A letter of interest arrived from one Lanny Muss. It has only been a few days since his friend doogs interest renewed in my condition...doogs an older fellow with the world inside of himself and one who never lets the smallest thing bother him...aside from a comment about "literary artifice" which was made with the most humble respect for the glory of ages gone by and styles of performance in gentlemanly circles towards women, 'in my condition'. Ah...it is so good to hear from a friend of a decade....a whole decade. Here we are wondering why we bother at all to write to one another...knowing that it really is the most gentle solace one can ever know...a kind and friendly letter with all the necessary obscurities that are enacted to sit in a parlor with one another and chat awhile. It was only to preserve the poem which we arrived at...as we always arrive at some nonsense or another that I relate to you my reply to my gentlemanly friend, Lanny Muss, old doogs friendly butler:

Dear Lan,

In this our series of chaotic missions
perserverence, detection, destruction
marriages and wars, streams of conflict
seemingly all around

women arrive in dreams offering zakat
unrecognizable except to a simple few.

She wants to understand betrayal,
the unseen, the protected law of the universe
in all of its blinding capacity
although it is wrong and impossible.
She tries anyway. Leaves everything else alone:
socks, ashtrays and friendly letters,
platonic unifications of her very own soul
which is so valuable anymore to her
and no one else. No one else bothers
about another man's soul any more,
his own wife's or her dog's soul -
the same to him as they are to her
but in a different way. In such a different way.

All I can say is I know Lanny. I'm much better acquainted with the quietish doogs and have long missed him. It is good though to hear pippa once again and wonder where that must lead a person...because dreams and these things always do lead to a something...never bitter and certainly only mildly scorned and infrequently.I wish doogs could sit a while on the Corniche and tell me once again I'll be alright because I'm truly not sure about alright. Alright is a creation that fends off the not so good, the absolutely intolerable and the ever present hypocrisy...my own and everyone else's....all too painful to encounter as much as I do....all too painful and leaving the rottenest sores..sores of the mind that never heals..only remembers what it is told.I am so glad to hear from you once again. I need something to help me from losing my mind once and for all time.LJ(Layla and Lilac send their regards and Lilac sends her photo as well. My God she was a beautiful maiden...where on earth did she go?