Having having finally gotten up,
Done my exercises, eaten breakfast,
And cleaned out the cat’s litter box,
I have the whole rest of the day free for ennui!
How about you?
Note: “Agathokakological” = composed of both good and evil (agatho- + kako- + -logical.)
Monday, May 11, 2026
Poem: A spell to keep meaning at bay.
—Dictionarium Hiberno-Britannicum
Hid in its chambered hideout, hearing shouts,
The new-evolving consciousness awaits.
The interstate’s a long and winding road
Through fast-becoming's adamantine gates.
The belly’s gift's a focus and a threat.
Participation’s taking on big debt.
Lust is the fuel, the goad is doubts,
The racket's raucous, and the prospect grates.
To be is to participate, says sage
Lévy-Bruhl.* I suggest you skip that stage.
Tirades and conniptions are the common fates.
Skulking in the dark, at fetal school,
You'll find you can refinance as a rule.
Escaping now's as fast as missing dates!
*Être, c’est participer.—Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (1857–1939)
Barrydale (retrospective), Western Cape, South Africa, April 2026
How can I wisely take that risk,
Since all the elements insist,
Hid in my own, my native land
Are dangers I can't understand,
And if I took this on complete,
Would end up in a sad defeat;
What sense is there, in tempting fates,
Behind security’s drawn gates??
Once, long ago, I preached a creed
Rejecting “race’s” anxious need,
Who now must love a distant land—
Ubuntu, these days, just a word
To which such hopes may be referred:
For, in old age, all dreams recede.
Note: On the concept of ubuntu, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy
On the preaching of nonracialism, see, e.g., Peter Richard Dreyer, Against Racial Status and Social Segregation: Towards the Liquidation of Multi-Racialism and Non-Europeanism (Claremont, Cape Town: Citizen Group, 1958). Copies in the South African National Library, the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, Oxford, and the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford, California.
Charlottesville, Virginia, Thursday, April 30th, 2026
