I_HAVE_A_SPECIAL_PLAN_FOR_THIS_WORLD



I

When everyone you have ever loved is finally gone
When everything you have ever wanted is finally done with 
When all of your nightmares are for a time obscured
as by a shining brainless beacon 
or a blinding eclipse
Of the many terrible shapes of this world
When you are calm and joyful and finally, entirely alone 
Then, in a great new darkness,
You will finally execute your special plan


II

One needs to have a plan, someone said who was 
turned away into the shadows
and who I had believed was sleeping or dead 
Imagine, he said, all the flesh that is eaten 
the teeth tearing into it
the tongue tasting its savor 
and the hunger for that taste
Now take away that flesh, he said 
take away the teeth and the tongue 
the taste and the hunger
Take away everything as it is—
That was my plan, my own special plan for this world

I listened to these words and yet I did not wonder
If this creature whom I had thought sleeping or dead 
Would ever approach his vision
even in his deepest dreams 
or his most lasting death
Because I had heard of such plans, such visions 
And I knew they did not see far enough—
That what was demanded—in the way of a plan—
Needed to go beyond tongue and teeth 
and hunger and flesh
Beyond the bones and the very dust of bones 
and the wind that would come
to blow the dust away
And so I began to envision a darkness 
That was long before the dark of night 
And a strangely shining light
That owed nothing to the light of day.


III

That day may seem like other days—
Once more we feel the tiny-legged trepidations
Once more we are mangled by a great grinding fear
But that day will have no others after
No more worlds like this will follow 
Because I have a plan, a very special plan— 
No more worlds like this
No more days like that


IV

There are but four ways to die
A sardonic spirit might have said to me— 
There is dying that occurs relatively suddenly 
There is dying that occurs relatively gradually 
There is dying that occurs relatively painlessly 
There is the death that is full of pain
Thus, by various means, they are combined 
the sudden and the gradual
the painless and the painful 
To yield but four ways to die 
And there are no others

Even after the voice stopped speaking 
I listened for it to speak again
After hours and days and years had passed 
I listened for some further words
Yet all I heard were the faintest echoes reminding me 
there are no others
there are no others
Was it then that I began
To conceive for this world a special plan?


V

There are no means for escaping this world 
It penetrates even into your sleep
and is its substance
You are caught in your own dreaming 
where there is no space
And are held forever where there is no time
You can do nothing you are not told to do 
There is no hope for escape from this dream 
that was never yours
There very words you speak are only its very words 
And you talk like a traitor
Under its incessant torture


VI

There are many who have designs upon this world 
And dream of wild and vast reformations—
I have heard them talking in their sleep
Of elegant mutations and cunning annihilations 
I have heard them whispering in the
corners of crooked houses
And in the alleys and narrow backstreets 
of this crooked creaking universe
Which they—with their new designs—would make 
straight and sound

But each of these new and ill-conceived designs 
is deranged in its heart
For they see this world as if it were alone and original 
And not as only one of countless others
whose nightmares all proceed
Like a hideous garden grown from a single seed

I have heard these dreamers talking in their sleep 
And I stand waiting for them
As at the top of a darkened flight of stairs— 
They know nothing of me
And none of the secrets of my special plan 
While I know every crooked creaking step of theirs


VII

It was the voice of someone who was waiting in the shadows
Who was looking at the moon and waiting for me to turn the corner 
And enter a narrow street
And stand with him in the dull glaze of moonlight
Then he said to me—he whispered—that my plan was misconceived 
That my special plan for this world was a terrible mistake 
Because, he said—
there is nothing to do
and there is nowhere to go 
there is nothing to be
and there is no one to know
Your plan is a mistake, he repeated 
This world is a mistake, I replied


VIII

The children always followed him 
When they saw him hopping by 
A funny walk, a funny man
A funny funny funny man—
He made them laugh sometimes

He made them laugh, oh yes he did 
He did, he did, he did, he did
Oh, how he made them roll

One day he took them to a place 
He knew—a special place—
And told them things about this world 
This funny funny funny world
Which made them laugh, sometimes

He made them laugh, oh yes he did 
He did, he did, he did, he did
Oh, how he made them roll

Then the funny little man
Who made them laugh—sometimes he did—
Revealed to them his special plan
His very special funny plan 
Knowing they would understand 
And maybe laugh sometimes

He made them laugh, oh yes he did 
He did, he did, he did, he did—
Their eyes grew wide beneath their lids 
Oh, how he made them roll


IX

I first learned the facts from a lunatic
In a dark and quiet room that smelled of 
stale time and space
There are no people—nothing at all like that—
The human phenomenon is but the sum
Of densely coiled layers of illusion
 Each of which winds itself upon the supreme insanity
That there are persons of any kind
When all there can be is mindless mirrors 
Laughing and screaming as they parade about 
in an endless dream

But when I asked the lunatic what it was 
That saw itself within these mirrors
As they marched endlessly in stale time and space 
He only rocked and smiled
Then he laughed and screamed 
And in his black and empty eyes
I saw for a moment—as in a mirror—
A formless shade of divinity
In flight from its stale infinity
Of time and space and the worst of all 
of this world's dreams—
My special plan for the laughter and the screams


X

We went to see some little show 
That was staged in an old shed 
past the edge of town
And in its beginnings all seemed well— 
The miniature curtained staged glowed 
in the darkness
While those dolls bounced along on their strings 
before our eyes
And in its beginnings all seemed well

But then there came a subtle turning point 
Which some had noticed—and I was one— 
who quietly left the show—though I did not 
Because I could see where things were going 
As the antics of those dolls grew strange  
And the fragile strings grew taut
With the tiny pullings of tiny limbs 
The others around me became appalled
And turned away and abandoned the show 
That was staged in an old shed
past the edge of town
But I wanted to witness what could never be 
I wanted to see what could not be seen—
The moment of consummate disaster
When puppets turn to face the puppetmaster


XI

It was twilight and I stood in the grayish haze 
of a vast empty building
When the silence was enriched by a reverberant voice—
All the things of this world—it said—are of but one essence 
for which there are no words[impossible to name in words?]
This is the greater part, which has no beginning or end—
And the one essence of this world 
for which there can be no words 
Is but all the things of this world—
This is the lesser part, which had a beginning 
and shall have an end
And for which words were conceived solely to speak of— 
The tiny broken beings of this world—it said—
The beginnings and endings of this world—it said—
For which words were conceived solely to speak of

Now remove these words and what remains? 
it asked me
As I stood in the twilight of that vast empty building 
but I did not answer
The question echoed over and over
but I remained silent until the echoes died 
And as twilight passed into evening
I felt my special plan—for which there are no words— 
Moving towards a greater darkness



XII

There are some who have no voices 
Or none that will ever speak
Because the things they know about this world 
And the things they feel about this world—
Because the thoughts that fill a brain
that is a damaged brain
Because the pain that fills a body 
that is a damaged body
Exist in other worlds 
Countless other worlds
Each of which stands alone in an infinite empty blackness 
For which no words have been conceived
And where no voices are able to speak—
When a brain is filled only with damaged thoughts 
When a damaged body is filled only with pain 
And stands alone in a world surrounded
by infinite empty blackness
And exists in a world for which there is no special plan

XIII

When everyone you have ever loved is finally gone
When everything you have ever wanted is finally done with 
When all of your nightmares are for a time obscured
as by a shining brainless beacon 
or a blinding eclipse
Of the many terrible shapes of this world
When you are calm and joyful and finally, entirely alone 
Then, in a great new darkness,
You will finally execute your special plan



Thomas Ligotti, i have a special plan for this world

Current 93, I Have a Special Plan for This World