Notes On a Poem That Was Lost

Notes on A Poem That Was Lost


by C. L. BLEDSOE

177/178: sallow, glowing… smelly tunnel: We all know what he's talking about, and there is no need to sully the eyes by making it concrete.

179: Lightning can't reach me here: The author refers to his heretical and now illegal pro-debauchist beliefs which, essentially lay the blame for mankind's failures squarely on the shoulders of psychology, which was at this time considered a science.

181: Wooden hearted and dumb: Clearly he is referencing that terrible translation he loved so much of Valentroika's Russian epic, "Uncle Winter," in which the author melodes that "when my mother's voice grew unheard my heart/became cold as wood/laid in the ground for millennia."

It is well documented that the author obsessed over the untimely sickness of his mother in a manner similar to other pre-debauchist outlawed writers such as E. A. Poe, even going so far as to refer to himself as such.

185: The Bastard: A person born outside of the bond of Holy Union. The existence of such a person goes far to explain the degeneracy of a society that could even give rise to a belief system like that held by the author.

The reference itself refers to the fact that the author was a user of tobacco for a decade, until marrying an asthmatic. The couple soon split, though there is no mention of his wife's death and one can only surmise that he used his influence to keep this from the public reference. The author continued to abstain from "that old Kentucky blue" "out of deference to the pets," he was often heard to say.

187: led to cancer: Coincidentally enough, the majority of the author's family suffered from some sort of cancer, as did most Americans, obviously, and yet he laughed at them.

It should be noted that these lines were written in the last century, when the leading causes of death, ridiculous as it sounds, were believed to be automobile accidents and minorities, primarily African Americans. It is interesting that the author, himself not a minority, in later life became a well-known though reviled campaigner for oppression of minorities before being brutally murdered by his own son. The irony being, as is now well-known, that minorities, especially African Americans, are much less susceptible to violent behavior, being generally a contemplative race, and it is, in fact, the pinks who are responsible for the majority of violence in the world due to their inability to understand and feel the love of God.

188: Johnson grass: In some places considered a weed, in others, a plant to be sought after. Now extinct.

190. Gated community: A sort of ghetto for pinks. Now illegal for reasons of public health.

191: my heart: The author often suffered bouts of delusion, even going so far as to refer to himself as multiple personages, though always in order for one to favorably compliment the other.

192: birdlings: immature birds. Now extinct.

193-195: egg, shell, etc: The Egg is a museum in western Chinasia noted for its collection of folk art. Also a reference to a color, i.e. eggshell white. Refer to previous note.

197: ape-thing called sister: Perhaps a reference to a once widely tolerated heresy that man was descended from lesser forms. This belief sprang from a misinterpretation of the Holy Word which states that man is created in the image of God, and therefore must be, as God, an ape. This belief was outlawed officially (for good reason) in the dawning days of the New Century, though it had been outlawed in most of the world by the time if the author's death, in AD 2008.

199: where my good thoughts like to lounge: A slight pro-debauchist proclamation. My notes are sketchy, but from what I've gathered, a "lounge" was a building or area used for the conception of children out of the state of Holy Union. "[G]ood thoughts" refer to the seed carriers (usually female) who took place in such rituals. Any such heretical statements would have been disallowed at the Council of Galilee which followed the Battle of AD 2018, a mere decade after the author's death, and it is only through fragmentary texts such as this that we can see into the addled minds of unfortunates such as this.

201, 202: I am forever… enlightenment, picked-up penny: Here the author has admitted the flaw inherent in his philosophies. They are as fleeting as ill-gotten gains. They fall through his fingers as disbelievers fall through the cracks beneath the sandals of the one true Lord.

203, 204: Everything/will come out clean… alas: The author reiterates the failings of his philosophies. But perhaps he is doing more than that, perhaps he is lamenting a society before Enlightenment, a society that would not allow Belief. If only he had lived to see the New Age, he could've been saved; he seems to be saying. But, alas, it is not to be.

C.L. Bledsoe

Posted over on 42 Opus