People's Luck Is Categoric

Conflagration And Senseless Hope

A l e x a n d e r P r a d o


. . .

there is something so strange swimming in my head. some choked river i'm swimming in downslope from the future's volcano. something's stirring, shaking, shelling. like the moment between the bomb's shrieks to the pitch of imminent proximity, and the first flick of your eyes toward the trenches. i don’t know why moods overtake us. it may be what we see, what we dream, what we’re missing, what we’ve had too much of. Cormac’s The Road haunts me. conflagration and senseless hope. that is the world in one measure or another. we strive for what is possible, what is available, what the lessons of the night can lend to morning. something shivers inside me. waking or dying in tremors beelike and directional. something is behind me, threatening me, pushing up through the mental layers of control and conciliation. what scares me most is that this monster of foreign darkness, of staining miasma, of irresistible pain, is merely myself. but the adverb ‘merely’ is only another feint, a ruse to play the trick of seeing it casual and not causal. the demons that dwell within us are the most deadly instruments. they are that, made by us, that screech around bladed mouths designed solely for injury to ourselves. our personal monsters know us, seek us, can never be left behind. the darkness dreams of us. it waits beside us for the brief lapses in reason to bloom blood and breath. this waits within all of us. none are immune to such diseases of the psyche. inconsolable madness we were born from. we are but buskers pole spinning plates of sanity, dancing to music only we hear, only we conjure, colorful street mimes screaming their names into the faces of strangers in the mirror, actors playing in the amphitheatre of our skulls, improvising lines and life. I wonder who inside is left behind. what parallels of time never breathe for fear of discovering who we really are, what we’re really capable of. something is singing the eerie light of dying stars, somewhere beyond the event horizon. i hear it. how long can i not answer?

. . . .

May Be

Get up, get up for shame! The blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air:
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herb and tree!
Each flower has wept and bow’d toward the east
Above an hour since, yet you not drest;
Nay! not so much as out of bed?
When all the birds have matins said
And sung their thankful hymns, ’tis sin,
Nay, profanation, to keep in,
Whereas a thousand virgins on this day
Spring sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.



Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen
To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown or hair:
Fear not; the leaves will strew
Gems in abundance upon you:
Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.
Come, and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night:
And Titan on the eastern hill
Retires himself, or else stands still
Till you come forth! Wash, dress, be brief in praying:
Few beads are best when once we go a-Maying.



Come, my Corinna, come; and coming, mark
How each field turns a street, each street a park,
Made green and trimm’d with trees! see how
Devotion gives each house a bough
Or branch! each porch, each door, ere this,
An ark, a tabernacle is,
Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields, and we not see ’t?
Come, we’ll abroad: and let’s obey
The proclamation made for May,
And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;
But, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.



There’s not a budding boy or girl this day
But is got up and gone to bring in May.
A deal of youth ere this is come
Back, and with white-thorn laden home.
Some have despatch’d their cakes and cream,
Before that we have left to dream:
And some have wept and woo’d, and plighted troth,
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth:
Many a green-gown has been given,
Many a kiss, both odd and even:
Many a glance, too, has been sent
From out the eye, love’s firmament:
Many a jest told of the keys betraying
This night, and locks pick’d: yet we’re not a-Maying!



Come, let us go, while we are in our prime,
And take the harmless folly of the time!
We shall grow old apace, and die
Before we know our liberty.
Our life is short, and our days run
As fast away as does the sun.
And, as a vapour or a drop of rain,
Once lost, can ne’er be found again,
So when or you or I are made
A fable, song, or fleeting shade,
All love, all liking, all delight
Lies drown’d with us in endless night.
Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying,
Come, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.

- Robert Herrick (1648)