V.

Somewhere in the melancholic wooden-spoon
multi-verse — I’m coming down with a fever.
Though the oceans of the grey-rock planet are
freshwater, its shore is salty. There, my demi-hero

stretches his reincarnated limbs (sharpened by
celestial favour), reborn in much the same clime.
The horizon is less than titanic, John C (you used
to be a man, you used to be a pet of a groovy cat).

VI.

He looks at the atmosphere: the moving – sparkling
sheen, the various hues – though somewhat in a trance.
He is between life and death, a philosopher as supple
as a butterfly. The walls of the sky are basking in

the light of a black star, his oblivious soul feels
the limbs of the sea in retreat. The waters left him
on a shallow shore, idling in oriental laughter. Half
wet, half dry, he lies in wait for more imagination

VII.

to kick-start his all-human ills. With aversion he feels
the chain anew, he remembers the stories – the Grecian
and the Persian, and the irritation of living, he uploads
the multi-verse and sees the magic treasures of earlier

NeverEnder times. Sedate grey fishes sporting red fins
(wonderful replies to the practical joke of Great Mind)
surround him, re-assure his eyes astonished yet delighted,
overwhelmed by the light swarming overhead, an aurora.

VIII.

The creatures watch him in the unbroken silence. It appears
they do not have a thing to do. After the green and yellow rain,
the temperature has dropped; not a single sound interrupts the
stupor of this strange young planet where the whole of John C

is stripped of his former existence and everything rolls past
his sense in a tremendous moment of flowing pause, uninvited.
Later, in the evening, the ‘rosy flood of twilight’s sky’ creeps in
with a prayer and a sore bottom. Tall buildings flash in the

IX.

darkening distance: light-houses of bee-hive artificial
stories, counterpoint to the ever-green root, the shortest
path to ceaseless autotrophic joy. John C’s first thought
is sorrow and hope – all rolled into the emotion of ‘I wish’.

A giant ship, steel and claw (haunted song to me), engulfs
the waters ahead, breaks the billows, fortresses of meditation.
It comes closer with a menace, the shrill solitude of the near
satellite fuels the fire of the remote stars and the ship burns.

NeverEnder – Space Epic Poem

BOOK III

the infinite sea

Chapter I

I.

Better hold fast to the void. The X.
What infotechnician, at the height
of his vision, can deem of the shell,
as flashing as the starlit galactic Way?

The crew of the NeverEnder, lost in
Time without the ship that steered
through Heaven and Hell, rest atop
a suspended data cloud. Falling from

II.

the skies are crimson space invaders
shitting green turds, the voice of others.
The threat is imminent, and the Way —
dimmer. Two musicians in the nightwing

rise and obey to the hoarse cries of the
data stream. Thousand of spirits burn,
RAM cores inflamed, the plainness of
the soul is changing as the shot which

III.

we see, a terminal window on the dark
apocalypse within the X. This tract of
the bytes river flows more calmly, its
current draws to the ocean infinite.

Out there, in the wider, statelier stream,
the wavering lights of Saturn illumine
the Tower of the Cat and The Technician.
The green Earth, likeness of sapphire, is

IV.

source of reflections, images as tranquil and
as sure as objects of serene vision. Let us go
back to the grey expanse where John C floats,
reborn on an earlier shore, fresh with questions.

What is the nature of rebirth? Why is the X
burning? What is the fate of the crew of the
NeverEnder? Will Ariadne find her purpose?
Will there be quiet in the infinite motion?

LXI.

In the lunar eclipse, Tierra Madre searches
the desert for expected thrills on planet Fear.
In her present incarnation, Ariadne assesses
the implications of loss, making her way

through a meander of cubicles in the abandoned
Borovoe Space Station. The NeverEnder as
a spaceship has ceased to exist. It has been
decommissioned by the higher Authority.

LXII.

It is being tugged, as we speak, toward the
sunset-and-moon burning short shore of
Wapping on Planet Fear. This satellite
orbits in a eight-loop with planet Hope.

Both Ariadne and Tierra Madre can see
the ghost formerly self-aware spaceship
being pederstrianized toward inevitable
ends and means at the docks of The City.

LXIII.

