;
there, sometimes we’d go twice in the summer .
everything is between something and
. . workmen across the road I see in a flash on
something, the universe of time and space
the roof of the Second House Museum one time
between God and creation, the act, the moment
and another the moon outside our balcony. I
a particle was raised in the void of space-time
watch the moon rise as I glance to Orion, in the
but it’s space-time itself that was created. We
back in the grass catching in a glimpse the
do between ourselves; in every situation we
ghostly silhouettes of the dune grass on the
enter, to enter, to between. There is a great
other side of the road out back. I pause a
deal more going on in anyone's life than what
moment or more to mark the outline of the
we imagine we think we know—to think or not
stars, its form, every thing for form, and then I
to think has been the question even before
turn to the moon . . . the moon is our Goddess,
Hamlet's to be or not, she said. All thinking
a goddess, one among many, how many, a
seeming; what appears straightforwardly what
goddess for everything, Beauty is a woman,
appears straightforwardly can only be an
Justice is a woman, Poetry is a group of
illusion, space is curved, all light bends,
women, who are they, the Muses, the Pleiades,
refraction reflection everything bent the
who else, what else but woman, woman is who
appearance of stars in the sky off-set by the
woman is what woman is when and where and
gravity of other stars one's Self, one's soul, in
why and how . . . the Sea of Tranquility is on the
two, three, all again more yet without gain.
moon; Tranquility is a woman.
Everything happens again without gain; addition
There is everything and nothing in this,
becomes subtraction, division a multiplication;
there is always something else, whatever lies
infinite reducibility becomes a kind of
between one extreme or the other, how we
aggrandizement, she said, every increase a
cling, we cling, we cleave, cleaving we do,
form of decrease, there are, however, ways of
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October 22, 2016
becoming more than one person that do not
around my neck, the one with the medallion of
add up insane; what is being a person anyway.
the Little Flower of the Infant Jesus, Therese of
A person, persona, personae as in
Lisieux. Her head and torso were backlit by the
dramatis personae, a mask the dramatic masks
lamppost light, as I said one night about her
I wear in one situation or another, all of them I
early after having first known her, blaring
wear by nature. But it's the masks I wear inside
through the windows, a halo around her, it was,
that I have to get behind; each self of the Self
the light blared, sounded a trumpet's call, a
wears a mask among the other selves, multiple
stampede of rhinoceroses herded outside my
protections, layer after layer, psychoanalysis is
window in mid air at mid night. I imagine myself
archeology.
saved by an angel.
Schizophrenia is more likely the splitting
I used to be fond of lying awake at night
of the psyche under the pressure of trying to
too alone in the dark of my room watching the
keep one’s Self singular. Who was she is she
shadows of the tree outside my window move in
will she be? Could, would and should are three
time with the breeze as it blew then and another
fools wandering the world she used to say.
time that night as it had nights before the night
She was sitting in the dark, back erect, legs folded under her.
she sat and watched them until dawn, not
Again, she was
nearly as dark as she liked her room to be at
watching the shadows on the wall opposite the
night, sometimes with the shades drawn, the
bed; she said she liked the dark, liked the night,
light filtering light occluding shades she had,
did not fear it as a child, would sit alone awake
shades and curtains drawn keeping the
at night in her room, up in bed, watching the
streetlight out, never like that in my room,
dark everywhere around her moving as it would
streetlight nightlight, I remember when I was a
shapeless shapes she said used to move about
boy how my mother used to keep a night light
before her eyes and on her eyelids as she
on in the hall by the bathroom right across from
closed them before sleep as she used to say on
my room bright as it was the door opened but
the inside of her eyelids. She said the dark, the
sometimes the night light made things worse
night made her feel comfortable. To fear or not
casting shadows as it would the same way the
to fear, what do we teach our children to fear,
streetlight here outside on the corner to the left
maybe the women who decide not to have
of my bedroom windows, a triptych of them,
children are onto something she said but then
would cast shadows of the branches moving
she said maybe they are not onto anything life
about in the wind as it blew outside, in winter
is life is all we have and to get it when you can
the worst she used say it must have been for
is the most important thing. No?
