Nichols God of the Poets

1. Auflage 2003
ISBN: 978-0-9627615-9-1
Verlag: Bookbaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten

Maybe it started with driving the motorcycle through a barbed wire fence at 60 mph. Or maybe it was the not-so-casual fling with the preacher's wife. Or perhaps it was when, nineteen years old and hitchhiking the whole wide nation, in a glimpse of the Gods, his spirit expanded to all the infinite edges of a Wyoming roadside. Whatever the cause, Bill Mason's life was driven by Art: Art that nearly killed him, Art that was his soul. It can be dangerous to be poet/novelist. It is a good story that defines love as the life-long affection of a soul mate, the belief of a child, the passions of the flesh, and, the blessing of the Gods. And, oh yes. God of the Poets reveals the purpose of your life, dear reader.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Nichols, Robert

Leseproben

Chapter One

It was two-wheeled madness the night of near-death. He was the motorcycle man and he roared through the constraints of mortal fear with tears streaming down his face.

He wasn't crying.

Wildly he rode the highway of death.

And what of his baby children far across the night-cloaked city and far across the abyss of failing love? What of their young hearts in the presence of this death so madly pursued by their loving father around sliding curves and full blast down tear-blinded straightaways? What of their questions and the answers he alone could give?

What of neglect and compassion?

For the sake of his daughters he would not have ridden that moment of the road and the dizzy truth and the dark speed of it all. For them he would have veered from the reckless hilarity of guilt and honesty and stayed steadfast and safe upon the most confining of paths.

But the night he rode the motorcycle after drinking beer and whiskey and after being forgiven his sin by Reverend Tom, truth had come like a sudden storm upon the calm of denial. What could he have known of the mortal danger of a burden removed?

The killing danger of sudden freedom.

Ironic, don't you think?

How he sought the taunting laughter of death down the speed-blurred rural lanes only to round a curve and know the screaming terror of his prey confronted—the slavering jackal cornered, red-eyed and fanged. And how, in that instant, with fear dispelled by certainty, the demon was banished and, alone, he knew the absolute silence of Death's resolution. There was no turning. All that lay before him was the certainty of a wild ride terminating in a barbed wire fence.

It was so very calm.

No fear, no panic, no regret.

So calm.

But no need for sorrow now. He lived to write this letter:

Dear Jack,

I know I still owe you a motorcycle for the one I ran through the barbed wire fence years ago. You've been a good friend and have never mentioned it to me, but I haven't forgotten and someday, if I ever quit being broke, I just might buy you a new one. (Or, maybe not—those damned motorcycles are dangerous.)

Your Friend,

Bill

I'll tell you about some of it. My name is Omni, I'm a God and I see most everything that goes on—at least around here. Most writers secretly believe they are Omni—perhaps I too am a product of ego, imagination, and hint of art. It matters not—believe what I tell you in this context and leave My Divinity to the contemplation of others. Words are but crude hints at the real awareness that dwells within you anyway. And Me, I'm just manifested here as a metaphor suspended between myth and incomprehensible Truth.

Nice to meet you, too.

I'll begin this story of William and his love and his art, and, mostly, his humanity. I know it well: William and the art that could destroy him, the love that could save him, the humanity that made it all worthwhile.

The night of the motorcycle began years earlier when a young lady named Luci asked Bill if he had any qualms about adultery. Always ready for life to take a shot at him for the sake of yet another humiliating joke, defensively, he showed none of the instant excitement he felt (I mean she was one nice looking young lady with such smooth white skin and such large round breasts and just a hint of such a sexy, secret laugh that probably not too many people had heard) and casually answered her salacious query with, "I don't believe in it."

It was the seventies, that wildly promiscuous glimpse of Olympian abandon ephemerally wedged between the new-found liberation of "the Pill" and the stifling curse of herpes simplex and AIDS. There weren't too many of you human types turning down the not-too-subtle nuances of a lust-hearty proposition back then, regardless of marital status.

