Democratic License by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
Patti Smith
In Arezzo I dreamed a dream
Of Saint Francis who kneeled and prayed For the birds and the beasts and all humankind.
All through the night I felt drawn in by him
And I heard him call
Like a distant hymn
I retreated from the silence of my room Stepping down the ancient stones washed with dawn And entered the basilica that bore his name Seeing his effigy I bowed my head And my racing heart I gave to him I kneeled and prayed
And the sleep that I could not find in the night I found through him
I saw before me the world of his world The bright fields, the birds in abundance All of nature of which he sang
Singing of him
All the beauty that surrounded him as he walked His nature that was nature itself And I heard him - I heard him speak And the birds sang sweetly
And the wolves licked his feet.
O Signore, fa' che sia strumento della tua Pace: Dove c'è odio, lascia che sia Amore.
Dove c'è offesa, Perdono.
Dove c'è dubbio, Fede.
Dove c'è disperazione, Speranza.
Dove c'è oscurità, Luce.
Dove c'è tristezza, Gioia.
Fa' ch'io non cerchi tanto
Di essere consolato, quanto consolare.
Di essere compreso, quanto comprendere.
Di essere amato, quanto amare.
But I could not give myself to him I felt another call from the basilica itself The call of art - the call of man And the beauty of the material drew me away And I awoke, and beheld upon the wall The dream of Constantine
The handiwork of Piero della Francesca Who had stood where I stood
With his brush stroked
The Legend of the True Cross
He envisioned Constantine advancing to greet the enemy
But as he was passing the river
An unaccustomed fear gripped his bowels An anticipation so overwhelming
that it manifested in waves
All through the night a dream drew toward him As an advancing Crusade
He slept in his tent on the battlefield While his men stood guard
And an angel awoke him
Constantine within his dream awoke And his men saw a light pass over the face of the King
The troubled King
And the angel came and showed to him The sign of the true cross in heaven And upon it was written
In this sign shall thou conquer
In the distance the tents of his army were lit by moonlight
But another kind of radiance lit
the face of Constantine
And in the morning light
The artist, seeing his work was done Saw that it was good
In this sign shall thou conquer
He let his brush drop
and passed into a sleep of his own And he dreamed of Constantine
carrying into battle in his right hand An immaculate, undefiled single white Cross Piero della Francesca,
as his brush stroked the wall
Was filled with a torpor
And fell into a dream of his own
From the geometry of his heart he mapped it out He saw the King rise, fitted with armor Set upon a white horse
An immaculate cross in his right hand.
He advanced toward the enemy
And the symmetry, the perfection of his mathematics Caused the scattering of the enemy Agitated, broken, they fled
And Piero della Francesca waking, cried out All is art - all is future!
Oh Lord let me die on the back of adventure With a brush and an eye full of light But as he advanced in age
The light was shorn from his eyes And blinded, he laid upon his bed On an October morning 1492, and whispered Oh Lord let me die on the back of adventure Oh Lord let me die on the back of adventure And a world away - a world away
On three great ships
Adventure itself as if to answer
Pulling into the New World
And as far as his eyes could see
No longer blind
All of nature unspoiled - beautiful - beautiful In such a manner that would have lifted the heart of St. Francis
Into the realm of universal love
Columbus stepped foot on the New World And witnessed beauty unspoiled
All the delights given by God
As if an Eden itself,
as if Eden had opened her heart to him And opened her dress
And all of her fruit gave to him
And Columbus so overwhelmed
Fell into a sleep of his own
All the world in his sleep
All of the beauty,
all of the beauty entwined with the future The twenty-first century
Advancing like the angel
Advancing like the angel
That had come
To Constantine
Constantine in his dream
Oh this is your cross to bear
Oh Lord Oh Lord let me deliver
Hallowed adventure to all mankind
In the future
Oh art cried the painter
Oh art - Oh art - cried the angel Art the great material gift of man Art that hath denied
The humble pleas of St. Francis
Oh thou Artist
All shall crumble into dust
Oh thou navigator
The terrible end of man
This is your gift to mankind
This is your cross to bear
And Columbus saw all of nature aflame The apocalyptic night
And the dream of the troubled King Dissolved into light
Written by Patti Smith and Leonard J Kaye.
When it ended I joined the horizontals and lay down on one of the hammocks and we wrapped ourselves with the white blankets provided. I think that I dozed, more or less, and the spectacle began.
“The Ukrainian Polka of the Seven Steps” began and fourteen of the figures in the hammocks got up and formed seven couples and
got ready for their dance. The horizontals had now become dancers and the spectacle at last began.
At the first advance of Winter and Summer, one couple set the tempo. Now it was Summer, now it was Winter, and round again.
This couple did the rounds so well that it drew you in their swirling so absolutely that time passed without breaks and from its cyclicality there seemed to be no escape. As they danced I saw the sun streaming in with white light and it was warm. But when it touched the dark it froze. It was magic snow and it had revelatory powers.
Second in this spinning diversion, stepped in Highland and Lowland. Highland is less haughty and more humble and its vision had an advantageous viewpoint. It saw that existence was enchanted. In comparison, Lowland seemed surreptitiously perfect, the desired state. But when it got closer I saw that it was formed out of the common and the petty. In its prejudices, much like an amalgamation of left and right political stances, it just assumed too much.
