99

I asked C.A. what she thought about, no, what
she believed in: she said, etiquette: that’s

like good conduct and not necessarily some
stilted ceremonialism: but if, as C.A. says,

we just behaved properly many of our social
programs (at taxpayer expense) would be 86’d:

as one, myself, who believes that good conduct
should unwind along the lines of individual

liberty and responsibility (that is, with least
governmental oversight—unnecessary in a polite

world)—computers could collect the taxes, but
if we could get everybody in the world mannerly

we wouldn’t even need defense, so what would be
the use of collecting taxes, just idle money,

or money that could be thrown around for people
who don’t have any to pick up (not, no taxes

due, that they would really need any): utopia
comes so easy: all people need to do is to do

what I say: put Laotse in bed with Confucius,
that gives you interior impetus with external

shaping: a lovely combination, which boredom
could explode: a combination that would not

play in Colorado, say: two boys abed: no
taxpayer could come of that: (but human

continuance has succeeded so well that we now
against our wills bend our wills to human

discontinuance; at least, a lessening of the
continuance from flood to brook sliver: but,

of course, we must go on fucking as usual: pity
we cannot fuck ourselves, although we can get

off ourselves: and there are vibrators and
rolling balls: something can be done: but,

forget it, fucking can never be the same:
imagine the earnest seeking at the womb to

keep slender and challenged human existence
going! what thrills, when work and play meet

in a single coming: what are we here for but
to fight for our own, to cherish our own, the

tenderness and warmth: get away: only, now,
now, we have to thin out our own, turning against

our own in order to keep our own: it was not
like this before, before when two million

human souls netted their paths into this
planet to try to stay and thrive: (leetle

vun, leetle vun, vair you goink now): I think
some years back men killed each other for little

clusters of women, till you would get down to
where you’d have one old man besides in a cave

full of women and young’uns: till, then, you
know, a man can’t fight off enemies and animals

and catch animals and women by himself, he goes
out and gets him a littler man he can rule and

gives him a little: and that is how many of
the lowly make out and survive: yes, sir, they

watch their ass and say sir when they sposed
to: I crack my window so carpenter bees can

bore nests in the window wood, but the ivy when
it creeps in under the window turns around &

tries to get out—that’s because it will lead
only so far away from the light before it

dies back: hell, I know all about hell, and
the darkness: to know the darkness of the

dark is to know one may not survive it: turn
back to the window: get back out into the

light (but keep a sunscreen handy)—the real
light I was talking about is the rising up to

the glory of the being so full of being it has
closed off all, nearly all?, becoming)

GRACIOUS SAKES