Endeavor and Play

"The opposite of play isn't work. It's depression. To play is to act out and be wilful, exultant and committed as if one believes in all prospects." -Brian Sutton-Smith

He was "a staunch dissident against the view that endeavor is futile." -Tom Shippey[?], describing J.R.R. Tolkien's Christian and Germanic ethic for life's choices, which are innately heroic.

"The kids with pretend guns who pop out to shoot adults with 'Ha I shot you!' are functional happy optimists. The same adults (who will not play dead!), disturbed by kids with toy guns, are already dead to life, and ought to be shot." -NPHillman

"Polyconjugating is Polydisorienting" -NPH

"Cowardice, Cruelty, Numbness and Abasement result necessarily from the absence of Remorse and Joy." -NPH

"The fear of personal redemption and transformation is the greatest fear known to man and woman." -NPH

I Lurch

I long for you along heart’s long ways.
I reach for you over the abyss,
Lurching to hear your voice
your heart
your mind

I want to wake to her,
stir her to me,
eyes wide, ears hearing.


I make believe
I make believe in great gladness
You are mine
All mine
But I embrace you,
you sectioned,
and my heart splits

I long to feel me unfettered,
feel you free
and freely,
with unhindered hands.
If only she,
unpartitioned she,
were uniquely
unduplicatably for me.

How many miles and starlodes
I strode to find her.
How long the way I'll bear her.

I want to give her me … alive
but it’s I who weekly dies.

I crouch near her sacred bed
like a child
fearful
skiddish to touch,
to touch her I touch every day,
she who stirs me,
stirs me
stirs me heart and marrow

My fullest frolick,
My rampingest romp,
My blithest bound,
My liltsomest leap,
crashes me against walls,
paralysing limbs.
Wilful walls,
fences confining willynilly
above, beside, below.

Bombwounds.

We burst for space.
We lie trapped in a narrow room
in a narrow house
in a narrow world
hunted by beasts
who live for bed, rend in bed,
raptors with prey on their beds,
rotting in beds, tickling our hearts,
beckoning with blood, false hope's blood,
hearts palpitating,
confused, wildered, wanting.
The succubuses stick stagnant on cushions of lethargy.

I long
I reach
I lurch
to live
to elope with her
into life -
The wide seawide verdure of vistas
implanted in my soul and my sky.
All the sages I’ve met and known,
Lords and ladies,
unswerving companions,
Come to us,
True counselors,
Intrepid intercessors,
Unfeigned friends.

-Nathan Hillman, Ninth of February 2009