Their vantage points and sentiments differ.
The odourless flowers of an angry desert,
oversize and ripe with carnation amazement
are sunbathing with anemone tentacles,

wavelets of persuasive wingless winds.
They are probing the air for small arthro
pods. Tierra Madre is on an entomologist
excursion, mapping the path of crawlies.

LXIV.

Meanwhile, on planet Hope, Ariadne is
observing feathery spiders as they weave
intricate sun-ray reflections with sullen
dedication. Such perfection, the geometry

of their polygons, a paragon of beauty.
They are writing poetry with edges and
corners, with agile legs, perfumed nails.
The reed listen in, while huge trees the

LXV.

size of ‘scrapers cast a reassuring shade
cutting the light as the oblivious planet
rolls on, teeming with mysterious life.
Ariadne feels the breath of time, a blue

flame fades in her black eyes. Frogs call.
Tierra Madre is playing with radiation,
her drawings mock the sum of materialisms.
Ariadne comes with a tool-box of words,

LXVI.

but she is quite speechless right now, as
the sound of winter, the lives of amphibians
and the spirit of dis-ease all close in on her.
Both Tierra and Ariadne are utterly alone,

and yet the feel the power of the X, shining
from all things. The multi-verse appears to be
meaningless, and coincidences may wake us
up to the illusion of meaning. And yet, yet…

LXVII.

The senses, pure as sunbeams. I remember
how to log on to the X. It hurts, and it is easier
to just sit in dull reflection, a mirror of dark
waters. You see, I already paid my dues…

LIII.

Later, at a coffee shop. “The conventions of
writing impose that I, John C, and you, Light
Bringer, must have a cause, a purpose.” There
are fish in a bowl, revolving in silence. Crack.

With a sideways look, John C observes them.
The coffee is cold, what a grey morning. It is
the smell of fried food or a sense of loss that
dominates the atmosphere. There is never quiet

LIV.

At the “Return to Oz”. “Those fish are from
Enceladus, from the subsurface ocean. They
remind me of the old days. I might have been
someone then. I was a young and foolish

angel, I thought I could conquer the uni-verse.
I could not count to three. The father, the son…”
“And the holy crap…” quips a heathen John C.
“Tidal heating makes them moody, ugly goggles.”

LV.

“Now that I am a reptile, I sometimes feel that
I look like them. How stupid they are. Round,
and round, and for what. I used to be so handso
me, you know. And a host of lesser gods used

to listen to me, when we attacked high heaven,
having refused to pay the rent. The prankster
upstairs (so to speak) has no sense of humour.
He sends battalions of suicide bombers to blow

LVI.

up the remnants of the Archive of Myth. I, on
the other hand, stand for Culture, and Humility.
That is the Light. I have lost the battle and the
War. Now I cold-call silly humans, and attempt

to sell garbage literature. What a comedown for
The Archangel, the most glorious of all Deities.”
Enceladus fish intermezzo. The planet core has
never been warmest. The fish are still and yet

LVII.

loitering. They dream of icy formations, flowers
of sort. They know nothing of the seasons of earth,
but they have a sense of tidal truth in their blood.
Everything goes in circles. You may do any thing,

but not every thing. Silver reflections, the fish
know and need nothing. Mannadew is coming
from outside the water. All the need to do is wait.

LVIII.

They respond to changes in magnetic forces,
like flowers on Planet Candide. John C grew
up on a moon of this planet, in an apartment
without a proper floor. He was adopted by a

couple of sun-grazers, who had a natural born
child, who used to feed the mountain with her
songs. Such little fingers, such fine art. A true
nymph of ice and water. “Now what, you dull

LIX.

hypocrite, you angle-faced monkey? This is
the fish speaking, from the corner of your
stupid coffee shop. In my slippery wet life
I never cease to be, never cease to stare.

The uni-verse is unmoral, and the echoes
of the blasts exposing the Archive of Myth
bear no relevance from inside my bowl. I
slither wingless by water-lilies, ogling the

LX.

reflection of the clouds, or mountains,
or green gases. Fake herons, grey plastic.
Your life is false, human “having”. You
are chained up by wires or lack of wires.

Your “wireless” screen is as sullen as your
empty “I am in the underground” look. Dare
to meet the eyes of a complete stranger? I am
a spirit, downloading hopes from your waste.”

