Impact means breaking through the surfaces And resonating in waves, which Jack did Disintegrating into Tlon, and Fing was Reconstituted in a spheroid of light Hovering above the earth freely. When he felt a flash the size of thunder Crashing into the structure of his ceiling Blundering laughter and a voice calling “Dear me!” The voice said, “Mazel Tov my son, good luck, You are a lucky person. You haven’t heard. You have much to learn. If you observe And forget about reward. Give your work To the future and let them sort it out. Oh, how can it be suggested in words?!” Fing asked, “Kind bringer of warmth and sun, How are we suspended above the turning globe below? Can I comprehend you?” “I am a fellow of infinite jest. I have not the power to hold us fast. I’m not the one you should ask. Lilica will more clearly show us, For to harken to a jester is to mire in the stew Of human misunderstanding.” Fing asked, “Are you a president? But you are not American.” He sighed, “If only I had been, Still you haven’t seen half a jot Unless you spent the 1760’s in London. But that’s it with Tlon You never have much time, and always many chains.” Fing asked, “So, we’re in Tlon now?” “No,” the jester asserted, “But we are emboldened To continue to know from perspectives Disregarded when we adopted single point As the trustworthy prospect of inductive Reasoning in the affairs of men. The power Unleashed by Francis Bacon is here with us And will take a moment to expound.” A red ray of light arrived by refraction And enlightened Fing’s connection To their mystically heightened existences The reddish glow gave Fing further peace of mind The deep calm that one would wish from the grave A burnishing voice said, “Fing you are welcome To our court.” The jester said, “Verulam, please, He must learn about the joy of matriarchy.” Fing felt as if they were brothers lying in the sand Talking about the end of summer. The jester said, “Don’t you feel Lilica already? Our breath glows! Who else do you suppose? She generates the gravity manifest In our suspense. What a delicious and galling treasure Love.” Bacon exhaled, “I have known no vexation Since Lilica revealed where I had been led. And when I saw, I ceased yearning for more And knew more would come In the accumulations that man would store For the glory of God in story and song. They are fools who have let it be forgotten That all science will come before Tlon. Lilica keeps us relieved for a little while longer.” Fing replied, “Lilica is our muse and protectress From our fusion into Tlon, which despite resistance Will come. And that’s good.” The jester said, “Until then, we digress. So Let's digress together. Right now. Come on.” Fing asked for his name, “I am the jester with no lines Whose skull gave a prince pause, A parameter for his doleful woe.” Bacon answered, “Fing, I trust I will see thee again, When your tasks have been completed. Farewell.” And he was off, a blaze of light hovering and then gone.

The Paradise of Revolution Fing said, “It’s not difficult to be patient. I’m on a peak above the peak.” The paradise of revolution The jester replied “…All prophets destroy Their legitimacy by some flaw or tawdry Defect of character for those to exploit Who demand that we avoid the idolatry Of loving our prophets who prophesy The paradise of revolution Such a chiasmus Is the beginning and end of a pattern Which has repeated itself since chaos Must have been defeated by Tlon, the lantern Which reveals the paradise of revolution.”

Revere Me At that moment, a light with a pewter stein Appeared shouting, “The British are coming!” He cackled and tipped the stein, Groaning in an ecstasy As he quaffed deeply, “We’ll no more be shackled," He bellowed in a drunken fantasy Of being locked in a mortal battle, “Than I’ll cut off my privates before my queen The Queen of Love, whom Venus envies most. For I will have need of them when we meet again, She will come between what has been And what will be, and when she goes It will be the end of everything! Oh, spare me the end of that fleshly lap! May I never cease to drone my praising, To press my case upon whom I may hap, In the name of Lilica of the wet spring.” Very near tears, he whispered, “The dew on the grass.” The wordless jester spoke, “Man, you have some business.” Tippling his stein again, his gullet gulping wide, The guest said, “Revere me,” and gave no more utterance Except to go shrieking off, the stein trailing behind.”

The Serenity Accruing to Men Victimized by Delusions Fing wondered, “Is this man content? What kind of heaven is filled with this kind Of man?” “Have you never heard of the serenity Accruing to men victimized by delusions? Visionaries know persecution, And also the pleasure of their piety, So they can’t fail to glory in their confusion.” Fing asked, “Is love for Lilica Of such a construction?” “You may substitute Any ideal, it is always made of simulacra. And yet, whatever system you may institute Can serve its purpose. We are sure to luxuriate Among Lilica’s avant-garde who are destitute Of nothing. Nothing is our greatest pleasure, Over which we joy and puzzle and postulate.” Fing replied, “Please, I beg you to tell me, Who are you?- by name, so that I can know my brother And thank him that I understand his words, while we Are together. For I fear it won’t last forever.” “Fear is persistent, as the rim on a flywheel. But the clocks will stop – when the universe Implodes, it’s over. Thus you must have courage. It's hard, but it’s humorous. And you can precede Tlon! You can be a bridge There is so much to sense and observe.

