OCCUPATION
WE WERE NEVER MORE FREE THAN
UNDER THE GERMAN OCCUPATION
So said Jean Paul Sartre What could he possibly mean?
That freedom is contingent upon one’s degree of imprisonment?
That every small act even the most minute was an act of
defiance in face of the boot? Or the waiting train for the long
ride to Polish towns with death camp names?
Yet freedom as a condition is not native to human existence
As Beckett mentioned We are born astride a grave But even
if one may compartmentalize deny +anesthetize it is also true
that you + I are dropped into a story written by who? One which
unfolds with seeming choices at every step except for the beginning
+the end
Nailing one to a family to a place +time + to a demise One which is
exactly the same in physiological specifics for every single one of us
Organic matter to decay to pushing up daisies Organic fodder for yet
another storyteller Sartre was likely pulling our existential chains For
isn’t all of human existence contingent?
Upon where you show up +through whose chute Whether your storyteller
is benevolent or brute? And just about everyone is a storyteller these days!
Taking a shot at demi-god-ery at immortality So why not run with the middle
part of your story? Head for Mexico! Escape your family They probably won’t
notice anyway
Shoot yourself if you must +watch your storyteller turn to dust He never expected
you to take the reigns Mostly scrape the surface for it is in the underbelly where
you can hide for years quietly pretending to be passive + unfree I tell you now:
there is a saddled horse at stage left waiting +a wild eyed creature crouching in
the grass loving you secretly
__
It was just a dream. You dreamt him.
You can make him do whatever you like.
Where was he before I dreamt him?
You tell me.
Then I woke. From his dream or yours?
There is only one dream to wake from.
(Cormac McCarthy Cities of The Plain 1998)
End of Summer 2017 ..good riddance
songanddancegirl 