Notebook: 7/10/86

The Marriage of Language and Being
[based on Blake's *The Marriage of Heaven and Hell*]


Feeling roars & shakes his fires in the burdened mind:
Radioactive clouds sway on the deep.

Meek, expression follows a perilous path.
The so-called fair woman keeps tracks along
The vale of control.
Words are planted where memories stay.
And on the barren slate of meaning
Sing the commercial poets.

Then, some poets incorporate this stance.
And a stream of thought and a quick utterance
On every ad and show.
And on the emptied mind
They managed to get control of the media.

Till the investor stops reading trash
Is to continue the parboil any original thought and drive
The so-called sensible woman into writing dry hymns to money.

Here comes a hot agent, cool & quite hip
And our poet is tearing her hair out, walking around on Columbus Avenue
Where literary lions roam.

Feeling screams and blows off some steam-
What could this do against billions of units of radioactive vapors?

As a new literary movement is begun, and it is now about 10 years
since its advent, popular opinion roars its ugly attitudes. And lo!
Hilton Kramer, and occasionally Tom Clark put our vicious literary slander
attempting to court public opinion; their statements try to wrap some rebellious
poets in nast publicity. Now is the dominion of Reagan, Ray-gun as he is
affectionately called- just read nearly any issue of your local newspaper.

Without a lot of sharp disagreement, the public won't notice anything is
going on, so intrinsically this is not a bad thing. Attraction and repulsion,
thinking and feeling, love and hate, are all typical of human experience.

From this kind of total trashing springs more clearly defined philosophical
differences, formerly labelled Good and Evil. Now that we don't have authentic language,
attitudes have taken on infinitely increading inflationary conviction.

Good is Public Awareness; Evil ot Total Marginality.

THE VOICE OF THE OUTCAST

All books, poems and theories have caused continuing distortion:

1. That humankind has two responsibilities: acceptable attitudes and rent money.
2. That language, called marginal, emanates from a lot of bullshit;
and that Feelings, called Public, are the only authentic expression.
3. That Administrators will torment humans in Eternity for giving expression
to anything unique.

But the following contraries to these are True:

1. Humans have no language distinct from experience, for that which is called
language is a portion of Thought discerned by the five senses, the
chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Words are the only proof of expression, and are from experience, and
Feelings are bound to a socially determined set of attitudes.

**
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The Argument

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow,
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.

Then the perilous path was planted:
And a river and a spring
On every cliff and tomb:
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth.

Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility.
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

And now a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years since its
advent: the Eternal Hell revives. And lo! Swedenborg is the Angel
sitting at the tomb: his writings are the linen clothes folded up. Now
is the dominion of Edom, & the return of Adam into Paradise; see
Isaiah xxxiv & xxxv Chap:

Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,
Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human
existence.

From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.
Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing
from Energy.

Good is Heaven . Evil is Hell.

THE VOICE OF THE DEVIL

All bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following
Errors:
1. That Man has two existing principles: Viz: a Body & a
Soul.
2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason,
call'd Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True:
1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a
portion of the Sould discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul
in this age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the
bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be
restrained; and the restrainer of Reason usurps its place & governs
the unwilling.

And being restrain'd, by degrees becomes passive, till it is only
the shadow of desire.