B efore the curtain
As the manager sits before a performance, as the critics wait like hungry dogs to rip apart the performance, they all become entwined in the theatrics of it all. The public stands outside the great building in lavish gowns and over the top suits and top hats. They flourish in their vanity and ambition to be the next best thing.
Welcome to the world of pretense. It’s a moral one with many faces and people who have been to a few too many places. I'm one of those people. I stand in the crowd I laugh out loud, I wave my hands and sometimes just for a single moment, buy into the surealness of it all.
After all the big talk and mindless gossiping we go inside to laugh and hide and then to mock the performance of a very rigid man with a story. He was a magician of sorts who cut woman into pieces and put them back together. To them the mortal beings who find this all too amusing it's all a story, a performance, a play, a theatrical piece of sorts, or just another literary game. However, I'm here to tell you dear reader that there is always more than meets the eye.
That is why I have no other moral, but to tag this book as "afterlife". Some people consider the afterlife all but a mindless conspiracy theory. They see nothing but their own mortality and plot that there is nothing beyond this plain old earth than dust and fog. Dear reader, what you are about to read will shock and frustrate you, but I have no other choice but to tell you this tale. What more have I, a historian of sorts to say, but to let the curtain rise!
France, September 21, 1951
The shell of objects inwardly consumed
Will stand, till some convulsive wind awakes;
Such sense hath Fire to waste the heart of things,
Nature, such love to hold the form she makes.
Thus, wasted joys will show their early bloom,
Yet crumble at the breath of a caress;
The golden fruitage hides the scathèd bough,
Snatch it, thou scatterest wide its emptiness.
For pleasure bidden, I went forth last night
To where, thick hung, the festal torches gleamed;
Here were the flowers, the music, as of old,
Almost the very olden time it seemed.
For one with cheek unfaded, (though he brings
My buried brothers to me, in his look,)
Said, `Will you dance?' At the accustomed words
I gave my hand, the old position took.
Sound, gladsome measure! at whose bidding once
I felt the flush of pleasure to my brow,
While my soul shook the burthen of the flesh,
And in its young pride said, `Lie lightly thou!'
Then, like a gallant swimmer, flinging high
My breast against the golden waves of sound,
I rode the madd'ning tumult of the dance,
Mocking fatigue, that never could be found.
Chide not,--it was not vanity, nor sense,
(The brutish scorn such vaporous delight,)
But Nature, cadencing her joy of strength
To the harmonious limits of her right.
She gave her impulse to the dancing Hours,
To winds that sweep, to stars that noiseless turn;
She marked the measure rapid hearts must keep
Devised each pace that glancing feet should learn.
And sure, that prodigal o'erflow of life,
Unvow'd as yet to family or state,
Sweet sounds, white garments, flowery coronals
Make holy, in the pageant of our fate.
Sound, measure! but to stir my heart no more--
For, as I moved to join the dizzy race,
My youth fell from me; all its blooms were gone,
And others showed them, smiling, in my face.
Faintly I met the shock of circling forms
Linked each to other, Fashion's galley-slaves,
Dream-wondering, like an unaccustomed ghost
That starts, surprised, to stumble over graves.
For graves were 'neath my feet, whose placid masks
Smiled out upon my folly mournfully,
While all the host of the departed said,
`Tread lightly--thou
As the manager sits before a performance, as the critics wait like hungry dogs to rip apart the performance, they all become entwined in the theatrics of it all. The public stands outside the great building in lavish gowns and over the top suits and top hats. They flourish in their vanity and ambition to be the next best thing.
Welcome to the world of pretense. It’s a moral one with many faces and people who have been to a few too many places. I'm one of those people. I stand in the crowd I laugh out loud, I wave my hands and sometimes just for a single moment, buy into the surealness of it all.
After all the big talk and mindless gossiping we go inside to laugh and hide and then to mock the performance of a very rigid man with a story. He was a magician of sorts who cut woman into pieces and put them back together. To them the mortal beings who find this all too amusing it's all a story, a performance, a play, a theatrical piece of sorts, or just another literary game. However, I'm here to tell you dear reader that there is always more than meets the eye.
That is why I have no other moral, but to tag this book as "afterlife". Some people consider the afterlife all but a mindless conspiracy theory. They see nothing but their own mortality and plot that there is nothing beyond this plain old earth than dust and fog. Dear reader, what you are about to read will shock and frustrate you, but I have no other choice but to tell you this tale. What more have I, a historian of sorts to say, but to let the curtain rise!
France, September 21, 1951
The shell of objects inwardly consumed
Will stand, till some convulsive wind awakes;
Such sense hath Fire to waste the heart of things,
Nature, such love to hold the form she makes.
Thus, wasted joys will show their early bloom,
Yet crumble at the breath of a caress;
The golden fruitage hides the scathèd bough,
Snatch it, thou scatterest wide its emptiness.
For pleasure bidden, I went forth last night
To where, thick hung, the festal torches gleamed;
Here were the flowers, the music, as of old,
Almost the very olden time it seemed.
For one with cheek unfaded, (though he brings
My buried brothers to me, in his look,)
Said, `Will you dance?' At the accustomed words
I gave my hand, the old position took.
Sound, gladsome measure! at whose bidding once
I felt the flush of pleasure to my brow,
While my soul shook the burthen of the flesh,
And in its young pride said, `Lie lightly thou!'
Then, like a gallant swimmer, flinging high
My breast against the golden waves of sound,
I rode the madd'ning tumult of the dance,
Mocking fatigue, that never could be found.
Chide not,--it was not vanity, nor sense,
(The brutish scorn such vaporous delight,)
But Nature, cadencing her joy of strength
To the harmonious limits of her right.
She gave her impulse to the dancing Hours,
To winds that sweep, to stars that noiseless turn;
She marked the measure rapid hearts must keep
Devised each pace that glancing feet should learn.
And sure, that prodigal o'erflow of life,
Unvow'd as yet to family or state,
Sweet sounds, white garments, flowery coronals
Make holy, in the pageant of our fate.
Sound, measure! but to stir my heart no more--
For, as I moved to join the dizzy race,
My youth fell from me; all its blooms were gone,
And others showed them, smiling, in my face.
Faintly I met the shock of circling forms
Linked each to other, Fashion's galley-slaves,
Dream-wondering, like an unaccustomed ghost
That starts, surprised, to stumble over graves.
For graves were 'neath my feet, whose placid masks
Smiled out upon my folly mournfully,
While all the host of the departed said,
`Tread lightly--thou
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