{"id":9627,"date":"2013-03-14T22:46:02","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T20:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=9627"},"modified":"2013-04-15T12:38:13","modified_gmt":"2013-04-15T10:38:13","slug":"howl-applause-to-allan-ginsburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=9627","title":{"rendered":"Howl [Applause to Allan Ginsberg]"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Robert Fenhagen
\nclick aici<\/a> pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n 
\nA neighborhood dog is howling a mournful song\u2014I wish I had a stone to harmonize.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sitting alone, drinking from a beer in which a dead fly floated; a beer in which\u00a0 I might drown, too,\u00a0 I\u00a0\u00a0 feel\u00a0 lonely, but alive; even though I don\u2019t know about much\u2014what were we talking about\u2014pygmies?\u00a0 I forget.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hey, I\u2019m most ignorant floater this side of the Mississippi.<\/p>\n

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I couldn\u2019t sleep now or ever–Goya\u2019s paintings are animated.<\/p>\n

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Living in a big city is criminal for the solitary man with a defenseless ego;<\/p>\n

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a solitary man, who avoids others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am a lone wolf, and hear cruel asides.<\/p>\n

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The zoologists tell of wolves as being social animals; how a true lone<\/p>\n

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wolf will be ultimately excluded from the pack, and ultimately die, so, by<\/p>\n

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that measure, I am a dead man.\u00a0 If I am dead, then apparently, I cannot be<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

sitting in my den drinking a beer with a dead fly in it–\u00a0 I would be buried,<\/p>\n

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wouldn\u2019t I? The fly is dead, not I.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Does one truly know if one is dead or alive? One can\u2019t know that they\u2019ve<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

died;\u00a0\u00a0 I mean, how? Circuitry\u00a0 unplugged.\u00a0\u00a0 No circuit, no knowledge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Perhaps life in the jungle of society is but a remnant of memory, if not my own, then<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

perhaps of the collective experiences of my forefathers.\u00a0 I have heard of<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that hypothesis; however, it is so much easier to believe that I exist, and at a point, I no longer exist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That relieves me of the uneasy feelings of not socializing, because when I die, no one will know; no one cares.\u00a0 I will have become lost in the jungle.<\/p>\n

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How easy, yet, uneasy it is to be a lone wolf disguised as a man.\u00a0 As a<\/p>\n

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man-wolf, I\u00a0 don\u2019t share the values, or, interests of many humans.<\/p>\n

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Notice that I am a man-wolf, not a wolf-man\u2014a\u00a0 subtle, but important difference.<\/p>\n

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Being human is the primary trait.\u00a0 It\u2019s that much sadder that I cannot share more with<\/p>\n

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other humans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The problem seems to be the cruelty factor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I suggest to you that humans are much more like animals than animals are like humans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You laugh?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What traits do animals, wolves, for instance, have that humans don\u2019t? Wolves won\u2019t hurt<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

another wolf for sport, or profit. A wolf will not terrorize another wolf for pleasure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oh, there I go again with the animals.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often wondered\u2014what do you suppose animal values are?<\/p>\n

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Eating in order to survive.\u00a0 Killing in order to survive. Only taking another animal\u2019s<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

possession in order to survive.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Not me.\u00a0 I\u2019ll take your beer any day of any week; I will drink it down, then punch you,<\/p>\n

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and if I can, I\u2019ll take some more.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ll take your wife, if you\u2019re lucky enough to have one.\u00a0 It\u2019s not carnal; I\u2019m simply<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

acutely lonely.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t, and I won\u2019t try to take her; I\u2019m a lone wolf, remember?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thank God, I\u2019m a lone wolf.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think animals know God.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t that make for an<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

easier, more efficient existence?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Animals.\u00a0 Humans.\u00a0 Animals. Humans.\u00a0 Where we stop, nobody knows.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Animals don\u2019t know narcissism; at least, I don\u2019t think that they do.<\/p>\n

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Do they preen; do they ignore the needs of another to satiate themselves?\u00a0 No, well,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

maybe not always.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve never seen a wolf preen in front of a mirror, but I bet they do get\u00a0 dressed to mate.<\/p>\n

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Don\u2019t we all?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At some point, I left my den, and went over to my friend\u2019s– finding him alone and<\/p>\n

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dead\u2014lying on the cold linoleum kitchen floor.\u00a0 He had just<\/p>\n

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gotten a beer out of the refrigerator and lay upon the small, metallic camp bed, where he slept off his extravagances.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That night, I dreamt of rats knawing flesh; I don\u2019t know if it was my friend\u2019s;\u00a0\u00a0 it might have been– it should have been.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m a lone wolf shielding my eyes against the morning sun, and wonder what day it is.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019m a pygmy in spirit\u2014that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bright, sunny day.\u00a0 It\u2019s Ash Wednesday.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m gray like ash; I\u2019m a wolf.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Robert Fenhagen click aici pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103     A neighborhood dog is howling a mournful song\u2014I wish I had a stone to harmonize.   Sitting alone, drinking from a beer in which a dead fly floated; a beer in which\u00a0 I might drown, too,\u00a0 I\u00a0\u00a0 feel\u00a0 lonely, but alive; even though I don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[969,22],"tags":[970,25,1116],"class_list":["post-9627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia37","category-short-story","tag-egophobia-37","tag-robert-fenhagen","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-2vh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9627"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9722,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9627\/revisions\/9722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}