Her Pan-Optical Eye James Monroe sidled up, saying, “I smell pot.” And it was true, wafting up the central dome, A steady flow of smoke, which, in viscous Velvet lapels, took the form of James Monroe, “That’s Washington’s hemp, a vicious Weed. We possess the colonial symmetry Of unresolved issues. The support of dissent and the assurance Of strength and enlightenment – puritan Strivings to manifest the state of grace – Free men don’t need kings – let’s declare Independence Before the fruit of our loins goes rotten.” Hamilton agreed, “We don’t need to be free, We need to be regulated; that’s why We’ll attain our greatest harmony By submitting to her pan-optical eye.” The Conspiracy gathered Monroe held fast, facing Henry and Jay, Hamilton and Lafayette, all inhaled deeply. Henry said, “I know not what paths other may forsake But as for me, it is with Lilica, I will stay.” Hamilton agreed, “We don’t need to be free, We need to be regulated; that’s why We’ll attain our greatest harmony By submitting to her pan-optical eye.”

Fing's Speech Fing began to cry with a sob That propelled itself from his depth unexpectedly. He had never fathomed the immense throb Which had always been beneath The surface of ingratitude, but the knob Was now in hand, and he was in spasms Of weeping for the pleasure of keeping Company with his warm shining ectoplasm. Fing, in dialogue with history, said, “I feel a returning again, not quite Familiar, but not unique, the swooping helix, The beginning, and the love that allows it to be. That is how this generation is maintained, in felix. I don’t know you, but we are united, and we Are meant to be in the meadows of Lilica’s Forests. She wants us there, sweeping Our bony hands over her grassy hillocks." Hamilton said, “His tears are real! See the prisms Of salt running down his cheek. He is a king To have transcended to this divinity!” Fing said, "I will go with you men to find our love. She bears us all and our scrotal bollocks, The chthonic structure seen below and above; Condensations of matter, and who come in flocks In space and time, and float into what they are made of, When they are done with their inspirations.” Hamilton said, “His tears are real! See the prisms Of salt running down his cheek. He is a king To have transcended to this divinity!” Monroe’s energy surged, “And the fulcrum Which it gyrates upon Is the glory of her helpless gestations, Is the morphing tendency of her mutations To claim for herself and all – Revolution!”

Sally and Tom The Conspiracy shone upon and within Each other with the assurance of necessity, Magnetizing their connection with the smoke That wafted up, and they agreed When Hamilton said, “We must form a union To give birth to the infinity of our ideals, So that Lilica’s will can be done rationally.” “Hastily!” “Gratefully!” “Passionately!” The jester giggled, “I like this conspiracy! Who shall we come upon next, to bring us To her? For I don’t know the territory.” As one mind, the gathering conjured – Jefferson – And the mist of the mind of the man appeared In the haze, to which all felt devotion, But Fing wondered in fullest amazement yet, Of all the unsparing sights of this walk-about, To have Jefferson with him, to sense that present Being, it caused the ice of his eyes to melt. Next to and within him, Sally Hemings. They had a force in their light It brought the Conspirators higher and Fing Found his tongue too dry to speak Sally and Tom spoke in harmony, bearing Themselves in operatic poses, to remind Them all of their separate identities They said: “Life and liberty are the sine qua non, With which we pursue our happinesses. But no one can say how achievement is done, Nor that it exceeds the harassings Which accumulate with the sincere one Who is in pursuit of what’s happening.” The jester spoke, with bending light, “I am the sentimental Sojourner from Calais to Paris, a questor Of the ephemeral, elemental Stuff of humanity, the winding of a clock The incidental which amplifies And decimate our ideals.” Light wound about them, emanating from Tlon, And Fing knew nothing but the totality of the everlasting instant Which brooked no reflection as a form of diminishment And he let it be. They replied, Good friend, you and your nag Are welcome to this real Elysium for as long as it lasts And as proof, we offer the heart of our ... to seal The deal.” They held aloft the pulsing center Of their being to the entire Conspiracy. And they said, “Where shall we go when the time of Tlon grows Implosive? There is no pity for that,” they ended By dissipating in the light, wavering gold, Shimmering and then not being present.

The Empire Never Ended The jester said, “You see the pattern, Twisting around, never in the same place twice, Spiraling motion.” Fing had a thought upon the ocean Of his consciousness, the image of a dream The Empire Never Ended Philadelphia Nineteen Seventy Six Philadelphia Seventeen Seventy Six Rome AD Seventy Six Were all conjoined in the skies above Tlon At the behest of Lilica of love Its transparent tendrils of power unknown, Both tht weight and the joy of consciousness. The Clarity held a pink light and drove Through Fing’s eyes and spinal column – Mind has been consistent; belief has changed. Fing pleaded for the jester to share his name.

