I PLEDGE ALWAYS

To remember radical centrism and salute the fair ideals and correlated principals for which I stand. I may salute or I may ignore the charms and chaos of the crowd I can no longer hope to fathom. I cannot bow before these bold "true believers" trapped in some mosh pit of competing shadows and elbows, clinging to pure idealism while denying the obvious. We are born alone. We eat and we drink alone. Execute our talents alone. And just as fate has decreed, we die alone. From cradle to grave we rock and we roll. Dust to dust, we burn out or we rust. Mismanaging the dream with great fear. But listen my friends, take heed dear foes, despite these longings for sound joy and satisfaction, despite my own terrific hunger to share and be shared, I have no stomach for group therapy.

All I want now is my forty acres of canvas and the next intrepid word from the poet...

Admitting it's time to paint quietly the love I seem to have swapped for the shifting voices of fatigue, I fall mute.



Soon all will be swept away. Suddenly—the world we knew—an unbelievable world of comfort, freedom and dignity will crumble beyond repair.

And those who have kept us blind...

Ah, those who have kept us blind. Their infamy will be relentless. As they parrot "pretty sounding nothings" they can never imagine how little their "good intentions" and their "compassion" will matter against their lies, evasions and cowardice in subtle alignment with declared enemies who would slice our thin throats and steal our thick histories.

May the spirit of Billy Mitchell rise up against them!