I am living vicariously through my own lives,
all of them, all at once, learning, living, loving,
projecting myself and being projected,
broadcasting for the End of Times,
setting things in motion,
putting myself out there via
super-high frequency radio waves and
mobile broadband, broadcasting from
the tallest buildings —
Burj Khalifa
Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel
One World Trade Centre
Taipei 101 —
to everyone, everywhere, all at once,
ever-vital, like a spider, youthy, open to all possibilities,
youngish, because fifty is the new thirty, somber as a book,
I connect through devices hardwired into coffee shop countertops and
kindergarten desks, America,
through devices mounted on bus station walls, beside ads for
instant cash loans and pre-approved life insurance, America, no questions
asked; I project my visage onto billboards in Decatur and Baton Rouge
and Inuvik and Kuwait City,
onto billboards in Johannesburg and Baden-Baden,
billboards shining down on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra, where the ghosts
of warriors shiver under the mute moon, and the Plains of
Abraham, where the ghosts of warriors shiver under the mute
moon, and the Field of Blackbirds, where the ghosts of warriors drink
plum wine and shiver under the mute moon, electronic billboards shining
down on the fields of Choeung Ek, where there are no warriors, only silence and the
promise of flowers, billboards — digital, pixilated, like quiet stars — shining
down on mud huts and cardboard shelters in Washington, DC, and Mexico
City, on frozen bus shelters in Ottawa, Ontario, on clapboard
shanties in Shanghai and high-occupancy dumpsters in every corner of this
cornerless globe, because there are no corners in America;
I connect through microchips implanted in the cerebral cortex
of wild dogs and homeless men, who howl at the freezing air and
bark at Jesus Christ Himself (infected, like the rest of us,
by His own glory, shining down, like the rest of us, self-illuminated,
five million pixels at a time),
I connect through digital receptors, America, injected into the cerebellum of
white rats, caged in cosmetics labs, drunk on Revlon ColorStay
Eye Liner, tripping on Estée Lauder Pure Color Envy
Sculpting Lipstick, receptors implanted into the pituitary glands of Guantanamo
detainees, old men now, undressed of youth and loaned out to The Body
Shop, lululemon and a rash of pharmaceutical companies, to test facial
scrubs and infused teas and penile implants and stain-resistant yoga mats;
connecting through digital receptors surgically inserted into the spinal cords of
untouchables — Dalits and Burakumin; Cagots and Ragyabpa; wetbacks and the
working poor and minimum wage earners, homo sacers and homo
sexuals and unemployed homunculi and anyone else who is
harshing my buzz …
I am time grown old, America,
I am creating world destruction, America,
living vicariously through my own lives,
projecting myself in Mobius selfies,
the image of the image of the image of me,
a small god with big hair,
as I rend my vestments and turn in on myself,
yinning my yang,
autosarcophagic,
devouring myself a cell at a time,
then shitting myself out in great magic heaps
that digitalize and disperse,
that collect and reconnect and leave an imprint in my mind
of the image of the image of the image of the image;
I am reproducing strategically, America,
heterogamously,
as the mood suits me,
spraying my seed casually, like insecticide, as the mood
suits me, polysexual, not at all binary, lascivious as Solomon’s
pomegranate, fucking without
issue, just for the pleasure of pleasing
myself as you
watch me please you,
and then, at once,
splitting myself into a thousand fragments,
each cluster of gemma
is potential,
each cluster
broadcasting my gene code,
dividing myself into a thousand new selves,
ever youthful,
all of them, learning, living, loving,
all of them projecting and being projected,
putting themselves out there
as I stand to the side of the frame,
staring into the bathroom mirror — five million pixels worth, five million
points of light — underwear to my knees, cock, hard and photo
ready, fist pumping, one more selfie, one more
dick pic for the road; and I listen through my headphones,
as I sing a song to myself, my almost naked
self,
sing a song
celebrating myself,
a song
in praise of
myself,
hosanna, to me
as Whitman hugs his bedfellow
and deciphers the poetry of the stars,
I sing myself into being,
a hymn to me — Oh praise be to me on high! —
and I say unto me, as certain as the Prophets — Ezekiel, Ibrahim,
Samuel, Hubbard — sang the songs of themselves,
lamented themselves into being,
I too sing, America,
because, like you, America, I am everywhere and all things, and
like you, I have come to set things in motion,
I too sing because I am meter and rhythm and rhyme, America,
and I too sing because I am melody, Auto-Tuned, sung by me, about me, to me,
in perfect pitch
counterpoint to my counterpoint,
contradictory, harmonious yet unresolved,
ever modulating:
my song is available on iTunes and Amazon the moment
I intone it;
Oprah has it on her iPod,
and — man! — she can’t get enough …
I am dazzled by the sun, America,
as it rises,
