sometimes the muffled sound you hear through a closed window at night defies comprehension

incites your courage to turn an leave 

                                                                                                                               

quickens  stuffs your breath

your brave hasty fingers

suddenly arrested

they linger at the sash lock 

                                             linger  hooked  in the handle at the bottom of the casement

the muntins groan uneasily at your tension

  

with the slightest turn you can unlock the window

                                                                                 the slightest lift will open it 

an then you can see

 

there will be nothing between you and it

                                                                  whatever it is

that is out there

mewling

morose

                                        

                whatever it is it

isnt part of the world you inhabited

before the sun went down

transmogrified

 

                          an your only hope when it enters the house

because it will

                                                            

is to unsee it see through it 

                                             utterly unreactive unresponsive unimpressed

                                                                                                                                                Wau Wauuh   

Wauwhamp    

                     slithers 

                                                                                                                                      

the square tiles on the floor behind it are smeared stained with earth  tracked with soot spore black ruined leaves spurned moss slivered with greyspeckled decay   an a smell that thickens an adheres to the back of your throat

precipitates your choking retching                                                 

                                                        bile an snotgreen phlegm

                                                                                                                              slithers    past

your unseeing

youve done well

an slaughters the rest of the household

untipped                                                                                                                                                   

                by the horrid sound breath outside

the softened glaring glass

0055,  Thursday,  14  1. 16

1346,  Thursday,  14 1. 16

she loved to read

she read in Empire of Self 

                                           a biography of Gore Vidal

a passage from Gores 1959 essay on Suetonius a Roman historian the father of biographical writing

(Suetonius held) up a mirror to those Caesars of diverting legend, (it) reflects not only them but ourselves: half-tamed creatures, whose great moral task it is to hold in balance the angel and the monster within  –  for we are both, and to ignore this duality is to invite disaster

We are both she uttered breathlessly to herself while keeping watch to either side that no one overheard her

as a young girl a young woman she was encouraged or berated if she did not seek out her greater angel while knowing full well it was to the detriment of her monster

an the more inducement she endured

the more she struggled to restrain her monster

the more monstrous her first inclinations and thinking were

                                                                      

                                                                                                               then she met him 

                      

an perhaps because he was a man

because he was unorthodox an incorrigible

because no one could make him feel uncomfortable in his skin

                                                                                                       he encouraged her monster

encouraged it to begin pharisaistic

so she could catch up on her monsters deficit

an once the scales levelled he pulled her back from its edge  an abyss

so when she looked into it she could see its dark void dissipate

an it replaced by the cool quiet reflection of a black mirror

he helped her avert a disaster

that would have been her

why would people who loved her  who provided an cared for her  do what they did

he smiled gently

then grit his teeth

                                 Well   --   paraphrasing Tolstoy   of all people   --   the hardest thing can be explained to a dimwit

as long as they havent any idea of it

but the simplest  plainest  thing  cant be made clear to an intelligent person if they believe they already know it

    

I cant think of a soul who would want to go toe-to-toe with Tolstoy

1454,  Twosday,  12  1. 16

0010,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  13  1. 16