In clashing clothing the Western-Northern and the Eastern-Southern came now to the fore; highly suggestive of an introductory composite of Mason and Dixon. Austerity in the garments and the frosty detachment of Western-Northern are
apparent in the well measured steps, but the exotic frills and extravagance of the bright Eastern-Southern delighted and allured everyone, especially its dancing companion. They performed the most frivolous of steps, seemingly uncaring to the non-acquired eye. It was difficult to tell who followed whom and who set the pace.
And now it was the turn of the Unhealthy and the Healthy. The Unhealthy is denied activity and barely moved, but through facial expressions it is openly apparent that it lives the music more profoundly. It danced with its soul. It has clearly been blessed, anointed with nineteenth century, fatal and feral tuberculosis, which confers additional sagaciousness. The Healthy seemed flippant, and just watching it move around from my hammock made me giddy. There was a disturbing, though fleeting senselessness about it, which I either ignored or dismissed as an incomplete, invisible, unprovable manifestation.
Soon the next couple made their way and stood in front of we remaining hammock dwellers. Radicalism had pulled Humanism in with an initially leisurely adagio which gradually sped up to a dazzle. The latter dances elegantly, not missing one step and is dressed in light and harmonious tones. It also takes in stride the thrusts of Radicalism, who is wearing dark shades. There is
a great deal of push and pull in this dance, but Humanism remained characteristically unperturbed.
Suddenly a great deal more light came in and the next couple were announced; Apollo and Dionysus. With the light a magnificent figure took center stage. He came out alone, but was soon followed by his scruffy partner, Dyonisus, who in a most disorderly fashion trotted in. If Apollo was impeccable, Dyonisus was gaudy. In this movement of the polka Apollo’s steps were clear and straight, and I looked in amazement at how undisturbed they were by Dyonisus’ delirious swings.
The light suddenly dimmed as we reached the seventh and last dance. Eros and Thanatos made a dramatic entrance. They held each other very tightly and intensely, as if their dancing were their salvation. Life as a temporary passage, their steps are the most intricate and we see in the twilight how their legs seem to slide out of their bodies and intertwine themselves into a new unity. But this is no polka, it is a tango. The erotic dance that could make one die.
The dancing music finished and the first bars of Götterdämmerung were heard. In still circumspection I prepare to leave this island, a mountain emerging magically from its surrounding waters.
And as I tried to remember whether I have seen these dancers before, I wondered if I now understood life and its purpose somewhat better, and if I have realized the overwhelming power of art and its dangers, deciding that that possibility had as much chance of being true as a Democrat’s chance of becoming anti-crime. .......... The thought annoyed me and I tried to go teleport blank.
I woke up! I was back in the gondola. The night was moonless, but definitely not coonless, as everything was black, perhaps in effect magnifying the sound which emanated from an undisclosed place, one sense rising in proportion to the loss of another.
Jonathan Greenblatt A/K/A Nosferatu, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, F/K/A the Jewish Defense League, popped up, accordion in tow, and intoned his “upbeat” take on his Ukrainian polka;
“I was born with no soul, never worked an honest day In a Manhattan tower, while you slave away So I can sit up here and plan your life's decay Get you de-platformed and take your banking away
It's a Hate Crime if you notice what I do To White girls and boys and people like you And if you dare speak up and say something true
'Bout what I do, you're screwed”
I soon realized that something had gone completely wrong with my teleport. Rather than waking up in my Manhattan luxury condo, I woke up still in bed in what appeared to be a hospital type room shared with seven people with the same exact names as my JNJ
bots. They were sitting up in their own beds silently staring at me, which they should know gives me the creeps worse than Joe Biden sniffing at the neck of a cringing five year old girl, like Nosferatu, Biden not the girl that is, and I’m only aware of their names because each has it tattooed on their face, just above the spot reserved for the doggie chip. The protruding portion of the more or less white breast pocket nerd pack on all of us carried the word “INPATIENT,” which made me consider the possibility that the printer didn’t know an “M” from an “N.” I looked out the window on my right to see that I’m on one of, if not the most upper floor of some tall, bricked structure. Below is a blacktop parking lot overflowing with painted white lines and parked cars which pay no attention to them, as well as others riding in circles, ostensibly hoping to chance upon a space they can claim as their own for a while. There is a sign at the ornamental tree lined entry which says; “CREEDMOOR
PSYCHIATRIC CENTER,” and in much smaller letters below “79-25
Winchester Boulevard, Queens Village, NY 11427.” I thought that
they had closed up such places back in the insanity-rights-sixties, ostensibly using the philosophy that a homeless nut is democratically preferable to an institutionalized nut, in a lack of consideration for the besieged normies.
I strongly suspect that my teleportation not only screwed up the place, but also screwed up the time. I decided to go blank in order to make the appropriate adjustments, as contradictory as that may sound.
My nurse entered and disturbed my process. I know that this is my nurse, or someone’s nurse at the very least, as he was wearing a tag which says so. I simultaneously recognize that my cognition, is getting as sloppy as one of those bots who believe everything they read. He looks exactly like my associate/friend, Deep State MOSSAD, Zionist Khazarian Menachem Begin III. I can’t help but smile, feeling more or less at home now. As he closed in, I noticed that the plastic tag on Begin III’s chest actually said, “HEAD NURSE RATCHETT.” I was absolutely sure that I now had a better understanding of the meaning of life than I did a minute ago. After pretending to scan my chart at the foot of the bed, he flicked a finger over my IV connections, making a sound somewhere between a contented wind chime in a mild zephyr and a tower bell set off by Quasimodo, accompanied by a song which seemed most appropriate for the occasion.
Moonage Daydream