XXXVIII.

Obsession, disquiet. Dancing logbook
of the future: waves, patterns, verses…
Desert Storm drenched in blood, memories
of the rainforest. Wandering in the deep

dark forest, St Eustach had a vision: The
Sublime. Fingers on the bio-mechanical
trigger. Some unknown creator, a first true
motor set it all up. We now have a slightly

XXXIX.

different multi-verse. An ongoing spectacle.
From the fire-coated blue aeternum, echoes
the roar of the stars. John C’s perspective is
that everything is music. His vibrations roll

back into jazz, and he is reborn in electro-
magnetic fashion. This is a moral dimension.
There is a fight against Evil. Save the Archive
of Myth. Plant a red spruce seedling. Here.

XL.

Fra Angelico painted it all before: we are already
sunk. A chorus of petty individuals, cue after cue.
The host needs to be saved, it has infected its
victims, Penge, Ilford and Golders Green. Fiend

hid in a data cloud. Paolo Uccello’s John C is
poised to slay the tame dragon, holding a pencil:
advertisement after advertisement, he will return
to Oz (the grubby coffee shop) to regroup. Now,

XLI.

Georgina, will you please put a muzzle on that
beast? He could bite someone. This little puppy
wouldn’t hurt anyone. Enter Lightbringer, the
toothless, harmless dragon, on a redemptive

mission. He has been sent to this realm by the
big G to understand the nature of Evil, and to
make amends. Lightbringer has been a bad boy.

XLII.

Cicciotta’s light touch argues with the future,
a host somewhat more discerning than Ahura
Mazda, and more unforgiving. All those little
changes, those mistakes to be taken care of.

The multiverse. It’s all happening, but for all
practical purposes, we live in a Pac-man world.
Big G, ‘elp us believe. Along the Grange Road.

XLIII.

John C has been given a second chance. The
book is being re-written, and each sentence
will be taken to the doctor, or shredded, and
then sold to you: door to door, sucker to sucker.

Cicciotta travels in time, fast forwards it. At
the end of it, far off into the future, she looks
at the slow moving creatures of the sunset era.

XLIV.

The gold-coated lizard, symbol of good and evil
fop of East and West came from the great deep;
perhaps it is not a deranged dragon, an angry Kaiju,
In fact, he tended sheep on Helicon, and pursued

things unattempted. He led the way for the upright
and the pure. But that was long ago. He opposed
the plan of Big G. Hence he was hurled, face up
all combustion down, headlong to this parking lot.

XLV.

Now John C is ordering junk food in this new old
drive-in life. Cicciotta is in the future, in a cherry
orchard, flushing toilets. Lightbringer is drinking a
chocolate smoothie, eyes like a Toyota Prado.

John C walks up, unafraid. “What’s up, dog? This
is the new me. Is that the old you? My name’s Johnny.
I am reborn. You look like hell.” The dragon: “Moi,
je suis Luci-fer. Je parle pas Anglais tres bien. I used

XLVI.

to be an angel. Now I am a serpent. I have been sent
down to this parking lot planet to make amends. The
world’s a deeply fucked-up app. I am single, by the
way. The chrom’o’john – greatest invention of all time.”

John C is brushing his teeth. He moved in with
“Lighty” (as he likes to be called), the dragon with
stomach ache. Today is May 8, 1984. This is Nagoya.
Suddenly, the toilet is bubbling up. Night has fallen.

XLVII.

Dragon says: “The white plague is only starting up,
that beautiful friend of ours, so gentle, perished with
the autumn flowers.” The radio is tuned to a discuss
ion of the nature of poetic fire. “Consumption is a

fitting climax”, argues Dr Poe, PhD. John comments
from the bathroom: “Fuck that”. Dragon flips belly
up on the bed and says “Tell you what, this muslin
disease is going to kill us all, Johnny.” He picks up

XLVIII.

a dragon scale and puts it in his mouth. Johnny
comes over, drying his hair. “What do you care,
you are a dragon, an angel, et cetera. You can
say fuck you to this world of conventions.”

