*"There Was a Dunce Went Forth"

There was a dunce went forth every day;
And the first form he look’d upon, that form he became;
And that form became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.
In his youth the family became a part of him;
The only love, and the first hug, and the support, and the mother at home whispering an echo of hope;
And the father in his tie and suit far from his past slavery, and school work, and the wonder;
And the inferiority of lower-class intellects who scuffled at the sight of truth and the small and simple joys that kept him suspended in a sphere of optimism- all became a part of the dunce.
And the mother became a part of the dunce, shielding him from social strife;
And the heart-felt hugs, and the small kisses, and the un-warranted pats upon on the back;
And the toys, the roman gods and small spider-men who roamed the sand box;
And the fantasy worlds which consumed his yearning, and Saturday morning cartoons, and birthday balloons, and the wonder of the moons;
And the father’s talent, the father’s religion, his careful nature, his hunger for knowledge and truth;
And the father’s unending and divine love became part of the dunce.
And the formulaic writing, the times table, the rich literature of mother goose, the niceties of teachers and others who would form his doubt,
And students who would entertain his fancy and take him away from his true purpose,
And the swing set with its decaying links,
And the tests with their repetition and un-worth coupled with a tendency to eradicate the dunce’s imagination all became a part of this dunce.
And middle school’s glorification of the athletic over the academic, its subtle contradictions,
And the mundane functions of social life became a part of him;
And fanciful fragrances, gutter-worthy gossip, small talk, and corruption, lying, and cheating; And a general loss of self all became part of this dunce.
The life lived for the “un-self” alone, a distant idol gracing the minds of the weak wonders of the world,
And a morality never realized, merely perpetuated by those who seek to destroy the faculty of wonder,
And those who fear the individual’s ability to discern the truth, a truth which was not passed on by the self-proclaimed “prophets” of the ages- formed this dunce’s morality.
And this morality followed him his whole life in the “high” years of school, which were marked by low expectations and a general disgust for those who shunned Homer and Aquinas alike.
The un-enlightening “high” years of didacticism, and the disregard for the poetic,
And the reckless suppressant of true individualism;
And the infinite cynicisms of the world, a whole ocean of misunderstanding and wrong doing, became a part of the dunce.
And the seduction of slaves, the empty whispers of hope,
And the worthless words uttered by the sanctimonious snakes and unjust “Judases” with infinitesimal jurisprudence and endless ignorance,
And the rash rationalizations, the giant generalizations, the slave-morality,
And the cowardly chivalry, the resonance of regret rooted within the wrath of past transgressions,
And the discrimination, sexism, prejudice;
The decadence of a society filled to the brim with slothful individuals and gluttons, who feed on the useless rabble that permeates the air with mediocrity and temporary worth,
And society’s pleasant pornography, its timid turbulence, its conservative liberalism, its partisan politics, its baffling bickering,
And the elite’s pessimistic parsimony, the desirable drugs, the wholesome whores,
And the rigid resolve of the unjust, the withering pew, the fresh mildew, the duncical state of the race,
And the hope of a NEW PACE;
A new pace, forged form the depth of the eternal forms, an un-extinguishable silent flame, the nothingness that fathers doubt, devils, and dust, became a part of the dunce.
And he willed to become one with the doubt, the devils, and the dust.
Hell is not other people, hell is the “un-self” the “lower-self”, the self deprived of innate rationalism and comprehension.
The dunce hoped to wrap himself in a cocoon of existence and realization, casting out every ounce of civilization and to rise a new man: **Zarathustra.
The dunce hopes to become this and…
That Zarathustra will go forth one day,
Living on a mountain top and upon the human peak of anonymity,
And the sun will become a part of him, and a glorified sense of self.
And as for the discrimination, the sexism, the prejudice, the decadence of society;
He hopes these never will become part of him again, who will go forth every day, who will then go and will always go forth every day.
* From Walt Whitman’s “There Was a Child Went Forth”
** From Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”