I feel like

the slithering ophidian crawling on the dead trunk of an old deciduous oak.
the capricious anguine python inertly anesthetized
the insouciant newt finally acknowledging its ephemerality
the olympian myth benumbed by its declivitous plunge towards the inevitable fugacity

this is what i feel like today

Col. Kurtz

I remember when I was with Special
Forces. Seems a thousand centuries
ago. We went into a camp to
inoculate some children. We'd
left the camp after we had
inoculated the children for polio.
And this old man came running after
us, and he was crying. He couldn't
say. We went back there, and they
had come and hacked off every
inoculated arm. They they were,
in a pile. A pile of little arms.
And, I remember, I cried, I wept
like some grandmother. I wanted
to tear my teeth out. I didn't
know what I wanted to do. And I
want to remember it. I never want
to forget it. I never want to
forget it. And then I realized,
like I was shot, like I was shot
with a diamond bullet through my
forehead. And I thought, My God,
the genius of that! The genius.
The will to do that. Perfect,
genuine, complete, crystalline,
pure. And then I realized, they
were stronger than we. Because
they could stand it. These were
not monsters. These were men,
strained cadres. These men who
fought with their hearts, who have
families, who have children, who
are filled with love...that they
had the strength, the strength to
do that. If I had ten divisions
of those men, then our troubles
here would be over very quickly.
You have to have men who are moral,
and at the same time, who are able
to utilize their primordial
instincts to kill without feeling,
without passion. Without judgment.
Without Judgment. Because it's
judgment that defeats us.

"The Hollow Man" by T.S. Eliot.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

          
               II
          

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crow skin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

          
               III
          

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

          
               IV
          

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

          
               V
          

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

                   For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow


                   Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

                   For Thine is the Kingdom


For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.