Scorched earth policy

Can you? Can you hear? Is this work­ing? Thing on? Is this on? Is this thing on? Tap tap tap. No sound, noth­ing. Good. Click track and rewind. Press but­ton and rewind. Start again. Start over. Start start start and startle me. Start again. Start over. Over already, before we begin. Start. Shall we start? Micro­phone on. Hush. Silence. And. Press record.

Speak forth or forever. Forever hold your peace. In pieces. Any­thing and everything. You use­ful find. Might. Taken. Roots. Ripped. Ripped up at the. Graves, mass graves. Every­where, mass graves. No sur­viv­ors. None. Love a good vic­tim, me. Love a good. Vic­tim. Vic­tims of. Someone or other or some­thing and other. Hammered at shins, broken neck. Tipped in. Bur­ied. Tipped in legs after arms after break in two. Your scrawny chicken liver neck. Don’t call me chicken. Chicken liver, fear­some. Not yours. Nor yours. Nor yours either. Neither. You’ll never find me now. Never find me. Kicked over traces. Kicked over statues. Kicked over status. Down and down. The well is dry. You sucked up. Sucked up water. Sucked up water ’til you burst. Spewed forth. Splattered innards. Greedy. Fuck­ing greedy. Die for that, die. Ignor­ant little fucker. Another one gone. Bur­ied. Bur­ied alive but dead. In soul. In soul, dead. Insolent and sold and snapped. Sold and sold and soldered again. Tipped in. Cover with earth now. Covered. Gravel and earth. A dearth under. Spade slapped. Slapped down. Earthen wear and worn. Good as new. Rem­nant. Remem­brance. Not a rem­nant. Grave and gravel and grav­ity gone. Can you breathe? Thought not. Thought not. No think. Don’t think. Best not. Exist­ence is use­less. Repeat after me. Exist­ence is use­less. No one comes after me. No one after. Noth­ing after. Not. No more.

Tell you what. What? Tell me what? Noth­ing. I tell you noth­ing. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. I scratch. Claws and spores. Claws and pores. Claws and effect. Cause. Scratch. Scratch your eyes out. Scratch out with bloody nails so. So? So you not see. Not see again. No, you not see. I not show. You well? I well. I well up. Often well up. I well and truly. Well and truly bur­ied. I thought so. I was taught so. Taught to do so. Thought so. Think so. You think? Not much. No more. Longer. Not any longer. No longer than a piece of infin­ite string. How­ever long. Today, tomor­row, next week, next year, next dec­ade. Will have for­got­ten by. Then, will have for­got­ten. Burn the crops. Burn every last sign. Burn for ever and every last burn­ing cross, desec­rated altar, viol­ated tomb. Wipe out every last clue. Ran­sack the houses, no tor­ture. Hose them down, sniff out sin­ners. Be kind. Be gentle. Be con­sid­er­ate. Really? No. Rape and pil­lage the burn­ing nat­ives and shoot. Shoot in head. Like in pic­ture. Black and white. Photo snap. Shut­ter release, snap snap snap whirr and click and freeze and action. Action, inac­tion, reac­tion. Every last second. Frozen. Frozen in time and place and con­sequence. Freeze over. Just freeze. Frozen.

Thaw out later? Soon? No. Never. Per­ma­frost here. Mam­moth for etern­ity, face fixed in final feeble moments. Wide-eyed, loose-limbed, broken-backed, help­less. Roar­ing to moon. Howl­ing to empty. Evac­u­ate sys­tem, intest­ines on smooth white ice. Pathetic creature. Hate­ful of nature, so we kill it. Trample it, once and for all and for ever and ever. Amen. Amen. Our bleed­ing men. Our men are all gone, women and chil­dren first. First into the briny. And drown. And drown and swirl round and down and down again. We fill your mouths with dust so you never. Never speak. Again, never speak. Never whis­per. Never whis­per words or pic­tures or scenes or memor­ies or even glimpses. You saw noth­ing, right? I saw noth­ing. Deaf, dumb and blind mon­key, me.

You still hear? Here? No, no hear­ing. No see­ing. No believ­ing. There and every­where. Have gone now. Kicked over traces, remem­ber? Des­troy as invade as ruin­ous as retreat. And laugh. And relieve. Have lost the but­ton. The key. There is. There ’tis. Isn’t it? Is that it? That it? That’s it. I know now. I know. So click. Click. Shut down. Shut down mic. Fin­ish. Fin­ish me off. Race to fin­ish. Arriv­ing first, arriv­ing last, this time next week, if you’re lucky. This ser­vice has been delayed. This ser­vice has been sus­pen­ded until fur­ther notice. Breathe. And in. Red light off now. Red light off. Done? Done. Done? Sure? Done. Sure. Cer­tain. Off.

Begin again? Restart? Reboot? Abort, retry, fail? Y/N.

Comments: 21

    y please.

    …and repeat. you have made punc­tu­ation as poetry once more.

    Miles Away | 11.24.07, 14:07

    Mod­ern life is rub­bish. Right?

