9/11 and the New Fade

on a Tuesday morning
four plains were hijacked
and crashed, two into
two towers, one into
the Pentagon, and one
in a field in Pennsylvania

now, you won't believe this
but there are people who
believe that these crashes
were a conspiracy, that they
were orchestrated to fulfill
an agenda of terror
from within

that's what it's like
in the New Fade, connecting
dots that aren't there because
that's what you want to believe
about the world around you,
ignoring devastation, mocking it
and all the lives lost in favor
of ludicrous self-serving
conclusions whose only
connection to the real world
is how they matches your politics

so if you'll excuse me
i'll sit here and remember
what really happened and how
it transformed our world

we're still so much in the thick
of that change now that we
can't appreciate it just yet...

This is now concluded.

As in:
The End.

Alone with the Myths in the New Fade, Part 15

trying to put a happy face on it
requires an act of imagination

this is job known as rehabilitation

when it seems like you've lost your faith
and there's nothing left to believe in
it's time to pull back and think again

even the most ardent skeptics
and just-plain pessimists
will have to admit at some point
that not one person who has ever lived
has witnessed the end of the world

all of this is a slow burn
a New Fade
just another transition

it takes on all shapes and sizes
and switches gears from age to age

a constant disorienting effect

try to hold on

Alone with the Myths in the New Fade, Part 14

i'm going to share with you
a word that's anathema
to the cultural warmongers
and that would be "perspective"

there's nothing so vile
or loathsome to those
who only see the worst
than trying to see the big picture

it's much more cheap
and easier to pretend
that your glib thoughts
have a meaningful contribution

but when forced to integrate
gut reactions with reasoning
you may discover that
you haven't got it all figured out

Alone with the Myths in the New Fade, Part 13

with the Metaphysics of Quality
one may discover the virtues
of the self in the context of
a chaotic New Fade
where all thought and belief
is subjected to a fiction
that must somehow express
what others deny

the Metaphysics of Quality
are about the effort
to understand the world
and its shifting loyalties
to pinpoint a central truth
that came into being
from the moment of creation
regardless of how that was
and where this truth has stood
ever since time came into being

the New Fade has produced
its share of challenges to a
steadfast knowledge of
these Metaphysics of Quality
but hardly more than in
an equally insubstantial
awareness that belief
leaves all men alone with the myths
and that only stories remain
to make them clear again

Alone with the Myths in the New Fade, Part 12

the funny thing about
things you end up
walking away from

is that you will
eventually
look back fondly

once you've had
an experience
with something

you can never
take that
back

memory is a game
that constantly works
against you

your thoughts
and your convictions
are not necessarily your own

if you get around
to realizing that
you may rethink everything

Alone with the Myths in the New Fade, Part 11

replacing that which you do not believe
is an affirmation of that belief

obsessing over that which you do not believe
is an affirmation of that belief

contradicting that which you do not believe
is an affirmation of that belief

acknowledging that which you do not believe
is an affirmation of that belief

escaping that which you do not believe
is an affirmation of that belief

reconciling that which you do not believe
is an affirmation of that belief

so either way
in some way
you believe