The Puppet Has No Master

Track 4 of Future Ghosts

 

 

day to day

hour to hour

second second

all i do is circus

 

-

 

in my suffering

who is the sufferer?

 

it happens to me

it afflicts me

 

but i am stood aside;

i look on;

 

where am i

in that?

 

-

 

i want to phone my employer

say 'i can't come in today.

why? don't you realise

this world is a

surreal ontological joke?

a puppet show?'

 

-

 

i move so quickly

from one assumed persona

to the next

i forget

who i was

underneath it all

 

-

 

i play this role

of being real

belong

of place to be

not

don't

isn't

i play this role

 

-

 

the bust silk gnash

the rust black weight

red moon laugh

and blade unfurl

to the shorn singularity

of night

 

not star too far

my teen dream sing

the teeth that speak

my curtain pricked

to the shorn singularity

of night

 

where blood is word

where meat bells grin

where i stitch and pin

pikaia puppet

to the shorn singularity

of night

 

Musically, this draws chiefly on the Logos track Bipolar Binary from Shamania, in particular the lengthy middle section. As with the rest of Future Ghosts, the text was all originally posted - piece by piece and as it was written - on my Twitter feed in autumn 2013 (first three sections) and spring 2014 (remainder). I've mentioned before the influence of Thomas Ligotti on Future Ghosts; the meaning of the title should be clear. A couple of textual comments:

 

'i am stood aside; i look on; where am i in that?' - I've always found this aspect of depression fascinating; externalising oneself, viewing it as an experience one is having rather than a defining factor of one's character. Not that it makes the suffering itself any easier to handle.

 

'i want to phone my employer...' - Coincidentally or not, the day after writing this section on 18 November 2013, I was indeed signed off work by my GP for an extended period on mental health grounds. 

 

'i move so quickly from one assumed persona to the next...' - See also the track Scarecrow from God Thing; 'blink out. one world. one sky. reach for notebook and drop a mass of papers. ten year novels. somme notes. undated rants. crop circle workplans. vic. mutable. inkling. zila dell. df. legal sec. i switch so quickly from persona to persona. i become my own hallucinations.'

 

Currently reading: Soldaten - Sonke Neitzel & Harald Welzer

Currently listening: Breathe Hard, Breathe Deep - Inhale