countless pixels, America,
I am strapped to the ground by the sun as it
scrapes across the morning
I am chained every morning to the ground by the sun
it hurts my teeth as it squeaks across the sky
broadcasting itself,
the arrogant sun,
the cancerous sun,
ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit,
casting shadows across the Book of the Dead
and the Book for the End of Times and the other books all unopened, un-
cut, unread, still writing themselves in reverse, a kind of unwriting that is in
itself a kind of writing, the cancerous
sun, melting the icecaps,
melting the wax sealings — on more time — burning my eyes, until I am
blind anew, allowing me to see for the first time, again, the unseeable
things, illuminated by the cancerous sun, the annihilating sun,
a future no longer protected, unsealed,
the End of Times, a vision that causes me to rend my vestments,
rend my skinny jeans, rend my cotton t-shirt, my cardigan,
careful rending, focused, tearing the fabric in casual lines, that speak of my casual
anguish, and the measured suffering that comes from being a small
god with big problems, a casual god, a nine-to-five god, a god that works weekends,
if required, career-minded — that kind of god; jealous, small-minded, in it for himself,
because I am younger than I seem, and conscious, not of fashion, but
of not-fashion, and aware that twenty’s the new thirty and thirty’s the new
fifty; I am time grown old, and I am young and very, very old and I
am seeing the future for the first time, again, and it is a vision of me, projecting
and being projected putting myself out there via super-high frequency radio
waves and mobile broadband, broadcasting from
the tallest buildings —
the Shanghai Tower,
CTF Finance Centre,
the Empire State Building,
the Trump International Hotel and Tower —
to everyone, everywhere, all at once,
ever-vital, like a virus.
And then I saw them, the Four Horseman,
I watched them live vicariously through me,
watched them watch me as I live vicariously through my
own lives, watched them watch me projecting myself and being projected
putting myself out there at the highest register, where even dogs are
deaf, 5.8 gigahertz, where sound is no longer sound, and dolphins can’t
communicate and bats
can’t hear themselves think,
where radar is useless and the fluids of the inner ear spin
counter-clockwise, disorientating, watched the horsemen dismount and
watch me live vicariously through my own lives, viciously,
watched them watch me learning, living, loving, projecting myself and being
projected, watched them watch me as I put myself out there and put
out in the bathhouses of America, in the public bathrooms of America,
put out in the bushes and backseats of America, the absent bedrooms of
America, they watched them watch me go down on my knees and go
down, the carnal supplicant, counting my blessings, one blowjob
at a time, America; watched them watch me lick the salt from
the backs of your daughters, America, from the backs
of your sisters, your mother, America; watch me kiss each pretty one and bind
their hands behind their backs as I drag the cat-o-nine-tails ‘cross their bosom and tell
them that love has never tasted this good;
I am the taste in the water,
I am the light in the moon and the sun, subject and
object, my own pornographer, projecting myself, the
image of the mirror, as the Horsemen
dismount and take stock:
Horseman One, who is Youth, the seven-headed serpent,
who looks but never sees and sees but never observers, who observers
but never remembers, he is taking stock;
Horseman Two, who is Competence, the blind aesthetic, peering
through me with black sockets, holding under one arm
a small dog that sniffs the air as her master advances without
moving, embraces without feeling; he is
embraced but never held, he is understood but never
explained, America; he is created but never contained, he
is taking stock;
Horseman Three, Comfort, the emaciated virgin,
death grey, bulimic, who carries in one hand a plastic sceptre and
in the other, a worn down toothbrush, who shows me her brown smile
as her dry fingers scratch behind my ear, she is taking stock;
Horseman Four, who is Celebrity, who is void and without form, America,
who breeds without issue, and promises to call but never does; he is
taking stock.
I am the Fifth Horseman, and I have a name, like the god of the Jews, that can’t
be uttered, and a visage, like the god of the rest of us, that can never be
looked upon, a compressed god with expanded ambition, a serious god who
gets it, who can laugh at himself, the Alpha and
the Omega and Everything in Between, a god vast and
unseen, because size matters but visibility doesn’t, a god that takes
no shit, a jealous god, an unhappy god, the god of day-timers and missed
appointments, the god of receding hairlines and hormone
replacement therapy, the god of Viagra, the god of all sexual love, the
god of reality television and all things in this and every
America: I am time grown
old, creating world destruction; you shall take
no other gods before me, because I am a jealous god and
vengeful and you must live
vicariously through me, as I live
vicariously through you
one small lie
at a
time.
