THE SOLIPSIST'S LAMENT

I like the sound of the word ... solipsism ... the slithery smoothness of it with just the hint of a backbone in the p ... but I'm figuring also the idea itself should pop up in the lexicon of the five or six words ... words like gnostic ... that define the culture ... pop up too of course in the unstated philosophy of our time ... in the indignation felt for the perfidy of the symptom-free disease ... where literally is the sense in killing tissue without pain when sense itself is the boundary of the self and the self is the justification of existence ... where's the virtue in justice or law ... an intangible string to link the palpable moments of good or bad sense ... my moments someone else's invisible something ... as if something or someone else made any sense at all ... and least of all a conversation ... first all the talk all those words they will never stop ... and when of course they do it's only the work of exhaustion that the mind no longer hears them being said ... it's only at that point of exhaustion that the silence can seem to be his ... and if there were no time that would be fine ... but as it is it doesn't last ... and the still word begins to sound again