me, shades up always up never down priez
I was watching her watch those
pour moi ma belle douce Sainte Therese one
shadows, my eyes were driving nails through
afternoon in Paris the Cathedral of Madeleine
wood. I fingered the silver crucifix on the chain
down the block from Maxim’s a little card of
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October 22, 2016
devotion from the sweet and beautiful Therese,
mean, to be other and to be another are not the
a shower of roses, spending her heaven
same.
praying for the lost I believed when I was a boy
Could you bear the weight of another's
in her Church in Brooklyn before First Holy
being, any other person's living being, how
Communion, the sun into her room in the winter
much does being weigh, is it impossible to
the worst, low in its arc across the sky, winter
weigh, is it unbearable as others have
sun always in your eyes as it moves across the
imagined, how could we weigh being? We try
sky, for me at least when I’d wake and when I’d
to measure becoming but we are horribly linear
come home in the afternoon. The winter sun in
in our measurements. To stand under another
the morning right through off the wall blinding.
not anything like a pillar, post and lintel, could
What assurance is there about human
you stand like Atlas bearing the weight of the
nature that we take for granted, that was
world? She said her favorite Saint was
tangible enough to trace with the indices of
Sebastian, I said it was the image that let her
mind? What is it about mind that allows itself to
conclude this, that the iconography of his
work as fingers work as hands work as heart
martyrdom his sainthood was what attracted
works as soul? What is there for any of us to
her; the sanctity; you learn to appreciate the
recognize, to tell the difference, to say—what
aesthetics of Crucifixion when you’re Catholic,
can we say? To say or not to say, words fail,
she said. The weight of the world each of us
words fall, don't we too fail fall, everything
helps bear onto every other person, the weight
tumbles, all tumbling a falling into the tomb?
of world we each bear and everyone is cosmos
Tomber you know is the French for to fall, every
and yet no one is; each of us the world and yet
tomb is everybody’s last fall. But I haven't given
just a speck; dust thou art, and to dust thou
up on heart, any more than I have on soul,
returns. I am no larger at times than the mote I
although most of us have abandoned both in
see in my brother’s eye. And I see it clearly.
favor of mind, I mind what I mine in mind and
It's there. Why should I ignore it? My brother
what I mine is mine to mine in mind my mind
anywhere I go.
other than heart? Other than soul? Would any of us have the resolve to
There are more co-existent exclusivities than can be imagined. Everyone herself the
stand under anyone else, hold him or her up,
universe; every woman a goddess, the
bear his or her weight, his or her weight
goddess, and yet nothing at all like a goddess;
pressing down on any one of us, each of us
there are infinite shades of grey between wholly
who is anyone today or any day before or after,
black and wholly white. Don't try to make me a
who else another—another is not merely one
goddess, she said to me one night. But I
other person, another is in itself herself himself
understand how it is. Every woman is mother
whoever whichever the oddity of anotherness is
of the world, every woman the whore of
that it is not otherness, if you know what I
Babylon, she said. Everyone creator and
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October 22, 2016
destroyer. All creator Gods in antiquity were
part of at the same time pure simultaneity the
destroyer Gods too. Simultaneously every
closest thing physics gets to God.
woman is every other, whatever extremes you
A Colossus at Rhodes I am
imagine her to reach, even if you imagine
daydreaming my days and my nights away as
otherwise her extremes so narrow. How
well, I am ocean sea water in waves one after
anyone can walk straight when so constricted.
another wave each the other swelling as well I
We are crooked, we are broken, we are
would attempting to knock myself down; a foot,
crippled, yes crippled, not merely challenged,
a foot, my future for a surer foot; what is afoot,
so much of American life is the perpetuation of
what are the feet, what feats of wonder do we
one delusion after another every woman
doubt the most?
gestates the universe, every woman aborts the
Rapid rushing water retreating to the
world; all gestation is in illo tempore ab origine .
sea surrounding me, all tumult commingling.
