more than once i’ve sat bolt upright in the middle of the house thinking of better names for carpet colour; i think you’d approve of ‘cul-de-sac brown’ and ‘giant yellow dream’

i noticed life

doesn’t float this way

or that

something

i’ve noticed

is not clear

not exactly clear

for more than half

the pixels have

been fudged

in the way

in a way it is and

the most you can say

about anybody

is anyone’s guess

‘not exactly clear’

is legal

blindness

for more than half

my life

i’ve required

auratic prosthetics

for reading

colour

‘round

noggins

all the time invested

you can tell

you know that

office workers

never have auras

by definition

rose is such a

colour in general

just so much

rides on

what i’ve noticed

doesn’t apply

to sport and for

shopping

we are grateful

just so you know

it is also bread

we buy and

spiritual rightness

at the shop

i go down

on one banana

after the other

in order

to distract the

shop boy so

my girlfriend

steals cake

she is so

laughing like

that’s the way

time devours

heaven

i say that 

without irony

without you

noticing me

the world might

have stopped

before

you never know

i’m serious

in telling you this

is not a

wisecrack move

to get you into

bed but since

you’re already

hic et nunc

seriously

why not

just peel off

gently and just

float to the floor

this carpet was

installed so

quickly so

the pixels are

not exactly

your taste

is exquisite

more than

once i’ve sat

bolt upright

in the middle

of the house

thinking of

better names for

carpet colour

i think you’d

approve of

‘cul-de-sac brown’

and ‘giant yellow

dream’

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

I_BECAME_JUST_I_BECAME_UNREASONED_ I_BECAME_EXTRAVAGANT

   I found the bee as it fumbled about the ground
   Its leg mangled, its wing torn, its sting
       gone
   I picked it up, marvelled at its insistence
       to continue on, despite the dumb brute
       thing that had occurred
   I considered, remembered the fatal struggle
       the agony on the face of wounded friends
       and the same dumb drive to continue
   I became angry at the unfair conflict suffered
       by will and organism
   I became just, I became unreasoned, I became
       extravagant
   I observed the bee, there, lying in my palm
   I looked and I commanded in a harsh and angry shout –
       STOP THAT!
   Then it ceased to struggle, and somehow suddenly
       became marvellously whole, and it arose
       and it flew away
   I stared, I was appalled, I was overwhelmed
       with responsibility, and I knew not where to begin.

TIME AND THE CITY

SOME SEVENTEEN SYLLABLE COMMENTS

1

On the freeway

I follow redglow taillights

to my city of glass

2

I was not here yesterday

also

I will not be here tomorrow

3

Will you please explain this

I hate you

I fear you

I return always

4

The pain of your people

tears my flesh

Still…

There is the hour before dawn

5

I will not be here yesterday

also

I was not here tomorrow

'Letter from Kickapoo (pop. 250)'

   I'm
   hiding out
   from the heat here

   this time
   they want me
   for Living without Believing
   for Working without Slavery
   Playing without Patterns
   and Loving without Misery

   please don't give me away?

  

INITIATION

What we doing, being

   cool?

That argument Kitten, on

   the freeway

I couldn’t keep up our

   habits and

We cruised along sick,

   seeking magic

And you said – Hit some

   chump over his head

But I didn’t dig that so

   you offered

To find some good tricks

I got hot, indignant like

   a square with tears

And you felt pity, saying

 - Don’t cry Daddy, it’s just

another way to burn a sucker

'Things Exactly as They Are'

   Things exactly as they are
   Are Paradise
   But it's always so quiet
   When the crickets die

PUSAN LIBERTY

 the 6 x 6 bounces me down thewashboard roads, I see the sun-eaten walls of Korea, mygirl-wife & child in mud & straw hut back in Taegu & hereI am meeting the SEAL as he sits on his roller-skate cartminus arms & legs but beneath his ass a million $’s worthof heroin – I make my buy walk through the 10,000 cam-era market-place, jeeps for sale, people for sale, I’meven for sale as I find the porch of Cutie’s suckahatchihouse and fix, sitting in the sun on the adobe veranda, thetwo Chinese agents come around to make their buy, 2 youngboys, they’re hooked bad & I charge them too much – we sitthere and fix, I fix again, the so-called Enemy & I, but just3 angry boys lost in the immense absurdity of War and state suddenfriends who have decided that our hatred of Government exceedsour furthest imaginable limits of human calculation  

American poet William Wantling (1933-74) led a life of extremes. Much of his poetry reflects this. Born in Peoria, Illinois (a town which would come to represent the kind of conformism that Wantling detested), he was a soldier in the Korean War, became a heroin addict on his return to civilian life, and spent almost six years in San Quentin prison for forgery and possession of narcotics. It was in prison that Wantling began to write. His early poetry already reflected a need to transcend immediate circumstances as well as to confront them. 

'The Awakening', dated December 1962, was first published in a limited edition of 200 by Turret Books in 1967, and as the opening piece for In the Enemy Camp: Selected Poems 1964-74, 108pp, Tangerine Press.

The four-line poem, 'Things Exactly as They Are,' takes its title from Wallace Stevens' long poem 'The Man with the Blue Guitar' (which itself was inspired by a Picasso painting).