This Sturdily-Framed Palimpsest The Jester replied, “You are a child, and I a clown. Our visions are true, and yet we make no sense. We are laughable, and you wish to hear the sound Of my name, when that is a matter of circumstance. If all is united in one, then I am you, and I have found That I like the way you think. Let the meager discern; I shall search to find Connections and sing them like ironic psalms Even if the hearer’s ears are blind.” Fing responded, “Like a child who has spun about, I am dizzy And pleased at my sensations, and it will come Into focus again, when I hear the mystery Of your name. The word will be like a bell rung At dawn, and I will awake.” “Then you don’t want,” Glowed the jester’s light, “To know just yet.” “I can’t believe this sturdily-framed palimpsest Is merely a dream. To be gathered with the avant- Garde at the beginning of the yearning quest That became the home of my fathers is no Apparition. I always knew I was there. But you, sir, have no reason for being so…”

Washington's Soliloquy George Washington appeared, looking regal And like an unfinished painting, like a blue sky, With Fing and the Conspiracy looking for a cause To revolt against before him. He waited Breathing deeply the moist mist that pervaded With the profundity of sensual intensification, Nodding in his dignity, letting the pause Linger, before taking the mask of rhetorician: “We need not revolt against Lilica, But for her, toward her enlightened energy, Greater than all of us individually She is the ideal to which we strive presently; Ever after, in the ridiculousness of our folly. We may never achieve her grippingly, But we will be transparent prisms of conduct, Turned at such an angle, measured, disciplined, Examined and passed upon, to merit the product, Which is the character and composition Of the structure of understanding, the project Of the enlightened one is to become decision And slowly, and steadily enact that narrowing Focus, in every aspect of existence.” “Ha!” roared the Jester, “Get that man a jingly hat! He had evidenced his ability to accompany us, Although I would have expected that language of Jefferson.”

What About the Lies? “HA! HA!” Washington replied, “I am vanquished!” He ripped the skin off his masked face, “I am indeed Thomas Jefferson! Lilica sent Me to test you. You are a good man, a prophet.” The Jester raised his hand calmly, “The young man has something to say.” Fing was surprised When Jefferson turned his attention warmly, And the words leapt from his mouth, “What about the lies?! What about slavery?!” Jefferson smiled charmly, “Lilica is aware of the discrepancies, I cannot lie. Yet my conduct shames her little She enjoys love and the touch of muscle to flesh. She knows about day and she knows about night. The only obstacle love cannot surmount is ignorance, Which institutionalizes hatred from naught To one, and it is this imbalance Which works itself out in the progress of time.” Fing seethed, “It condemns Lincoln To an eternity of Limbo.” “And it recurs, if I’m Not mistaken,” added the Jester, “The only thing in control of time is Tlon.” Fing was furious, “My country can’t live up To its ideals!” Jefferson, “No one can. You can only try. And perhaps you can create A more perfect ideal for the average citizen. Don’t you think preacher?”

W.E.B. X A younger fire brought Malcolm and W.E.B. DuBois Proud and magnetically fused into the growing spheroid Of light, like a cloud, accumulated In its vaporous tracing poise Before Tlon. W.E.B. spoke first, “Pay heed to the construction of the souls Of Black folk, a creation of the reflection Of the worst in the ideal soul of those Who gain the most by believing deception. A whole nation encoded with the same notion Of inferiority in others is a manifestation Of the fear of inferiority of the self To the majority, which rightly frightens them, And everyone, equally.” Then Malcolm, “Reason is the fusion of wit and judgment. Technology cannot attain true reason. Tlon destroys everything else, So we must celebrate the delusion of reason While we have the perception to recognize it. This is our only hope.” Jefferson continued, “And Lilica, the darkness Within the light, awaits our arrival. A way out in ending and beginning again.”

Desire Goes On Infinitely Monroe stepped up, “Let us be resolved to revolve Around Lilica together in an instituted State, preceding Tlon, with all the grace And dignity of everyone for himself.” “Here, here!” “Hooray!” “If all else fails, We can just try again!” Great laughter and Merriment ensued, and Fing said, “Lilica in her form is gorgeous And desirable. I know that blood lust For conquested possession To pass on as evidence of grace In the graceless world, my having Influence over the events of my fate, At least once, to start again with the connection To Lilica’s child, the innocent face Of the future.” Jefferson said, “Our sustenance Is taken care of by Lilica. We are freed from Want and need by our love of faith and chance.” The Jester replied, “Having sustenances met is not equivalent To being without desire. It makes desire greater, And that is the Chinese Box of existence. Desire goes on infinitely. Let us find Lilica And ask for some tolerable explanation Of how all this came to be…and of what is to come.”