LAMENTATIONS

by David Eide

The element of surprise- ah poet, the element of suprise!

They Judge harahly because they can not see the depths of the mind and spirit. That place filled with snakes from the moon. They judge harshly when they perceive that a creative act will leap out at them in some unsuspecting moment and dissolve the foundations of judgement.

Dancing destorys them as they sign up for the contest. A woman, who wants to be with it, pulls down the last vestige of her nature and rolls in agony on the floor. An aquaintence, a man, is driven out of his mind by the realizaiton that he will not make it to the future. They die, sated besast, furious yet at those who will deny them passage to the regions of eternity. A bent over woman struggles with the tejrrible weight of knowledge that she sees in the stucture of things; how there is no pity for those who see the truth. And th eturth drives the spirit from hiding below a cirulating disk and up, into the maelstrom, eager to start the fight.

Magnificent inequalities populate the turning energies of the mind. The poet is sick of the politicians, sick of the advocates, sick of the devils and superstitions, sick of the enervating voices that cross the sacred waters to declare, something is there that no way belongs to them.

Happy day when the wreckage is overthrown and the poet' breathes i.ri the fresh air of a distant plahet. Happy day when the> generation that has squandered their heritage disappear to the center of the earth. Happy day when the women return from their strange wandering and fix the broken world.

A life of simplicity waits for the poet to lAy down his complex and over-heated mind to the bayshore'where quiet heals the spirit. What Is the life of the community now? Are, they buying and selling with the old necessities.prodding 'them? What do they inhabit now and what problem does the community takes on? Are they stunned by what rushes around them? Do' they make the speed of things, the bulk of things, the god? .Have they arrested their won development 'for the sake of their own sanity?

Spinning gradients of information salt the clear and undisturbed air. Old women gather their memories once more before new currents are generated among the young. Warnings are posted about the grave consequence* of. letting loose the passions of youth. The poet goal is the community, eternity. In eternity is^ the seed of, all' possibility. There is nothing strange in eternity. .

Eternity closes down when the community-wills it. .There is a brief moment of celebration or ceremony Jtnd then there follows years of blood letting.

Poet lost In the machinery of a world that destroys poets. Mangled poet crawling from the nested womb. where his first words broken over the rocks of the family garden.

Poet, they will take you and send you on a ship without a crew; on ship that is prepared to fight anonymous enemies.

Poet, they seek you out in earnest jealousy of the power you possess. '

Poet, the weakest of them Is learning the trade of soul killer and will go after you when you make your commitment clear to the world.

Poet, do not grasp the world too tightly.

A thousand pathways will bite through the heart of the poet and laugh at his aspirations.