Dearest Mary Angel,

What if Time were not one thing; A singularity, but an entity and a plurality? What if Time were not linear? What if Time were but a tool in the hands of a mad god? That like a cloth it is composed of warp and weft and so could be manipulated to the designs of the weaver. If Time is but a thread in a bit of cloth then it traces itself back and forth over the same ground, building upon itself until the resulting weave becomes a pattern of infinite complexity.

For someone who stands outside of Time and not bound by it's constraints, the fabric of Time might seem a beautiful thing, a fitting garment for a god, such as one who might use Time to torment the soul who is bound by the constraints of passing Time. Might not even Santa then be able to deliver gifts to every child, for every year that they believe in him, in one single night?

If Santa were the shuttle moving through the warp and weft of Time, and because it is but one nights work, however long the night may be, what would it do to the mind of a man so cursed?

What follows is a poem I've written, thirteen stanzas of thirteen lines each, about just such a man, doomed to fly throughout one eternal and torturous night, unable to catch the sun, and slowly going insane.


The Patron Saint of Insanity


It will never end,
the tearing of veils
Ripping the fabric of space and time
His dementia unbound ~
This mad eternal journey...
this single night...
this one endless night
for the patron saint of insanity.
Tattered vermilion, sooted ermine
and the wailing and biting of winds,
Their moaning and screaming
in ears that have forgotten the sound
Of human voice and laughter

It will never end,
this tearing of veils,
and his own mind ~
"Why? Oh, what and how
is the when and where of my purpose?
Forever drawn, hungry,
and thirsting for answers!"
screams the Patron Saint,
and screaming cracks the whip in his hand
o'er the heads of eight demon stag,
their cloven hooves clicking,
and drawing sparks
upon the plane of this one endless night

It will never end,
the tearing of fabric ~
There is but one bolt
and Hell hath perverted
both weft and warp
And the Patron Saint, the shuttle
by which the mirth of children is wove
"Just once!"
screaming to whatever god will listen
"Just once to plunge knives into breasts!"
His madness but a petty gods' whim
and knives but whimsies
pulled from the sack

It will never end;
his madness, the voyage, the whimsies ~
Flying madly,
rooftop to rooftop,
the cold death of winter
burning madness to the bone
And if veils be torn,
they are certainly torn here ~
The agonizing press of turgid flesh
forced through pipes and chimneys,
the pain flesh torn on stone,
and the imperfection of steel
gouging his flesh

It will never end,
The similarities ~ the sameness of it all
Evergreen false or true,
milk and cookies,
"No feast there!"
Only scents seem to change
Pheromones ~ joy, sadness and decay
even fear, that too
For the patron saint of insanity
no choice exists but to enter
thrashing and screaming
in mindless horror into every den,
and another veil torn

It will never end
The sack filled with whimsies,
ever full ~
Relentlessly so,
and bulimically poised,
routinely vomiting
‘neath each dead or dying tree
to the delight of starving ingrates
young and old alike
and blissfully unaware
of the patron saint,
the mad endless voyage,
or his insanity

It will never end,
the tearing of veils,
quickening dementia
and slipping unseen
into havens washed,
set against the intrusion of madness ~
But there he stands...
"How many more?”
the patron saint screams,
“Will not anyone wake?"
voice tortured and desperate
poised over the dead in sleep
~ but none ever do

It will never end,
and peering into the sack
for knife or ax,
poison or gun,
and the sack smiling, mocking
and hideously laughing,
continuing it's vomitous endeavor
to fill each sock to bursting;
candied canes,
gingerbreads and whimsies
And the patron saint screams again,
"Awake! Fire! Foe! Awake I say!"
but like graining sacks of rot, none ever do

It will never end,
the curse never lifted
To each house
ten times ten-thousand times, and
the gluttonous child ungrateful, never sated…
"Perhaps this child will die
that I need never visit here again!"
But the veil is already torn
and each one dead
sees ten more born in its place…
The curse calls to him
pulling him up through the pipes, to the sleigh
and the stamping hooves of reindeer dead

"Will it never end?"
the patron saint screams,
insanely and joyously cracking his whip
and the mad voyage beginning anew
weeping to freeze
And burning the mask of his flesh…
Cackling and cracking,
cracking and cackling,
endlessly moving between the weave
of dusk and dawn
~ the sun become a fable
"Yessss! The sun! I must catch the sun!"
cracking the whip to shatter the night

“It will never end,
this one maddening night,”
but a light glimmers in a crazy eye,
and screaming sings out,
"On Comet! On Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen!
On Dasher! On Dancer! On Prancer and Vixen!
Catch the sun! Catch the day!
Dash away! Damn you all! Dash a-way!”
The horizon brightens fingernail thin
knuckles whiten, crack and bleed
gleaming hope blisters within him
but the curse pulls him screaming
down into darkness again

No, it will never end
Another rooftop,
another veil torn,
another vomitous endeavor in hand
The sack full,
and the patron saint despairing,
pulled screaming down
through pipes dark and cruel,
to the heart of hearth and home
and the sickening taste of milk and cookies,
wishing for but one sharp knife,
the sack retching and purging
steaming ribbons and bows

So it never ends...
and it's back to the sleigh
and eight demon stag
The tearing of veils,
and hope rekindled
in the heart of the patron saint of insanity
The cracking of whips,
the mad chase through eternal winter's
freezing winds,
and biting cold,
to catch the sun and end it all,
and screaming in rage
"Damn you all and to all a good night!"



ELAshley
Written between
January 1, 1999 & February 3, 1999
"Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!"

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