Luci was shocked at Bill's guarded reply. He was a party guy, a published poet, a Democrat—how could he be so prudish as to reject the warmth of her willing and Pill-protected loins?

Taken aback, she whispered the only words a child-woman of the seventies could have uttered in such a situation. "Well, fuck you, Bill," she said and started to storm away to the opposite corner of the Fellowship Hall where her husband, Tom (the reverend) and Bill's wife, Rachel (the holy-lady) were discussing more wholesome issues.

"Wait… please," he said, touching her arm and turning her face and her breasts and her hips and her intimate regions and all-manner-of-parts-and-pleasures-there-upon to him. "You don't understand," he said with eagerness barely suppressed by the demands of decorum appropriate to the First Presbyterian Fellowship Hall Marrieds' Social. "What I meant was, adultery is an old Jewish law—Luci, I'm neither old nor Jewish. Hell, yes, do you want to try a little adultery?"

"Maybe," she said with a delightfully wicked flash of a smile. Then with a whisper of sensual laughter she departed him, saying, "Give me a call next week, Billy. I'll be all alone."

Of course she wanted to try a little adultery with him.

And, of course, he called her the next week. And, of course, they did have a round or two or twenty or fifty of nasty old adultery over the next year or so. It was his first and only go at an extra-marital fling, his sole transgression of love's requisite marriage vow. Though at the time he rationalized the relationship would be beneficial to his sexual psyche and to the experiential base upon which he, as a writer, endeavored to build literature—you know, just doing a little research. In fact, the guilt that emanated from such unabated acquiescence to the dastardly "urge" nearly led to his demise. You see, though not apparent considering his actions, or should I say interactions with the minister's wife, the problem with Bill was that he was a much more decent person than his environment would ever allow him to be. Many of you human beings are. Regardless of the mythic misconception of My "holy" essence as a God, I clearly understand that in the face of unbridled temptation there is no course of action to be taken without dire consequence. To feign piety and reject that which is pleasurable and beautiful is a dangerous form of self-deception; to cast aside sensibility and the dogmas of decent judgment and partake of that which is so wantonly desired is a form of moral alienation.

It doesn't give the average human a fair choice, does it?

And to this standard mix of lust and loyalty we must add another strata of complication to the blessings and curses of William Mason. While leading a life of apparent normalcy, replete with an unexceptional domestic and vocational identity—a married white male with two children and a steady job; in truth, it was all a sham, a hoax perpetrated by love and decency. Bill, and I say this with considerable gravity, was an artist: a person haunted by a gift for seeing and saying. A poet to the core, there was nothing trivial to any of his pedestrian endeavors. With intense clarity of observation and expression, he filled notebooks with vignettes of the sunsets and the sorrows and mundane ecstasies of life unfolding about him. To maintain the status quo yet and know the beating of an artist's heart within one’s being creates a seeming contradiction most difficult to bear.

But, contrary to the bleating of Bohemians and the raging of recluse navel worshipers, it is in such a common crucible as the prosaic vessel of day-to-day reality that the finest art is synthesized. It's just not easy.

Bill was an artist, born to off-kilter and disproportionate realms of brilliance and sentiment crowded awkwardly into the confines of the normal life he attempted to sustain.

Don't pity the poor artist, though. Believe me, on some level, in some application, you all are artists. Did you know, artists are God's windows and as such, all eyes that see, participate in the creation of a Divine image? You don't need to know this yet, but what harm to plant the idea.

In any case, to return to the subject of sex, whether aspiring spirit or respiring couch potato, once the pretty person steps into your life and says, "Hey, big boy/Hey, little lady… " and once you realize that deep within the biological cortex of your being it sounds like a fine idea, you don't have a chance of remaining a physically and morally balanced individual any more. You're doomed by the happenstance of carnal opportunity to either biological frustration or moral condemnation for the rest of a whole phase of your life.

Perhaps one could simply avoid temptation. Good luck—the convents and monasteries of the world all have such ostriches and self-flagellating fools among their ardent populations. In the real world temptation is as common as...