I'm seeing in Mike's poem a variation on to be or not to be.  A difference that I can see is that Prince Hamlet wanted to die but was afraid of it.  The "I" of Mike's poem sees death in a more Nietzschean sense.  Personally, I think death is a part of life.  For whatever reason in our junk crazed society we don't stop to think that in the big picture there is no death on planet earth.  There is only food for new life (...he goes not where he eats but where he is eaten...)  

Not a comforting thought I imagine, but only because we don't see ourselves as a part of nature.  We see ourselves as outside of nature, with nature existing merely to supply our daily junk quota.  Humans have the worst of all worlds.  They think they're above nature yet nature is the mother ship to which they are tethered, the ship they work so hard to destroy.  

Ironically, humans have achieved a form of immortality here on earth in the form of the garbage they produce.  That stuff will hang around forever.  And in a double irony, our garbage inflicts irreversible death on the natural world.  Being food for nothing, human garbage is pure death. 

--- On Sun, 5/18/08, wokshevs@xxxxxx <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:

From: wokshevs@xxxxxx <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Sunday's Exchange
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sunday, May 18, 2008, 3:40 PM

I believe Mike is saying that he very much appreciates and loves his family and
friends, both real and virtual, and looks forward to many more social
interactions and intellectual exchanges with members in both categories.
Including his maid.

But, of course, I remain a poetic illiterate, so I may be providing,
unintentionally, but a map of misreading for Mike's text. 

One can only hope ....

Cheers, Walter

P.S. (Yes, we still enjoy an ample supply of lobster. Not sheep, I emphasize,
but lobster. I don't think NL has any sheep; but, then, the university
doesn't
let me get out all that much. I am told we don't have any snakes either.
The
truth of that proposition would appear to be somewhat verified by the fact that
I've never found a snake either in my house or on the estate grounds.)



Quoting Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> THIS FOR THAT
> 
> Suppose on a Sunday
> you decided 
> all of a sudden like
> that you had no reason to live.
> Never mind the kids,
> the wondrous loves,
> the yesness of sensations ever
> yelling in your skin,
> never mind the job you think you hate and despise 
> but still romanticize,
> never mind the sublime 
> poetry and angelic arts,
> or the stupendous reach of intelligence,
> fuck all that, 
> only this matters:
> that all of a sudden
> you want to be rid of it,
> have it over and done with,
> you do not want to care anymore 
> ever,
> never ever, ever again,
> no more goddamn caring.
> Life has worn you out.
> And so, goodnight, sweet Prince 
> Existence.
> 
> That happens to me 3 or 4 times a week.
> I try to keep my wits about me. 
> Say to myself: 
> "OK, suppose you could say, 
> 'I choose to die' 
> and that would be it, 
> as easy as that, 
> gone in a sigh."
> But there's still the truck to be got home.
> And all the tools to be dispensed with.
> And other odds and ends of my having been.
> Who's going to take care of all that?  My kids?
> They'd fuck it up for sure.
> They have no idea what any of this costs.
> No, no, no.  I can't just get up and go like that.
> I'll need to prepare the way.
> Sell off the assets.
> Maybe on Ebay.
> I don't want some jackleg freon-jockey 
> making out like a bandit
> in a yard sale of my hard-scrabble life.
> I'd rather that the sun burst,
> burn all beings to cinders!
> Hear me, God,
> let all living creatures die
> rather than that I
> should suffer the ignominy of 
> a jackleg freon-jockey
> profiting off my demise.
> 
> I've always hated money.  
> Have always hated people 
> who knew the ins and outs of getting it.
> Have always thought that money
> was (or at least was like) shit --
> necessary, 
> but who really wants to handle it?
> Slowly I've come to understand
> that Existence itself is just another 
> kind of 
> Live Stock Exchange:
> this life for that life.
> From top to bottom, bottom to top:
> it's all about exchanging lives without stop.
> 
> So how then to end this little epiphany?
> Let me just say that find it all pretty funny.
> 
> 
> Mike Geary
> Memphis
> 



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