moses' note:  this was purely spontaneous text written by nightshade and
posted to alt.gothic.  although he had several queries as to its origin,
he insists that it _was_ spontaneous, and I think that makes this
passage all the more beautiful.



i truly envy those of you who remain true to your artistic
expressiveness.  i wish i still had it within myself to manipulate with
eloquence the various media that i have shuffled off over the years, but
that is a part of me, purple and fetid, that i drag around with me, a
lepper's left arm rotting at my side, worthless and heavy as the sky.
i am the hoary haired poet, wearied and canker'd, spitting his verse into
a bottle of whiskey.
oh, al, do you know whatever became of the times we ran free and wild in
alleys and gangways, jumping fences and rooftops, thinking ourselves
rebellious and eternal, soft souls in hard cars steaking the streets with
black.
i am the soldier who has lost his nerve.
and do you recall the midnight dronings on rocks by water lapping at feet
and at the sky, the moon melting and the universe at one with ourselves in
the graveyard, the cold stone, numbing flesh.  words like footfalls
pattering on the soft earth of my mind.  the high wrought iron fence
embellishing the view of the water.  cracked stone angels, wingless and
earthbound, and the fingers of a thousand trees playing against the
darkened sky.
i am the fool, whose limitations are the things of others' amusement.
and i recall quite vaguely the shards of shattered mirror scraping at the
shreds of my sanity, slicing to ribbons the lumps of goo i call my soul. 
my witts now run thin, delicate as silt sifting across the river bottom. 
i now resign myself to that which i know not.  people leave, i know
nothing.  in this age of instantaneous communication, we speak not.  the
silence ovrewhelms me, click click, tap tap, abort.


sorry.
--nightshade

jfron@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu
http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~jfron
GoEn... GE... MWI...: http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~jfron/codes.html