I am dazzled by the sun, America,
as it rises,
countless pixels,
I am strapped to the ground by the opulent sun as it
scrapes across the morning sky,
pinning me like a butterfly to a cardboard mat,
the arrogant sun,
casting shadows across the Book for the End
of Times until the wax sealings, melted, slide to the ground and the book
opens for the first time, a book but not a
book, a book that can be held, but is not held, a book that
can be read, but is not read, a book that can reveal, but conceals,
this is the Book of the End of Times,
a story with no beginning, America, just
a middle and an end,
a story that advances like a virus, through an exchange of fluid, from
one mouth to another, or through casual contact with an unwashed hand,
a story that is writ as we live it, a story that tells the secret of the End of Times,
the worst kept secret, because we are living it at every moment and have
always lived it; it is a story with no message or moral, a
cautionary tale that urges you to repent, but knows you
won’t because these are now and have always been the End of Times,
and we are small gods with large intestines, and we have a taste for
everything and capacity for love that is only exceeded by our capacity
to ignore the obvious;
The books says:
there will be drought, but the waters will rise
there will be feast, but the young will starve and eat themselves
there will be laughter and music but there will be no joy
there will be light in the darkness, but the light will be cold and the darkness will never
be truly dark
there will be righteous men, but they will do wrong,
there will be trumpets, but they will herald nothing,
there will be wisdom and false wisdom, and they will be the one and the same,
fires will scorch the earth, but nothing will burn,
there will be medicine, but the people will grow sick,
there will be peace, but only in the name of war,
and there will be men of peace, who will murder for their cause,
and there will be plenty in the midst of nothing,
and nothing in the midst of plenty
and the greatest among you shall be the least by far,
and the least among you shall be less than nothing,
and twenty will be the new fifty and fifty the new thirty and thirty
the new dead;
The books says:
Seven Armies will rise on the Seven Continents
and at the head of each army, Seven Princes holding Seven Swords
Surrounded by Seven Generals astride Seven Horses
And the armies shall advance and not advance, moving forward and retreating as
calm as glaciers, and on a herald’s signal, unheard, the armies will disperse,
the Seven Princes will disperse, taking with them the Seven Swords, and
the Seven Generals will disperse, astride the Seven Horses
And the Seven Battles will rage, America,
everywhere at once,
in the shopping malls and gallerias,
the show homes and used car lots, in doctor’s waiting rooms and in school-
yards, in renovated town homes and homeless shelters and houses on either side of
any street, in Walmart washrooms and Costco checkout lines, and the International Food
Courts of the nation and fitting rooms of Old Navys and Baby Gaps and American
Eagle Outfitters, America; and the enemy will advance and retreat, disguised as
friends or as strangers, sisters — mingling, drawing
you into conversation with questions about your health
and your family, everyone smiling, everyone concealing themselves, everyone a quiet
perfect lie, personalized terrorists;
and there will be men of peace, who will kill for their cause,
and there will be plenty in the midst of nothing,
and the greatest among you shall be the least by far,
and the least among you shall be less than nothing,
because I am time grown old
because I am young and very, very old
because I have set things in motion
because I am not the Redeemer
because I have come to annihilate worlds
because these are the End of Times:
don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.
And the hungry will eat dry soil and lick at the worlds around them
And the thirsty will drink fire and taste terrible fire that will scorch the universe
And the holiest will sleep naked in the beds of temptation
And fire will rain down from the Heavens
And ye shall thirst
And there will be no Righteous
Only Clean and Unclean
projecting Themselves and being projected, America,
putting Themselves out there via
super-high frequency radio waves and
mobile broadband, broadcasting from
the tallest buildings —
the Jin Mao Tower
the Guangzhou International Finance Centre
the Great Ziggurat of Babylon —
to everyone, everywhere, all at once,
persistent, like glaciers, innocent, like children burning ants with a
magnifying glass, each of us our own Horseman, each of us an
image of an image of an image,
each of us, singing a song to ourselves,
celebrating ourselves,
each of us, singing muted songs of lamentation,
singing atonal dirges,
too slow and vastly modern,
inscrutable songs with no discernable melody,
each of us, singing ourselves to sleep,
singing a hymn to sleep,
as we live vicariously through our own lives,
small gods of infinite dominion, learning, living, loving,
reaching our vast hands out to adjust the stars:
they are too bright,
there are too many of them,
they are too close,
the arrogant stars,
the selfish stars;
you can hear them almost singing
when you close
your eyes.
CHRIS GUDGEON is an author, poet and screenwriter. He has written eighteen books, from critically acclaimed fiction including Greetings from the Vodka Sea and Song of Kosovo, to celebrated biographies of Milton Acorn and Stan Rogers, to a range of popular history on subjects as varied as sex, fishing and lotteries. His latest book, Assdeep in Wonder, is a collection of poems about love, sex and dynamite. Gudgeon, who is bisexual, has been in an open relationship with musician/self-help guru Jasper Vander Voorde since 2009. They divide their time between the wilds of British Columbia and Los Angeles.
