Simon Bolivar Then the great Venezuelan liberator Appeared on a gigantic blue-billed merganser, Attuning himself quite nicely to the Conspiracy’s wavelength, “It is of beginnings which I speak, yet to go on is to say no more. It is fitting that you hear from Lilica’s first lieutenant, for I have just been sent To convey her beckoning. Lilica awaits.” Fing asked the Jester, “Why do you doubt That we will see Lilica?” He answered, “I doubt everything. You, Who are of fleeting flesh and as light as air, What do you care about possession? The end is nothing and the beginning is incomprehensible It took you four billion years to come into being And you’re still a precariously perched little sparrow. So don’t believe that one story suffices. The only truth I can pass on to you is that everything adds up to zero, and one.” Jefferson yodled, “Hhhhooooooyyyyy! That’s what makes it fun! Let’s conclude a declaration of interdependence Which acknowledges this civilization As the best of all possible exigencies, And then let’s toward Lilica make a dead run, Before the magic wears off!” The jester asked, “Simon Bolivar, you mean to say That you have seen Lilica?” Simon Bolivar said, “That would distort the truth.” The jester said, “Simon Bolivar, you have not seen her?” Simon Bolivar said, “I have been with her. I saw an image of her.” “And yet her form,” the jester giggled, “Took the shape and size of your hand!” The company erupted in laughter and each warm Glow sizzled effervescently above Rome and LA.

I Can Smell the Salt Jefferson said, “Surf’s up!” And Fing found himself gliding on a waxed board, Effortlessly down a driving wave, with his mates Also, in flowery swimming trunks, surfing the shore. The board was like land Suspended in rushing space, white Force, churning and surging. Fing used his hand For balance, as the dense weight of water Threatened to hurl his body off into the brine, Yet Fing knew that force and air would not prevail Over him; his control over the board a sign That nothing would alter his course. He wailed, “I can smell the salt!”

Let's Get to the Next Level Fing remembered, “But I have seen Lilica.” The clouds stood still The entire conspiracy held its breath. And Bolivar said, “We must have a congress! United opposition is the anti-thesis to thesis, Which creates the synthesis which propels The helicular motion of the caduceus.“ The Jester returned to the main concern, “Was it not simply an image of Lilica, As Bolivar, an honest man, has confessed to?” “Well,” Fing considered, “It was traumatic. She was colorless and sad. She said to use suffering as an oyster uses a grain of sand, To create a pearl and that love awaits me. And she wasn’t wrong. I know that I’m amidst Love right now. She made me feel that I should be seeing her in color, and so relieved Me of the trauma and prepared me for worse to come. Who brought us here, if not Lilica?” The jester glimmered, “I feel better That you have seen her, but we know That ideals lived up to are rare indeed.” “You think of Lilica as an unattainable Ideal? But love exists.” And the Jester said, “But Tlon eradicates all.” “But something surely transcends. How else could we be here?” The Jester said, “I cannot hope to know.” “But," Fing said, "I can. Let’s get to the next level. Let's go."

Jefferson's Soliloquy Fing began to lead the quest Through the skies of Elysium, “We are right to resolve To revolve toward Lilica, wherever she may be.” The Conspiracy inhaled again And surfed higher still, Off cumulus waves Onward toward the word which was Lilica, As evidenced by the reality of human Development And the unreality of inhabitation Of this globular whirligig, and the necessity Of the cessation of all things known and unknown When Jefferson approached Fing in flickering Whispers, “You know I was with Lilica too, Like Simon de Bolivar, but also like you. She was a black and white image with whom I communicated. She encouraged me, Just as the sun passes and returns, to believe That I would see her again, without exactly Saying so. So I have striven to meet Her with grace and dignity, despite the weak frame Upon which I carry these hopes, and I seek Her as you, a pilgrim who desires to gain Enlightenment.” The jester noted, “It gets lighter and lighter Around here, but there is not much to be seen, Except visions.”

