Missing dates
In another gross semantic distortion, the modern inquisitors are careful not to date their accusations, but assume "once a subversive always a subversive." The most glaring case I can remember is when Senator McKellar smeared David Lilienthal with a "Red taint" because his parents came from Czechoslovakia, now a satellite of Moscow. The fact that they came to the U.S. in the 1880's, when Czechoslovakia was part of the Austrian Empire, was not brought up, nor was the fact that David was born in Illinois. This masterpiece of guilt-by-association-through-time made headlines all over the country.137
What is Czechoslovakia now? I ask.
'We played war during the war,
Margaret.' answers Charles Simic.138
What about Yugoslavia?
'The war is the first and only thing in the world today.'139
What tears in eyes now
weeping with anger and love
Czechoslovakia's tears
Spain in its own blood140
Today's date keeps changing.
The committees have read into the record excerpts from a victim's books, poems, articles, written five, ten, twenty years earlier � often torn from their contexts. To aid them in this dateless research, they have called to the stand professional ex-Communists, being careful however to apply dates to them. He was a Communist, yes, in 1940, and knew everybody in the ranks; now in 1953 he is cured. But the victim was not often considered cured.141
Spinoza considered the difference between human thought and pure sensation. The difference between the human soul, or idea of the body, and the idea of a chair. I am not sure exactly what his ideas were. However, a fact might be true and the chair might be a chair. An idea cannot be true in the same sense as the chair is true. 'The phrase grows weak. / The fact takes up the strength /of the phrase.'142 And then, a fact might turn out to be just an idea. But, ideas are infinitely more than facts, making use of facts but not built upon them. Approach any theory with caution. And facts with more. It has been said that 'judges are by training and, perhaps occupational inclination, cautious creatures'143 yet the court is taken to know 'the meaning of any ordinary expression in the English language.'144 At this, I stop writing. It is June 5th. Arcane facts have become commonplace.
Two battles, hundreds of years ago �
remember Yarmouk? Remember Hittin?
The people are all there
waiting in the station of return.145
Does the judge's memory need refreshing? If so he may consult '"such published books, maps or charts as the court considers to be of authority on the subjects to which they respectively relate" in matters of public history, literature, science or art.'146
Facts are recorded.
Dates are of writing.
February 12th 2004, I sit back down on this particular chair at this particular desk after waiting where? What have I come to know in the meantime that has now taken its place as history?:
Like a scientist you collect
data and put facts together to come to some conclusion.
Mystics arrive at what they
know differently: they lay a head upon a person's chest
and drift into the answer.
Thinking gives off smoke to prove the existence of fire. A
mystic sits inside the burning.
There are wonderful shapes in rising smoke that imagination
loves to watch. But it's
a mistake to leave the fire for that filmy sight. Stay
here at the flame's core.147
As I write, Iraq is on fire.
Memory: I began writing in April. 'Notwithstanding, I wish we might learn of an April of small waves � deadly as all slaughter, that we shall die soon enough, to dream of April, not knowing why we have been struck down, heedless of what greater violence.'148
Detail: Today, my daughter's birthday, the only date on which children grow older, they discuss the legality of the war. (She has her own history and also a history she will share.
History may truly be defined as a famous war against time; for history takes back from time the years he has emprisoned, or rather utterly slain, history calls them back to life and passes them in review and sets them up again in Order of Battle.149
She will have her own battles on dates upon which she will realize what she has been told is simply...)
More words. 'Words falling upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details.'150 Does snow quench fire? Does speaking quench our desire, our appetite, to be heard?
What about taste?
Facing facts of evil a matter of taste
YESTERDAY'S graphic morgue photos of Sadam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, inflamed debate in the Australian media.
The Australian ran a half-page picture story of the dead brothers � the only newspaper to do so.
The Sydney Morning Herald refrained from showing them in print but ran the pictures online.
Neither The West Australian, The Canberra Times, The Courier Mail nor The Daily Telegraph ran the photos. Sky News showed Hussein's dead offspring in full, while the Seven Network ran them with warnings.
The Nine Network compromised, showing Iraqis watching television sets with the pictures, which executive producer Graham Thurston said "couldn't be seen in detail".
Ten made a judgment on taste, with the main bulletins running pictures of the dead Qusay preceded by a warning. Ten's Sydney news manager, David Breen, decided not to run photos of Uday, as he judged them "clearly inappropriate for television".151
Taste � Editing � Judgment.
With editing, writing done now travels backwards in time. July 30th. What year? Iraq was on fire. What did I write first and what last? Can you imagine? Editing is a judgment. Iraq is on fire. 'The burning of libraries is so universally regarded as a crime against humanity that it is instructive to examine the historical record. What exactly is the outrage about?'152 Memory loss. As a helpful guide, the following may be of assistance in preparing a eulogy:
Details of war or military service.
Detail of early childhood.
Details of marriages, divorces, children, significant relationships.
Details of grandchildren/great grandchildren.
Details of any club membership, position held.
Details of sporting achievements.
Details of any hobbies or interest, travel, crafts, etc.
Details of activities, e.g., music, theatre, etc.
Details of historical significance.
Predating all: The facts of life?
It is time for you to learn them.
We have learned nothing but facts. Our desire. Imagination might be the core of desire but desire is like smoke. With it we create shapes � war and love and the details of each � but shapes shift.
But for me, I only drew two chairs and one table on which there were set two cups of coffee and a burning red candle...to be more precise, I have also painted a hat and a woman['s] bag hung over the chair... where was the couple? No one knew. Only the candle was still burning just like the warmest love of the couple...153
At the flame's core is where one can sit on the 2000 chairs of history and it becomes simply the act of sitting. Reading and writing and fighting and longing are like those chairs. The art, the poem, the love, is not. These sail beyond history. They are like facts that have melted and become unrecognizable as what they were. Variable. Unimagined. The details don't matter?