Milton's Eve Speaks

That first sunrise of remembrance, you have those first inchoate visions,
Your nascent eyes lead you to believe you’re the horizon,
But slide outside the womb and I’m agoraphobic
And full of doubt and every morning I’m aphasic
Without my cuppa, full of doubt
Like Milton’s famous dreamawhile Eve.
Did she have that last noble and prelapsarian infirmity? Was she sick
Before she speechless swooned? Speech. Speaking again. Do we have to talk?
But talk is all we have – it’s our only tool. Speech the only analgesic. Narcotic words.
And yet descriptive power. How can you build a massive tower and bridge
Without good words? Inevitably, ineluctably the silent knight with lance will come
With arms and fire to sack the citadel and storm hallowed environs, laying waste beyond
And leaving hollow dunes. An ossuary and bony mausoleum. So Eve’s body is a temple. She sacrifices every child, she bears them up to death. There’s a bunch of nothing down in her no-matter and some panting. Mum and dad fuck you up awake. Already we are born out of the deep and lunched upon another. Lunging. We are launched without permission. Christened, godspeed, no matter what we think of christ. But Eve was made to fall. She’s the offered evve. You. Born, bearing, buried. You. Slay and slaughtered. Yes, she was made to fall. God the father slipped a satanic fancy In her sleeping ear. She did have Adam to talk to but he was just another babe in the woods. Will I be just like God? A god? How is that possible? There was silence and a bunch of nothing. Nothing and the rest was dead silence. Before I was there was nothing. But nothing comes from nothing. Am I already God and this is my creation? Is this only in my
Much deluded head? This dream is real, though. Things change here and stay that way. A fallen tree doesn’t right itself. These phrases don’t form themselves. But do I form them?
She wanted to know. All she seemed to know was like looking into a glinting pool. I’d make A very poor kind of God – waiting under weight for God only knows what. But how can he
Know? If he does know, is this the world he wants? He wants this dim confusion? If I were God, what would I say about this place and all the work of my creation? I’d have to say something, wouldn’t I? I mean, I’d be having thoughts about my thoughts so I’d have
To say something about something here since here is everything and I know all about it.
But what? I wouldn’t know where to begin. Did I see the beginning? This world was here
Before me, this world all before me, greater than me. So all I would say would be nothing,
really. No matter -- burp -- no mater -- no matter how many countless untrammeled attempts to tongue it out, all it would ever be is – north to south – some meaningless terms mouthed by a parrot. There are the parental patterns of repetition. I think I'm going to be sick. They start with me and that man but in reality they must start with God. I didn’t just come up with all of this on my own. God put them in our heads. So the kids will be repeatedly repeating. Just like cattle make cattle make mooing cattle. Old wood never becomes a tree. So all these reiterations to the point of idiotic imbecilic entropy ad infinitum. Ad nauseum. Odd. Eating and regurgitating. Burp. I’m choking on the serpent’s ruminated words. I’ll die of bellyache. Or hunger. Pass that apple. I’m talking God with you, snake. Ralph. I’m speaking of your God. Ralph. Ralph. Belch. Gurgle. Ralph. Gott.

Gay Reason?

Obama promised us the moon and other heavenly bodies. Then he started lowering his sites. He picked Biden (!) for Veep. Then he found all he wanted in H. Clinton for Secretary of State, a job which apparently anyone with no foreign affairs experience or training can do. (What exactly were Warren Christopher's credentials? He's dead now, right?) Then he picked Rick Warren for the convocation.



Pass the buck and give me the Change! Will all of Obama's nickles be made of lead?



Here's the thing with The Gays. If we can't be reasonable about Gay Marriage, what exactly can we be reasonable about? Or another way of putting it, how hard is Obama going to fight for the change he promised? Not too hard by the looks of it. That doof John Kerry seems to have him beat on The Gay Thing. This is what is surprising. Now that he is behind the big desk, it would really take so very little for Obama to get a big win on this issue. For starters he can avoid the Clinton mistake of 92 with The Gays in the military by not being Bill Clinton in 92. He doesn't need to come out of the oval closet and tell us he's all for gay marriage. All he has to do is not invite Rick Warren to Washington. Or any other gay hater.



He doesn't need to come out and say that he's for gay marriage at this time. A few winks will work. He can just use some code about ALL Americans deserving certain basic rights. Let's be reasonable, he could say. Where there is no harm, there should be legal recourse. Where is there harm with consenting adults to live in loving relationships? Should the government sign off on your straight marriage? Why should it be asked special permission to sanction your gay marriage? Obama should say, Those who mean us and do us no harm cannot be reasonably considered our enemies. Didn't Jesus say something like that to his disciples?

Gay marriage is not just an issue for gays. It is an issue for all reasonable people in a free society. Those who don't want us to take the counsel of our own consciences on gay marriage also fear our powers of reasoning in sundry other areas. These people want to call every human embryo a "baby." Every heartbeat is the sine qua non of life. This is the counsel of fearful people, people like James Dobson and Rick Warren. The world to them either makes sense to them or is the cruelest joke. Either conception is when we get our souls or Jesus is a liar and life meaningless. This is to the fundamentalist more fearful than an asteroid on collision course for Earth.

But are these fears reasonable?