Lighty begs to differ. “Unfortunately not, while
I am here I am subject the same laws and regula
tions. I have been cast out by the Big Land Lord,
and all because I did not pay up my rent in time.

XLIX.

Johnny, the toilet is bubbling up again, and it is
talking to us!”

L.

Cut to interview day, i.e. first day at a shitty job.
Location: Nagoya. Time: sometime in 1984.
Interviewer and boss: Mr Zero, the merciless.
He begins at the beginning, then goes on until

the end. “Cold calling, it is called. We need
sales people. You are low-grade scum of the
earth, immigrants who come to steal our jobs.
You’re the bottom of society, you sell words

LI.

for a living. Big G in heaven knows, you shall
deliver or perish. You may be amateurish, you
may be performing to a sub-standard level, but
until you reach your sales quota, you are dead

fish. Today’s your first and last day. You need
to work so that you can survive, better you can
be reborn again, tomorrow, else the toilet will
gurgle up and you minnows will be floating like

LII.

shit after breakfast explosions. This is the office,
I am your boss. Any questions? Good. Get your
fucking asses to shit gold, and deliver it to me.
You have twelve ‘ours to sell this pile of crap,

this novel called “NeverEnder, a Space Epic
Poem” to the zero-brainers of this world. Start
from near-dead salary-men, they need something
for their diahoerrea. Go! Are you still here?

XXXVI.

In the cave of the king of the mountain,
salmon and trout, sucked-up insalubrious
skies, sleek with vertigo. Here, the infant is
John C, mould and offshoot of a giant nail.

A cruel old wall keeps lamenting the bitter
cold times, and calling back the broom to
do its duty. Rosarito, Rosarito! Shut the
door! The vampire is sleeping now, but

XXXVII.

he may wake up. Sunset, such carelessness.
Daub a cloud, smell blood, then fear spreads
flicking between the flute and the drum.
Death is inviable, but you are not allowed

this privilege. Suffering does not exist,
step after step, the dim roar of London,
the witch-hunting and the struggle. You
have been stabbed, sweet haemorrhaging.

XXI.

From the depths of untime, a steady light.
It is a dynamic fluid, an algo-dance of hope.

I awaken in a blinding hot ocean, the Borovoe
earth station is where I come from. In the void,
my consciousness has shrunk to atoms. A riotous
current charges continuously with cancerous warmth.

XXII.

I am angry, I am furious. The odds of existing
seem so very strange. I did not want to wake up
again. Suffering is one very long moment. When
breaking it up in its seasons, one may see flashes

of days past, haunted thoughts, and the desire to
live on is matched by the sense of guilt and hope
lessness. Why wake up again, when life has no
meaning? I am burning, I am alive. No escape.

XXIII.

Fortune Lobo, you are an imaginary person. I
do not exist in anything other than the foolish
thoughts of a diseased mind. The disease is this
predatory instinct of putting everything into

pretty boxes, and watching the mandalas grow
until colossal avalanches impound the art, and
destroy the soul. People are memory fragments.

XXIV.

In the depth of Enceladus there is a liquid ocean,
warm and bubbly beneath the icy crust,
where methane molecules are trapped
within the water, their abiotic origin may

lead to life. There, Fortune Lobo comes
back as a tiny molecule which has broken
off from the rocky core, has floated in
suspension for a discrete while to be

XXV.

then released from a hydrothermal vent
and to be pushed into the cold galactic
space as a water vapour plume. After all
this thermodynamic messing around,

he is free to roam the endless uni-verse.
There is evidence of his evolving into
a self-replicating molecule by chemical
and mystical means, but that’s another

XXVI.

story. For now, he is as a merry as a
Tetrahydridocarbon assembly can be.
Chubby is reading a book about the
mutational processes moulding the

genomes, but her thoughts stray to
ancient memories of a temple she
once visited as a kitty where, with
a smile, a monk foretold her future.

XI.

When the phone rang, Cicciotta was
sitting on the table, licking from a beer
bowl. “Prontooooooooo”, said the cat
picking up the receiver. On the other

end, a timeless silence spoke volumes.
“John C here. Don’t be alarmed, kitty.
Here on the other side, things are just
groovy. There is no gap between life

XII.

and death. Actually it’s all a continuum, a
sort of consciousness ballad, or rock ‘n roll.
I am glad I found out this way, otherwise
I might have been still trapped in a karmic

circle, looking up from the bottom of a
soul to the whirling galaxy above, and
feeling absolutely nothing. Now I feel
wave and solution, a formidableness.”

