A direct challenge to Milton's vision in Paradise Lost, John Everett Button's Reflexive Conversations offers literature its first truly romantic depiction of Satan in this bold contemporary epic poem. Utterly unique in its intimacy, Button has produced a brave new vision of the Devil's fall from grace and his resulting odyssey to hell. Transcending the bounds of traditional tragedy, Reflexive Conversations rises to become a work of sculpture that is a living representative of the substantive spheres of life, lifting the reader with the voice of raw human emotion, eternally bonding them to this unforgettable masterpiece.

REFLEXIVE CONVERSATIONS

By John Everett Button

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 John Everett Button
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-9321-1

Contents

INTRODUCTION..............................................iI. Reflexive Conversations................................1II. The Beginning.........................................3III. Auguries of Purgatory................................5IV. The Calm Sea..........................................7V. My Sirens..............................................9VI. Melon Colony..........................................13VII. The Drunken Couple...................................15VIII. In Search of the Garden of Eden.....................17IX. The Garden of Eden....................................21X. My Great Escape........................................25I. The Naked Couple.......................................29II. Face to Face..........................................31III. The Opera of the Calm Sea Storm......................35IV. Leaving Melon Colony..................................37V. The Blue Whale.........................................39VI. The Drunken Cruise....................................41VII. The Arctic Passage...................................43VIII. Finding the Symmetry of Eros........................45IX. Mei Amor in Pace Requiescat...........................47I. The Great Halls of Justice.............................53II. Sleepwalking in the Shadow Lands......................55III. Judas and Judgment...................................57IV. The Caribbean.........................................59V. The Shore..............................................61VI. The Village...........................................63VII. The Last Supper......................................65VIII. The Temple..........................................69IX. Man in the Room.......................................73XI. Renaissance...........................................79XII. Deliverance..........................................81XIII. Reflexive Conversations.............................85

Chapter One

BOOK ONE

I. REFLEXIVE CONVERSATIONS

Raten ... no, riet

The Devil sits mastering this new rhyme With his Piano concerto 21 On Repeat

No evil inside Just music, books, and rose-pedaled wine Interested in the beauty of love, Things good natured and fine

Different mediums line his tall shelves: Screw-tape tragedies and string symphonies Aged wines and dried tobacco leaves Egg-based paints and boar-haired brushes Small black hammers and thin chisels

Incense burns beside him in a suspended golden censer: Smoke slowly tumbles upward Drifting blindly through the darkness And into the sunlight

David and Adonis stand silently in pillars of light

Looking up into their distant gazes, He sees himself Forever trapped in youth and beauty

Without rising from his throne He pours himself a full glass of a blush-red wine From a tall crystal carafe beside him Poise and punctilio disappear with each sip

REFLEXIVE CONVERSATIONS

I will be sitting here until these statues turn to dust And the walls of this palace collapse into sand I will be watching when the stars fade from the sky And the only stirring in the universe is my eyes

You can't see the thorns tethered to my heart Or the cancer that consumed my mortal soul There is nothing for you to love about my life For my fate is not that of a hero

He knew I was prepared to leave, to be as great as he I had high hopes of chiseling myself into the rock of history So that I too, like his beloved statues, would take a legendary form

A great pale horse appeared at the foot of the palace steps Prepared to carry me as a conqueror Before every tribe, tongue, and nation

Concern spread over his face For he feared that something terrible lurked Not behind me, but before me

To himself he whispered,

Behold a pale horse His name that sat on him was Death And Hell followed with him

As I turned towards the great ghostly horse He interrupted my movement and said

Before you leave, you must know the truth of this throne, For I fear my fate will become your own

And with that he closed his book

II. THE BEGINNING

His empty gaze shifted past me across the marble floor and into some lively memory

He closed his eyes and looked inward: Visions bloomed from deep within the soft valves of his heart

He became a medium, commiserating with his past self As he began to speak in a soft certainty

I fell from the gates of heaven Without hate and without fear Thinking of a woman whom I loved so dear

I was thrown back into the world Left to bask forever in Purgatory Not knowing that a long journey awaited me

I was welcomed again by my lover And at my long journeys end Fate decided that I should lose her again

I will tell you all that I remember For your life is intertwined with mine

III. AUGURIES OF PURGATORY

I had come to the end of my life And stood at the edge of the world Peering down into the emptiness just beyond my feet:

An eternal descent into darkness

Birds flew off, never to return Distant rivers rushed off the land Tuffs of long-stemmed grass bowed over the edge as the wind swept past,

And there I stood at the very end of earth, before God's Great Beyond:

Huge shifting clouds consumed in burning light, Spinning, churning into each other, Absorbing the atmosphere; consuming all the air that blew past me

I had no fear, though, for faith filled my lungs, Giving courage to my limbs to walk across the bottomless abyss And into the Great Beyond

As I rested my left foot upon the emptiness before me, (Like a blind man stepping onto a bridge) All the faith and heavenly light could not calm A sudden flood of desperate memories;

Faith could not purge my memories of my forgotten Love lost

And as before, I surrendered and fell Watching the bright clouds race away from me Lost in the feeling of `forever'

(Unconscious)

IV. THE CALM SEA

(Conscious)

The world is quietly circling around As I awaken to the gentle slapping of the deep blue That surrounds me

A benevolent raft, tied with vine Settles with the jealous current Together we drift west, following a passing sun

Lonely clouds move above the calm uncharted water

In a passing moment, I begin to consider The spots and wrinkles that have appeared on my hands; A natural tension curls my fingers slightly

To the vast Calm Sea I utter:

Oh, how quickly Time consumes us

The Calm Sea ignores my utterance And continues me past like a silent chauffeur

So I just sit, balancing my forearms on my knees, Resting; waiting until the gravity of the world Gets tired of such a burden

V. MY SIRENS

Flashes of golden light caught my tired eyes Songs of sympathy began to strike my tender ears Forcing my body to the edge of my small wooden vessel, Unsure of what was approaching:

Three women with long golden hair emerged from the sea, Perched on the crest of an islet: Two columns of rock standing firmly upon the calm water Merging together into an open archway

Waves of...