    Gordon | 11.24.07, 14:20

    Bleh. This seemed clumsy some­how. There were snips of inter­est­ing imagery and word­age. Des­pite the unique use of punc­tu­ation (as noted above) it seemed a little too fab­ric­ated and not quite a tight enough fit. I can’t bet­ter define what I mean, I’m afraid. It was inter­est­ing, but without the usual impact here.

    2ndhandsoul | 11.24.07, 15:45

    Are you sure you’re alright??
    Sounds a bit, well, manic, to me.
    Best take a pill, wipe the slate clean and start again Y.

    bipolarworks | 11.24.07, 16:09

    Begin again? Restart? Reboot? Abort, retry, fail? Y/N.’

    The key thing here for me is, to recog­nise the small suc­cesses. Never ques­tion whether to reboot.

    A Cloudy Sky, brings needed refresh­ment. A Forest Fire, clears the land ready for regrowth. And within any Loss, there is always some­thing to be gained.

    The Sea­sons may might be less well defined, but they exist, right up to the time, they do not.

    NAGA | 11.24.07, 18:03

    Whoops. Where did ‘May’ come from?

    NAGA | 11.24.07, 18:17

    i can´t listen through this les­son today there mas­ter i´m just off out to the jacks for a smoke, no, no bother, i´ll see myself out.

    biddy | 11.24.07, 21:55

    I really like the rhythm and the way the piece seems to develop through word asso­ci­ation. It also makes me think of Bos­nia and gen­o­cides and want­ing it to stop. I won­der what the author inten­ded — and whether that even matters…

    Stephanie Boon | 11.24.07, 23:12

    This was hard to read, which I think was an inten­ded effect (I hope). You are a mas­ter of word play.

    bohémienne | 11.25.07, 01:16

    Wait he was say­ing some­thing inter­est­ing.
    We don’t have time, fast foward to at least 20.
    He’s still goin­gon about that, lets go to 30.
    huh? I don’t under­stand that at all.
    Fine then lets go back to the begin­ning.
    Theres no time, we have to come to a decision in 15.
    He says he’s inno­cent.
    as do they all, fast­for­ward, will you
    ok we’ve seen enough I still have to fill forms.
    But we haven’t seen any­thing.
    they both turn to face me, don’t lag behind.

    Blueseaurchin | 11.25.07, 16:47

    As illus­trated by pre­vi­ous com­ments, whether you love it or can barely stand read­ing it this piece makes you think, ques­tion, examine.

    It is evoc­at­ive, ima­gin­at­ive, pas­sion­ate, play­ful, exper­i­mental, intu­it­ive, and beautifully-rewardingly dif­fi­cult; it is open to inter­pret­a­tion and imbued with mean­ing. It’s got a sin­gu­lar voice and, most of all, it’s what every writer aspires to be: abso­lutely fearless.

    Ani | 11.25.07, 17:58

    Applause for Ani’s comment!

    Clarissa | 11.25.07, 18:06

    I do not want to know what this cur­rent post is about. One should never ask an artist what his paint­ing is about.

    What I do want to know is whatever happened to that moth you once wrote about?

    Do you remem­ber, little moth, banging his head against the window.

    I often think of him.

    andre | 11.26.07, 22:30

    Ask­ing an artist what her paint­ing is about is merely an aside that might throw some inter­est­ing light. The artist will always be more inter­ested to know what you think it’s about any­way — and will smile wanly when you tell her, all the while think­ing about what’s for din­ner, or how soon she can go to bed.

    Stephanie Boon | 11.27.07, 00:48

    Per­fect imperfection?

    2ndhandsoul | 11.27.07, 01:59

    I still hear. Here. Yes, yes hear­ing. Yes see­ing. Not believing.

    As I read your words I often try to think myself into your mind. Not so much to think what you think, but to know what thoughts go through your head after you have writ­ten some­thing like this. Some­thing so shock­ingly beau­ti­ful. Shock­ing and beautiful.

    This piece in par­tic­u­lar is like all thoughts to all people.

    Ciaran | 11.27.07, 19:33

    Thanks, every­one, for such thought­ful responses, whether you liked it, hated it, or didn’t have the slight­est idea on earth what this utter claptrap was about. Rightly or wrongly, for me part of the — enjoy­ment isn’t the right word — adven­ture of writ­ing some­thing like this is read­ing the ideas and inter­pret­a­tions you bring to the party.

    P.S. For moth fans, the moth is dead. That’s how it ended. Long live the moth. May it flut­ter in peace, some­where in eternity.

    An Unreliable Witness | 11.27.07, 21:59

    Con­cern­ing your “leave a Com­ment” descrip­tion, I regret everything in the morn­ing anyway.

    blueseaurchin | 11.27.07, 22:02

    And if you are so con­cerned, might it not be more cour­teous for you to make avail­able the trash-can option in which we your loyal fans might wake up at 3:00 a.m. when we decide, that we can’t bare to be asso­ci­ated with the notes we have left you and must at once rec­tify the situ­ation by a flick of the mouse.

    blueseaurchin | 11.27.07, 22:02

    And do you even won­der about the poor com­mit­ment phobes end­lessly hov­er­ing over the “post” but­ton without the cour­age to stab it because it leaves us, um them, with no recourse once posted?

    blueseaurchin | 11.27.07, 22:04

Leave a comment