XIII.

Cicciotta switched position of hands, or
paws. The receiver she was holding had
the voice of a real friend. In a powerful
flash, she saw all the moments they had

shared, and tears came welling up, she
cleared her voice, and spoke. She
told him how much she had loved him,
and how much she had been missing him.

XIV.

There wasn’t anything ubermensch in what
she said, just the plain and naked truth.
She had rarely been so emotional, but then,
thinking about it, it is also very odd that

beloved friends come back from the dead
to pop a cheesy telephone call between the
emission of this and that wave, and they
remember us, they remember us indeed.

XV.

John C continued “When I die, I want to
be remembered. I used to think that way.
Now I sort of realize that there is no such
thing as terminal death, it’s all a bit crazy

on the other side, granted. It is very confusing
with all the lights, and no apparent sense of
gravity or time. And nothing to munch. Life
is just another sound from this perspective.

XVI.

I can’t say I am immortal, though. Because
I don’t really understand what I mean by ‘I’.
It’s like I am a pattern, a groove in the fractal
thing, an echo of butterflies’ dinner parties.”

Cicciotta spoke with a strong poetic emotion.
“I am happy to hear that things are not so bad
with you. I wonder whether we can continue
to experience this balloney reality together or

XVII.

you have pressing affairs on the other side of
eternity. I am not sure I understand the phone
thing. Can you do Skype? Can we continue
to hang out for the rest of, well, should I say

time?” John C tried to explain it to her. “It’s
like this. There is no such thing as time, and
everything happens at once in a gizillion scales
and dimensions, and we sort of follow the flow.

XVIII.

The flow is the most difficult thing to catch.
It’s like a fruit that grows in a seedling that
has already become a seed. I would like to
continue to discuss with you. Yet something

tells me that we shall always be friends, no
matter what happens in this dimension or the
other. You’re my spiritual buddy, we are one
in a Pompidou connection. Thanks for that.

XIX.

In the past days, or all eternity, I have been
in my own version of the Murakamian well.
There, I have watched the people of this or
other dimensions sprout and vanish as if they

were fungi. I have become a mould myself.
I have read the book of history, and decided
that it’s really very complicated, and that I
need more time to get my wave around it.

XX.

I’ve also gone back and explored the emotions
of all the people that I have affected when
meeting them. It’s a kind of kaleidoscope
of zapping life intensity. I buzzed from one

touch to the next, and I came to conclude that
largely the influence that I have had on others
in my tweeny life has been positively charged.
I wanted to say thanks for putting up with me.”

Chapter VI.

I.

relative universe flows through the Mind,
ripples in waves, music to some,
dreadful noise to others. Creatures
unseen, mysteries in song-tormented
green oceans, deep beneath the mantle of
hungry planets, ditzy stars, half-forgotten light.

II.

The Archive of Myth must not be burnt,
protect the emptiness with emptiness.
Even if the artists and the architects have
long gone, the memory of a moment

of clear light must not wither away too
soon. Not before the pages have been
turned by a young person, and the song
has been sung again, just before dusk.

III.

Extreme psychological pain can rust
the soul’s mechanical clockwork, and
eye in eyes, dome in domes, we shall
melt into cloud, echo as summer heat.

Desert Storm has shrunk to size in the
cacophony of winter, has gone missing in
the lower lands, off toward the dunes
and the unfinished quicksands and marshes.

IV.

Volterra is a distant memory now. And so
all the neverending faces and curled lips that
populated the space between unread letters
and unsung characters, between the fall of
finnegan and imaginary spaceships, or cats.

Desert Storm walks in solitude toward
the sea, hurt by thorns of greedy shrub.

V.

Venus rising from the waters, bent on finding
love, defining it, having it sung by poets
high and low, until the subject’s quite dry and
the moon’s embittered light is all that is left.

