Blackness
---------------------------------
by Tim Flanders
(a.k.a. Agent LATHUS)
e-mail: (lathus@hotmail.com)
"Blackness" copyright by Tim Flanders 1996
NOTE TO THE READER:
I don't know how well this poem will go over with y'all. It's a pretty
esoteric peice. The best way to describe it, is that it is more or less
a dream-state/acid-trip view of the dark forces controlling things behind
the scenes, and our lack of power to do anything about it. There's alot
of symbolism in this peice that might not make alot of sense ... maybe I'm
the only one warped enough to understand it (probably the same reason I was
the only one warped enough to write it).
This peice isn't so much character-based, as it is ideal-motivated. The
ideal of MillenniuM show is to look beyond the ordinary, to see into the
dim and distant haze of fantasy and insanity ... to fight madness without
becoming mad oneself. That is what I have tried to mold this poem's
likeness into, the ideal of MillenniuM. Please drop me a line and tell me
what you think.
There are some notes I made about this peice at the end, take a peek at em
if things are getting too weird, maybe they'll help. :)
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He looks through the opened wound and peers into the blackness.
And he is there.
"Lost in shadows", he cries out.
Waiting for a response,
Nothing returns.
The ground and sky are one, stretching forever without difference.
He walks.
The sound of his feet, his only companion.
Tired -- he shuffles on.
The weight of his feet become too great,
He trips,
He falls.
No one notices
No one to notice.
No one laughs,
No one to laugh.
No one helps,
No one to help.
He does not get up.
Here he sleeps and here he dreams -- dreams of the light.
He wakes 10 hours later, or 100 hours, or 100 years . . .
There is no way to tell.
The blackness consumes all . . .
Time . . .
Size . . .
Place . . .
Existence.
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NOTES:
The first line "He looks through the opened wound..." is alittle weird.
When I was writting this I was thinking of a physical cut that the
character was looking at on his own body, (like Frank's scar on the palm
of his hand in 'The Thin White Line'. The closer he looks at the wound
the blacker the damage gets until he literally falls into himself, or
his psyche falls into its own blackness.
Frank has had a couple mental and emotional breakdowns, this poem is a
insight into his feelings. If you keep in mind the literal and the mental
state the character is in, the rest of the lines are pretty straight
forward. This poem is mostly about the loneliness and solitude and
paranoia that the character (most likely Frank) feels when he is the sole
searcher of a truth that others scoff at. The poem also represents the
heavey weight that the search puts on the believer, and the feeling of
utter hopelessness at times.
"Blackness" generally refers to the unknown future we will face at the turning
of the millennia. All prophecies and theories will bw put to the test.
The 'blackness' is also the emensity of the task that has befalled Frank.
It is as if he is alone in the quest to keep his family safe from the
terrors outside.
If these notes aren't enough help, e-mail me with your questions.
Maybe I'm just making too much of this, but this is one of my favorite
peices and I would like for everyone to understamd it fully.
--------------------------
any comments?
Email: lathus@hotmail.com