A Star, A Sun The surfboards disappeared And Fing was elevated again With the others, in free fall, going up. Fing cried tears of joy, “The name Yorick Has never meant anything to me. But now it is the name I love most My brother, I am grateful to have found you. I am proud that we travel together And I will love Lilica whether we find her or not.” Yorick said, “And we’ll enter Tlon the back way.” They heard a switch flick, And they were blinded The whole conspiracy of intriguers cringed And were magnetically drawn into the light. Wheels of light spinning within the wheel of Lilica’s Light. They all knew they were in her presence, The bursting warmth of their attraction The kaleidoscopic display of her essence. She was all forms, all light, all satisfactions To the whole conspiracy, She was the action of energy, heat and motion, A star, a sun Universal scale, omnipotent. Fing felt the exhaling breath Continuing out of him in relief All worry of the unknown gone, Done.

Lilica Berates The Conspiracy was no more and Fing was alone with Lilica, and Yorick too, sitting upon his ass. Yorick spoke his fervent prayer, “Let us ravish you So gently, my love, that the tenderest parts of ourselves Are forever intertwined.” Lilica snickered, “I shall be with you presently, parson. But this one is in need of upbraiding, To have entertained thoughts of possessing me. You don’t know the difference between Love and Obsession. Have you truly convinced yourself that you belong with me? Every day is a test, and you have failed every day. If you had any sense, you would let me go, So we can move on.” Yorick spoke again, “Dear mistress, allow me to defend our friend.” “Why do you insist on riding that donkey around here?” “Does it not exemplify humility, my sunshine? I used to ride thoroughbreds, But they are temperamental and wear out quickly. Slow and steady is good enough for me.” “Slogan of a typical dunderhead,” Lilica replied, she spoke rhetorically, “Why is my body Not enough? You want my soul, But I haven’t got one.” “Oh, Lilica, don’t!” Yorick cried. “Why not?” Lilica shot back, “If you had guided Him to more women, he wouldn’t be so clueless. Everybody want to be in love, nobody wants to do The work required.” “Lilica, you are forgetting His sacrifices. He has found you, Do not forsake him.”

Lilica Softens Lilica ceased her berating, “No, He is chosen, but I can’t always be so intimate. So, even though I am here, carry on As if I weren’t. Construct yourself So that love has as little to do with it as possible.” Fing found his tongue, “Lilica, I love you.” “Everybody says that. If I were not The sun, I would be the clay earth, and you’d still Be swarming around me, quivering, driven.” “The only question, then,“ Yorick grinned wickedly, “Is whether you are willing. Will there be that Bequesting of your divine body, Your grassy hillocks to us?” “PEACE!” Lilica demanded. Spots of ribboning Flame shot from her heat like the tentacles of A ravening beast.” Fing felt in his loins, the meaning of hot. His communion was nearing completion.

Lilica's Soliloquy “My terse words are not Intended in anger. I pray you be patient With me, for the sake of this being who is Here for only this brief period of time. Fing, every life has its climax, don’t despair, You are not due back here for a number more years. But you have ears to hear, and eyes to be aware That wherever you are you may perceive And cogitate and learn and take action To share both wit and judgment, and relieve Yourself and others of their anxieties. Even if only with the illusions of passion And language. Take the harder path, always, And leave the reward to history. Satisfaction And happiness are fleeting, and Tlon approaches. Accept your vocation and its distractions. Discipline yourself with knowledge for power, And assert it. That is all. Love will carry The meaning of your work to others And, even if they can’t dance to it, they can dream. I brought you to me, but we shall be parted. There is no blackness in my realm, And Tlon reduces all to nil. Thus, be joyous; Taste the honey of my kiss.”

