No Book Or Poem Is Ever Finished,

There Were Reprints Of American Editorials. Liberals Saw It As A Resurgence Of Social Protest And Decried The Discrimination, Poverty, And Hunger That Had Provoked It. Conservative Columnists Acidly Pointed Out That Hungry People Don't Steal Stereo Systems First And Called For A Crackdown In Law Enforcement. All Of The Reasoned Editorials Sounded Hollow In Light Of The Perverse Randomness Of The Event. It Was As If Only A Thin Wall Of Electric Lighting Protected The Great Cities Of The World From Total Barbarism.

Words Bend Our Thinking To Infinite Paths Of Self-delusion, And The Fact That We Spend Most Of Our Mental Lives In Brain Mansions Built Of Words Means That We Lack The Objectivity Necessary To See The Terrible Distortion Of Reality Which Language Brings.

The Never-ending Competition Between Writers Hasn't Changed Between 1868 And 2000. I Used To Belong To Writers' Workshops With Other Professionals, But That Becomes Impossible After A While. Everyone's On A Different Step Of The Career Ladder. Jealousy Doesn't Have To Erupt Into Murder And Burying Someone In Wells Cathedral, But It Is Always There.

We Are All Eaters Of Souls.

Gass Once Wrote: "language Serves Not Only To Express Thought But To Make Possible Thoughts Which Could Not Exist Without It." Here Is The Essence Of Mankind's Creative Genius: Not The Edifices Of Civilization Nor The Bang-flash Weapons Which Can End It, But The Words Which Fertilize New Concepts Like Spermatozoa Attacking An Ovum. It Might Be Argued That The Siamese Twin Infants Of Word/idea Are The Only Contribution The Human Species Can, Will, Or Should Make To The Raveling Cosmos.