In the stomach of the whale, Fortune Lobo
fought consciousness with courage; his thought
was heard by ghosts, in unimagined corners.
Then, the music slows, the high-strung notes

VI.

return, tracing the path toward the sea that
suddenly aged Desert Storm is treading in
resilience. Not far from the Gulf of Poets,
or further up toward the rocky shores of
other towns, clusters of coloured houses
like grapes, beside the ever-blasting wave.

VII.

‘What sea is this? What planet? I must
be lost beyond the land of dreams. I,
no longer I. Desert Storm. Is it not a
silly name, given by a random thought?’

‘The bright and clear upper air, far away
from the earth, and all is known. I can
see the steps of Ariadne as stars in the
ether. I need a new name, I need a new

VIII.

purpose. The dreadful house of shadowy
night, the hunger of monstrous Python,
a sea-shell, bringing me to the sky, or the
mountain. Where is the Vivian Wing?’

Across this sea of forgetfulness, there is
a cave. Brothers Oineiros live with their
father Hypnos in a dark and misty cavern
in the remote land of the Cimmerians.

IX.

Whenever needed, one of the brothers
flies off as dream to give advice or comfort.
Desert Storm has perhaps strayed onto
a self-aware planet of metamorphic

forgetfulness, where memorian and
oblivian merge, and the gentle murmur
of water invites slumber. Come join
Hypnos, and his brother Thanatos to

X.

a moment of everlasting sleep, or perhaps
let ego be your fears among the poppies, or
perpetual herbs, all shedding responsibility.
Whenever a dream is needed, swiftly it appears.

Apollo, victorious over the Python, has come
to offer you a grain of sand, rearguard Reader.
With that you can call upon tenderness, or old
age, or strife, or any of the children of the Night.

XLVII.

“What doesn’t kill you, makes you sadder. I
might have been born of parthenogenic rock,
maybe my ancestry can be traced to the land
of the Cimmerians. If there ever was a parent,

he or she might have dipped my body upwards
in the serpent-ocean waters that surround us.
I am Monkey, and I have come to believe in
entropy. It is like coming home after the wars.

XLVIII.

I embrace entropy, and that is why I am set on
this act of Terror, I want to burn the Archive of
Myth, with the artists and the historians in it.
That is my statement in the stale, pointless debate

between memorians and oblivians. But I hesitate.
Three women in blue, twitching with white lily
expectation, the air is as still a summer question.
They stand before me, like a three-headed hound.

XLIX.

If strenuous life hits me, I bend and break. There
is no glory in the explosion of birds in the green sky,
the variations of Goya’s witches, dancing within
me. But I see here my archenemies, those who

wish to bring me back to the right side of the road.
Cecco and Gawain, you are fools of the first degree.
Knights forever kneeled to a lady, in her lap. Ar ar
ar. Gawain is indifferent honest, Cecco is full of

L.

desire. What are you searching for, you morons?”
Gawain steps forth, and holds his breath. Cecco
opens his mouth, then he lets go of a fart. “We’ve
come to stop you from your foolish attempt at

undermining all that we’ve accumulated for eons.
I mean, you can’t just burn the thing down. Besides,
Ariadne is doing some research, and we are talking
about millions of milliseconds of cultadorale activity.”

LI.

Cecco and Gawain have come to battle with
Monkey’s enraged spirit. Emotional riddle-quote
with swindling attached is the weapon of choice.
Monkey: “Two against one, how’s that fair…”

Gawain: “Well, we are the good guys, so…”
“That is what hunters and murderers tell
themselves”, Monkey sighs. At the back
entrance of museyroom G in Volterra, a
door which leads straight into the heart

LII.

of the Archive of Myth, three spirits of
hypergalactose vibrational energy stand
facing each other, prepared for duel.

“Krishna, Krishna,
Now as I look on
These my kinsmen
Arrayed for battle,
My limbs are weakened,
My mouth is parching,
My body trembles,
[…] My brain is whirling
Round and round,
I can stand no longer:
Krishna, I see such
Omens of evil!”

LIII.

