THIS MEMOIR OF SORTS (God's Own Ledger)

101. THIS MEMOIR OF SORTS (God's Own Ledger):

God's own book his ledger which today would be a computer screen only if the course of reality changes with thought YET to me the wind in the sailship's sails going the other way from speed means more and Henry Hudson's Half Moon would still have purpose even without Columbia's lies and : 'from Eleanor of Aquitaine I rose up sharp to seek my gain' amidst the trials of Inwood Gardens with all its Spanish markings - and that PUMPKIN had no eyes but saw things nonetheless despoiled on every porch and ledge and outside of 35 Perry Street I sought to find my own place standing (all the gardens were closed again for the season and so many dormant things now made me feeling queasy wander off) - and it seemed right then to me as if some voice was saying : 'SUDDENLY we saw him no more - the waters had closed over his head' - and only THAT was my notion of Death.
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Oh Lord what are we here for and what is the meaning of our life?
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"Well swell silly question actually and why so presumptuous to ask - as you are - in a world where no meaning nor answer is going to change anything and outside any entry of a journal sort there's nothing more than conjecture to report - all the silliest of things you hear - 'I am you and you are me and we are all together' the most usual one and another I recall 'I am You is WE are' yes yes that too but fingernails cutting glass are more profound than that can be and the trolley NEWLY entered over land and street across the harbor from Jersey City's broken face to Newark's soiled ass runs straight to Hell if that's what you wish to enter and there are NO passes long enough to escape from that : I once visited myself the old abandoned Essex Prison atop some lonesome nasty hill in Newark's open top amidst all the car shops and tire shops and some railyard or something and it was TOTALLY I mean totally neglected yet it was the absolute ONLY thing around for miles of any beauty and character and in addition to all that IT WAS THE ONLY THING there that had any heritage and history and story and mark BUT NO MATTER the silly bastards all around ignored it totally let it fall to ruin watched it decay while they promenaded the filthy streets themselves with all their awful stuff - booze bottles condoms baseball bats telephones broken bricks and stones - they knew absolutely nothing and were like another race entire - something distant and far and alien and broken and dropped there dumb as shit from some awful other place and TO THEM it's all been turned over - the greed the rapacious demon the very EVIL of the government and the land which everyone oh so very much worships now"
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Heard that once before I thought but couldn't place the voice.
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These men were dispossessed – I could tell that right off – had nothing and probably wished for less and in earlier years may very well have been someone – each of them – families cars careers and perhaps even local reputations for one thing or another but all that right now was gone they were skeletal remnants of a false religion of a God who’d failed them or who they’d failed however one’s proclivities would wish to phrase that - old withered men barely holding on they shuffled together from one place to another for food and the rest and here and there they simply had to LISTEN and whether it was prayer or some communist spiel about equality and brotherhood and all that NO MATTER they did what they had to for food and something to do and as they kept their sanity so by the same effort did they try to keep their place on this earth their appeal their logic their wants and it was difficult for as a man ages a man so realizes how little he knows and they knew even less - not to them the mysteries of the quark or the shadings of some deep astronomy with the philosophies of old for to them all of that was gone as slathered away as some sixth-grade level textbook they’d forgotten long ago and any requisite skills and habits engrained through business or their corporate once-had-beens or whatever it was all gone now and they stood alone as one or alone as alone - food shelter clothing was now their only triune God - so they stretched a hand for something and took in what they got and the very place they lived in was folding : the Bowery was so long over even its memory was laughable and now there was nothing but swarmings of kids and students in style and the fashionably lame pulsing each night from bar to bar and place to place as everything ceded the past away and the present for mortgage and loss - ‘university bastards’ and ‘graduate scum’ I’d heard them called - and the light went down on the bridges and tolls and the drawn-in lodgings were nowhere affable nor welcoming as pictures of some sacred heart and bleeding patron looked down from the cracked and very tired walls "these are the cheapest things I’ve ever seen come through here and the free cigarettes were rolled so thin you could see daylight through them" and the guy saying that was nearby and complaining of everything – the mice in the cereal boxes the scum in the coffee cups the holes in the elbows of the free clothing and what he didn’t know was that I was listening and in addition there were two people with cameras nearby photographing him and his cronies for whatever reason and right there - from the Bowery Mission to the corner of Spring Street and Bowery too - were people lined up for something whether it was a blessing or a blessing in disguise none of it mattered and the old foundry workers (still bent and awkward with arthritis) would have traded places with them for anything and some guy was saying "I only like the stuff that was real that came from real life" and another says "yeah the bible’s supposed to be filled with that stuff" and someone else nearby chuckled and said "bullshit to all that it was written by Disney and it’s mostly unlistenable but shut-up anyway’’ and this entire sing-song babble went on for some time as I realized how childish really these little men were and ME me of all people all half-their-ages of me was here deciding they were wrong and I was to be right and it all came down to me like a thud on the side of my head how awesome the real world was even if it WAS filled with all stupidity and doubt SO WHAT the spirit inside said so what it’s YOUR turn next – meaning me – and with that I swaggered over to the closet and took down a broom and went over to the guy Hank Swales and said "Jesus Christ if you’d ever try shutting up and cleaning up maybe something would get done around here and the place might then at least SEEM a little better to you."