When birthing a baby, it is cosmogony,
Do women turn the other cheek? I
she said once, that sounded like her cousin.
cannot turn the other cheek. My one cheek
No one else can do this, the whole of being and
here swollen from the repeated beating it has
non-being together in mitosis. Every man
taken from her by her hand slip for slap we take
envies a woman’s womb more than I might
to heart or not to heart word for word how I
imagine she envies my cock. Ancient primitive
heart you heart he she it hearts I know nothing
creator Gods were also the destroyer Gods, the
of others as I had been taught to doubt.
bringers of death and destruction, the end time has come. No ear to hear with, no sound to
There is only me this who I am or who am I to say about from? Mea culpa the Sisters in Catechism class taught us without jeopardy
recognize where are her ears to hear me I
to our freedom. All words are worlds in
speak to her say what I say a tree falls outside
themselves, a universe of meaning she tried to
in the storm a conspicuous loop-the-loop of
say in a word, how words connote do not ever
leaves in the wind falling trunk falling limbs.
denote, all denotation the imposition of some
All of them the same—I knew a woman
ruling elite, some governing body, someone or
the same differently once. I say again what I
some bodies with hegemony, another nice
say about a woman many women any woman
Greek word, as useless though as are all
one more than all of them the same and not;
words, all them these words we say words we
what I say then so much more interesting than
mean at words we think try to pronounce in
the truth, the facts, and what I do say so many
alien tongues wagging all of us like dogs; again
other men have said, but never get to say it
worlds within worlds inside yet other worlds
right she does so much the same even as much
themselves all giving the illusion of being only
other than I turn on the daydream by her with
words how trees fall in the woods when there is
her around her next to away from apart from a
no one there to hear them falling and no sound
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is made a tree falling in the woods makes no
October 22, 2016
I hear a response in my mind my words
sound only a wave a compression wave one
in her voice my voice what voice whose I
does not sin against others but against one’s
cannot make out what has been said. There
soul one’s sole self suffers the sins. The words
are still inflections to be learned. Everyone
of the prayers we were taught we used to
wishes to spend out his life. Does this make
imagine binding us, imagined that being bound
any sense? Touch taste smell intelligence
was threat to our liberty . . . sound is made in
sensitivity to what how when where with whom
the earl; sin is not in the eye of the beholder as
how others change our taste our sense of touch
are sounds in the ear of the be-hearer. The
the skin of your lover teaches you what about
prayers I learned as a boy make now a
touch about taste how to eat when to chew or to
hodgepodge in my memory no better than
swallow, to chew or not chew . . . who makes
prayer.
any sense? Sense is what for whom? Sagacity How many times must I allow her words
is sense, is it not; but what sagacity for whom?
to fall raindrops from a window for her to be
Now we ask, democratizing wisdom as we do,
happy? How many times need I turn the other
try. Go ask a Buddhist monk if you can do that,
cheek? I wait for an answer, why I question her
she said.
about what I ask her when I do my voice always echoes my voice.
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October 22, 2016
DISSOLUTION BY JVR
Be still, be silent, be sure, she said. Holding hands, in prayer, Alone, in a knot, I kneeled. I don't pray anymore, I don't know if I wish I did. I haven't gone to confession in decades, I don't know if I think I want to go. I'll never forget before First Holy Communion Monsignor Cross said in the week leading up to the Bishop's arrival Don't chew the Eucharist, it’s not a cookie. [A Pause.] Don’t chew the Eucharist, let it dissolve on your tongue. I wish it were so for you for me, you were like the Eucharist, I wanted to be able to mean, I no longer know why. I have nothing left but these lines.
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October 22, 2016
Poems by Jay Ruvolo from Piscataqua Press
Land's End is the edge of the sea, but also the brink of everything we stand on. It is a precipice, an opening of the abyss; it is everything primordial in living, thinking, remembering. 90 pages. $14. ISBN 9781939739889.
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October 22, 2016
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