Monkey reverse-calls God, and asks
for justice. A question of emotional
riddle-quote with swindling attached.
The number you have dialled has not

been recognized. Please try again.
At this point Cecco steps forward,
he opens a letter to his lover, and then
throws it in the gutter. And then he

LIV.

answers “in the darkness of the north,
there is a fish; its name is leviathan.
leviathan is a fish so large that its
size is unknown. when it transform
itself, it becomes a bird, and its name
is predator. of predator, we cannot
estimate the size of the posterior.
caught in a rage, he flies off, and
its wings like clouds cliff-hang in
the sky. this bird, when the sea
starts to stir, heads toward the
darkness of the south. this is the
pond of heaven.”

LV.

Monkey “of thoughtless, free
roaming, I know nothing. I am
the bird that caught fire. ‘Birds
feed off birds, beasts on each other
prey; But savage man alone
does man betray.’ So, there.”

LVI.

Gawain “you are no lady Osprey
of Perth and Kinross, you are no
man, you are less than human.
You are a mindless, stupid monkey.
I should know that, I wasted my
life listening to your drivel. ‘Ay
ay, good man, kind father, best
of friends (long pause), these are
the words that grow like grass and
nettles, out of dead men, and speckled
hatreds lie, like toads among them’
you are no hero, Monkey.”

LVII.

“Oh, yes, I am a monkey, thank you
for reminding me. I’ve been constantly
reminded since, well… forever. Yet I am
human. And since I cannot be a hero… I
am determined to be a villain; I do hope
that I shall not end up in a Leicester parking
lot, though. That would be worse than dying.”

LVIII.

In the dark room with heavy curtains drawn,
Ariadne asks and asks, but El Greco refuses
to answer. Life as Neo-Platonist is very much
shut up in the digestive system of God.

Domenikos refuses to allow her to open
the curtains. He says that the light outside
disturbs his inner light. Ariadne decides that
it is time to act. She shows herself as one

LIX.

of the lilies of the river-bank at Knossos;
Domenikos is moved to tears. If only God
stood still like those timeless moments. If
only the icons of Byzantine paintings could

speak, if only His eyes had not been crossed
out (pun unintended)… Titian, in the other
room, converses with Desert Storm on how
Ariadne coming out of the sea to meet Dionysus

LX.

changed his life. “Ah, Domenikos, he is a good
student… a little restless.” The light at the site
of the gulf of Lerici… or was it further south,
toward the nameless Etruscan moors?

Volterra stands tall and angry, overlooking
Tyrrenian remorse. Titian was a mountaineer,
he idolised the sea! I can almost see the faces
of the many hundred imitation artists, Ione

LXI.

among them, who sought to capture the very
same light, the lazy, white clouds in the summer
sky, the gulls, the ripples of ocean wave…
“Ariadne came out of the sea to meet me,

and I offered a glass of wine, and the company
of my merry, slightly crazy friends… enough
said.” Desert Storm smiles, for the artist in

LXII.

in her knows that the road is steep and rocky:
‘Let peewit call and curlew cry where they
will, I long for your merry and tender and
pitiful words, For the roads are unending
and there is no place to my mind.’

LXIII.

Monkey ju-dances with Gawain; he wishes
to be dead, and he whispers in his enemy’s
ear: “I have roamed from cloud to cloud…”

El Greco: “… I am an immigrant. I have
died so many times, in Candia, in Venetia,
in Roma, in Toledo. I wasted my money
on orchestras and on clay, but the blood

LXIV.

and sorrow of the womb, I have captured
with my art.” And Cecco, outside, riddle-
swindling Monkey… “the sands of my life
do pass”… El Greco continues: “Rome
was more disappointing than Venice.
Second-rate mannerists! In Spain I have

LXV.

found the Absolute. And twenty-four
rooms. I was on the verge of a great
revolution, and a canyon. The Tagus
bubbled up nicely, like a mission.

I would create anything, new and
forever parasitic. The souls of countless
unbelieving visitors would have to
pay. My paintings are forever feeding

LXVI.

off the life-energy of unbelievers, that
is my curse on the shallow humanity.
I might have died in 1614, but the odds
and ends of my digestion are still being

processed, and they shall creep towards
you, dearReader.”

LXVII.

“Why am I not born like a Gentileman,
and why am I now so speak-able about
my eatables.”

In this endswell of chaperone five, book
the second, “Man is temporarily wrapped
in obscenity, looking through these accidents
with the faroscope of television (this nightlife
instrument… … … … )