Writings

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A LUNGWORM by Roy Fuller

My normal dwelling is the lungs of swine, My Normal shape a worm, but other dewllings, other shapes, are mine within my natural term. Dimly I see my life, of all, the sign, of better lives the germ.

The pig, though I am inoffensive, coughts, finding me irritant: My eggs go with the contents of the troughs From mouth to excrement - The pig thus thinks, perhaps, he forever doffs his niggling resident.

The eggs lie unconsidered in the dung upon the farmyard floor, Far from the scarlet and sustaining lung: But happily a poor and humble denizen provides a rung to make accension sure.

The earthworm eats the eggs; inside the warm cylinder larvae hatch: For years, if necessary, in this form I wait the lucky match that will return me to my cherished norm, my ugly pelt dispatch.

Strangely, it is the pig himself that becomes the god inside the car: his greed devours the earthworms; so the slums of his intestines are the setting for the act when clay succumbs and force steers its star.

*used with permission but I'm sure that Roy Fuller won't mind...

Sayyid Friend, I am deflated. To me, the reaction here in the US to the WTC bombings--at least as
much as I am able to divine from the mass media, and the number of oldglorys I see affixed to porches and car antennas--is extremely demoralizing. Even such a dismissive, cynical curmudgeon as I find the readiness and ease with which purportedly reasonable people have embraced war fever, sanctimony, xenophobia and autocracy profoundly discouraging. The inconceivable level of support, confidence, and faith being
invested in George Bush's creepy admixture of deceit, ignorance, and clumsy bravado seems to topple any notion I might have had that enlightenment and wisdom have a fighting chance in a civilization so deeply rooted in greed and fear. I almost feel like I live in an alternate timeline where the fallout from the Spanish- American War, WW1, Viet Nam, Watergate and Iran- Contra et al never happened, where Thoreau and Mark Twain and Gandhi and MLK were never born, where no one ever stopped to notice the peculiar and consistent tendancy of war to demonize and destroy countless criminally if not morally innocent humans, at little or no cost to the princes and generals on either side. Resistance and dissent suddenly seem like a bad joke, when so many of the fruits of American activism are so easily shuffled off as though they were no longer relevant. And I haven't been entirely sure how to handle my sense of futility and hopelessness in the face of this. I've been tempted to leave the country, for starters, and I haven't ruled that out entirely, but that doesn't answer the problem of how to act positively and meaningfully. What I can & will do, at least as a means of killing time until I solve that
problem, is to communicate what I think I know with you, my extended family. (This goes out to some long-losts and twice- removeds; in times like this everyone is prodigal). I know that since many or most of the people in my life tend to agree with a lot of the sentiments I am describing, and can express them more insighfully and eloquently than I can, there's the danger of seeming to preach, with this indulgent letter, to the converted. But my aim isn't so much to prosetylize, but to bring the discussion- -our actual discussions, not metaphorical "discussion" as promulgated by call-in shows or letters to the editor--about what has been done, and continues to be done, in our name as 'Americans,' as free Earthlings, to a more prominent and exalted place. I have a
weblog up at: http://www.subversus.com/blogger.html which has sort of fallen into disuse, but which
I have begun to resurrect as a place to compile aggregations of words and ideas I find useful. There are better ones. I won't presume to imply that any of you lack a healthy supply of alternative news sources, but I happily endorse all the ones linked from my page. Please partake as needed. So. If you feel likewise deflated, or in
fact newly rejuvenated, or if you utterly deplore, or suspect you deplore, my interpretation of world events, or for some other reason, or none at all, please feel duly solicited to engage me in your thoughts. Salaam,
c.

*** "Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity, and, if compelled, will use them only with the utmost restraint. Peace is his highest value. If the peace has been shattered, how can he be content? His enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself. He doesn't wish them personal harm. Nor does he rejoice in victory. How could he rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter
of men? He enters a battle gravely, with sorrow and great compassion, as if he were attending a funeral."

--Tao Te Ching, Chapter 31

"Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity, and, if compelled, will use them o nly with the utmost restraint. Peace is his highest value. If the peace has been shattered, how can he be content? His enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself. He doesn't wish them personal harm. Nor does he rejoice in victory. How could he rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men? He enters a battle gravely, with sorrow and great compassion, as if he were attending a funeral." --Tao Te Ching, Chapter 31