Light Love Lilica Then Fing melted In the butter of Lilica’s light, caramel and syrup. Fing could hear Yorick sighing with pleasure too, “AAaaaaaaaagghghghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” The light had corporeity which moved the two Without touching and touched without moving. Light. Love. Lilica. All the sustenance needed, And Fing and Yorick knew it She was not proving anything empirically She intuited, based on the reality of light, the force Of gravity, and the reflective capacity of mind. There was no more weeping from Fing He had no desire to seek fulfillment, nor to believe Nor to institute his intention. The light spasmed and reverberated And remained, though Lilica was no longer with them. And all the conspirators returned In silence, fused among themselves Atomic, singular units ready to contribute Their lives and energy to defying Tlon, Deifying Nature and taking her apart, Because it is their nature to destroy In order to build, and to believe in order To maintain comfort. But Fing and Yorick were not fused. Fing asked, “Yorick, how is it that this monumental Silence can be? And why are we not with them.” Yorick, “Lilica constructs as she wills, despite The machinations of humanity. You have a life of love to live. I, her harlequin, Take you now to the end and the beginning. Please inhale deeply, so we may go higher.” Fing did so and said, “So you are her servant?” “As are you.” “But you have always been hers?” “Just two hundred and nine years, but it has Been a pleasant eternity for a what was a weary body. She is always too coarse and abrupt, an awkward Expression of purity, but she is inexorable, As is what comes after her. We have yet to meet A few others on our way to the void, so let us Venture to find them.”

I Love the Light Fing hung and wondered about the void And again what was he moving toward At least he knew he wouldn’t be bored And then Yorick said Rufus The light was everywhere It was everything, no adding to it No altering it, but a pungeunt smell The drive to define the indefinable An ephemeral man, kinetic energy All body odor and brilliant vivacity With defeated eyes alive with intensity “I am Rufus, my daddy’s dead Yorick said, “Rufus my brother you Are the definitive American, a movie goer A southerner and a New Yorker, But everybody’s father dies.” He replied: “Lilica has shown me what love is The negatives and the positives It makes me cry, it gives me wisdom, And I know she is always here. And I love the light.”

Oscillate Between the Two Fing asked, “Have you seen the void?” Rufus, “Oh yes. There would be no light Without darkness. And we must oscillate Between the two. Lilica is the hole and the filling.” I have known Lilica, and her lack For four billion years. We grow slowly, we need repetition, In order to better cognize our situation. But we are broken and go on lamely, Lilica, the hope and promise, Guides us like a magnet to a pole, Drawing us into all gatherings. Violence and hostility belong to her, who incites Passion and desire who inspires With sights of freedom and majesty, And we adore it all. We can never have too much though it kills us. We obsess ourselves into manners of thinking Not unlike the trains and track that beribbon Our country, Fing. The pattern of the motions Of our thought-processes are so worn that they move With the heavy, plodding momentum of a diesel Engine due at its next stop and hell-bent on arriving On time, despite no passengers and nowhere to go, Barrelling over possibilities in the name Of certainty, leaving us convinced of the conviction But not of the delivery of some substantial Reality.”

Yorick's Sermon “Let us proceed. The gaping maw awaits.” “And,” Fing reminded, “We have one more dead guy To meet.” “Oh,” Yorick noted, “This one is not dead. He’s on a journey, just like you.” “What?! You’re all dead!” “Ronald Reagan isn’t dead.” Fing replied, “That’s a question Of semantics. Who is the other one?” Yorick looked around, “He should be here. I’m surprised he’s not. His guide is perhaps not As efficient as she might be, being a colonist, She doesn’t know the intricasies of empire, As well as others who serve Lilica.” “Tell me, Yorick, While we wait, what I need to know To face the void.” Yorick giggled, “Thank you Fing. You are fine. In preparing to enter Tlon, I would warn you against faith in your conscience. I make no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impress’d upon the mind of man; that, did no such thing ever happen, as that the conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the Scripture assures us, it may) insensibly become hard; and, like some tender parts of his body, by much stress, and continual hard usage, lose, by degrees, that nice sense and perception with which GOD and nature endowed it :-- Did this never happen:-- or was it certain that self-love could never hang the least bias upon the judgment:-- or that the little interests below could rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness:--could no such thing as favour and affection enter into this sacred court:-- did WIT disdain to take a bribe in it, or was ashamed to shew his face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment:-- or, lastly, were we assured that INTEREST stood always unconcern’d whilst the cause was hearing, --and that PASSION never got into the judgment seat, and pronounced sentence in the stead of REASON, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case:-- was this so truly so, as the objection must suppose, no doubt, then, the religious and moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself esteemed it; and the guilt or innocence of every man’s life could be known, in general, by no better measure, than the degrees of his own approbation or censure. I own, in one case, whenever a man’s Conscience does accuse him (as it seldom errs on that side) that he is guilty; and, unless in melancholy and hypochondriac cases, we may safely pronounce that there is always sufficient grounds for the accusation. But, the converse of the proposition will not hold true,--namely, That wherever there is guilt, the Conscience must accuse; and, if it does not, that a man is therefore innocent,-- This is not a fact:-- so that the common consolation which some good Christian or other is hourly administering to himself,--That he thanks GOD, his mind does not misgive him; and that, consequently, he has a good Conscience, because he has a quiet one, --is fallacious;-- and as current as the inference is, and as infallible as the rule appears at first sight, yet, when you look nearer to it, and try the truth of this rule upon plain facts, you find it liable to so much error, from a false application of it:-- the principle on which it goes so often perverted:-- the whole force of it lost, and sometimes so vilely cast away, that it is painful to produce the common examples from human life, which confirm this account. Thus Conscience, this once able monitor,-- placed on high as a judge within us,--and intended, by our Maker, as a just and equitable one too,-- by an unhappy train of causes and impediments,-- takes often such imperfect cognizance of what passes,-- does its office so negligently,-- sometimes so corruptly, that it is not to be trusted alone: and therefore, we find, there is a necessity, an absolute necessity, of joining another principle with it, to aid, if not govern, its determinations.” Fing asked, “What is the other principle?” “You may read my Sermons, if you want my Opinion. Don’t forget that I am a jester too.”

And They Laughed Yorick and Fing remained quiet and calm Together, bathing in each other’s light. Sensing the accumulating sentiment, Yorick’s ass brayed for the first time. And they laughed. Yorick said, “He likes you. He’s a smart ass.” Fing: “Fear and anger have left me. I’m grateful For your guidance away from my dissolution.” “All credit is due to Lilica. Where is thatColonist?! I have some military business To attend to with Tobias Shandy; you know That man wouldn’t hurt a fly. He would laugh” With one more gentle swaying touch from Yorick, And a breeze which swept the veiling mist off Of the end of the atmosphere, Fing saw the void Tlon was behind, moving forward toward it. Facing it, Fing saw it was not an endless hole, But a wall imminently before him, and lasting As far ahead as Tlon lay eternally behind. And he laughed He felt pressure from both sides, but more from Tlon, Like a pull to the side of the roller coaster car. He couldn’t turn back now, it had him in its grip. He asked, “I’m going back, right? To what came before? Whoa! I feel like I’m on a conveyor belt Goodbye Yorick Am I at the end or the beginning?” And he laughed

Stars At that moment, a tightly-fitted Puritan woman entered saying, “Zimmerman Is here!” Yorick announced impulsively “Anne Bradstreet, Lilica has brought you to me!” “Yes,” the steady gray woman said, “There will Be time for poetry and fire. Let us complete our duty.” Zimmerman looked at Fing and asked “Are they going to shoot us?” Fing said, “We’re going to do it again.” Zimmerman said, “That’s not so bad. So, you’re in on this too. Pretty fucking incredible. Just don’t ask me What it means.” Fing nodded and smiled. He looked to Yorick and said, “Not me. Goodbye.” The compression of their light created a bend In its illumination, and the helicular twisting generated Greater gravitational pull upon the central axes Of their spheres. Like a rapidly approaching massive vacuum Might suck a stone cliff into the sea, Fing heard the imminence of the void And saw it bearing down on him like a wave, And the last thing Fing saw was stars.