The Desktop Poem
Blog Post #2
Many people think that the Desktop Poem was not written by the Zodiac Killer—but handwriting expert Sherwood Morrill (pretty much the guy when it came to analyzing documents written by the Zodiac) disagreed with that assertion and never changed his mind. In other words, the expert opinion has always been that the Desktop Poem was written by Z.
As explained in Blog Post #1, the poem’s rh-initials have a value equivalent to the letter Z because r + h = z (or more descriptively, R is the eighteenth letter of the alphabet, H is the eighth, 18 + 8 = 26, and the twenty-sixth letter of the alphabet is Z). Tellingly, the title line has the same value because it has a total of twenty-six letters just like the alphabet (and so, the body of the poem is sandwiched by values of Z). In other words, the Desktop Poem has a rather glaring Theme of 26—and a Theme of 26 would also be a Z-26 Theme with regard to the alphabet-number code (which assigns a number to every letter based on its position in the alphabet [A-1, B-2, C-3, etc.]).
(For clarification, “Sick of living/unwilling to die” is the macabre poem’s proper title [as well as twenty-six total letters]; “Desktop Poem” is what it’s generally called on the Internet.)
The slash [/] in Sick of living/unwilling to die works as an allusion to something else in the title line: an apparent boldface O with a dot inside—or to give it a name, an emboldened O/Eye Image (it is called the Emboldened Eye throughout Essay: The Zodiac Killer’s Alphabet-Number Code [to see why, compare the two O’s in the first image above]). In other words, the slash in Sick of living/unwilling to die seems to comment on the duality of the O/Eye Image because that is the main function of a slash (according to Dictionary.com which defines the slash as “a short oblique stroke [/] between two words indicating that whichever is appropriate may be chosen to complete the sense of the text in which they occur”).
The “pupil” of the O/Eye Image seems too substantial to be the result of an accident—especially when considering the wooden surface on which it is written/drawn. . . . In effect, a “counting problem” turns into a moot point.
The Desktop Poem has either twenty-five or 26 Letter I’s, which are homophones for I the pronoun. As the twenty-sixth letter of the alphabet is Z as in Zodiac, 26 Letter I’s could be a big statement: I = Z or “I am the Zodiac.” However, twenty-five letter I’s wouldn’t say the same thing. . . . Or would it?
As eye the sensory organ is a pronoun for I the letter, the O/Eye Image would turn the Desktop Poem’s twenty-five letter I’s into 26 I/Eye Homophones. The result is the same: I = Z or “I am the Zodiac.” And so, let’s group these two variations together and call them I/Eye am Z. (By the way, there’s an exact reason why both variations exist—but in terms of Blog Post order, a full explanation would be based on assumption; as the requisite proof appears in Blog Post #7, so does the remainder of my I/Eye am Z interpretation.)
That is at least three instances of a Z-26 Theme in the Desktop Poem: r + h = Z (or the rh-initials), the Twenty-Six Letter Title (Sick of living/unwilling to die), and I/Eye am Z. And as the Desktop Poem was found almost three years before the debut of the Zodiac (Killer) moniker, its Z-26 Theme could not be some subtle misdirection about the poet’s identity; it is either nothing or everything when it comes to answering the question of whether the Zodiac Killer was the poet.
Lastly—as the Zodiac Ciphers website has explained, the Desktop Poem’s proper title "Sick of living/unwilling to die" seems to be inspired by an excerpt from a cryptographer named Edward Hyde. The excerpt is ". . . weary of life, and yet are most unwilling to die," which could be shortened to "weary of life . . . unwilling to die” and would then be very similar to “Sick of living/unwilling to die.”
By paraphrasing a known cryptographer in the title line, the poet is saying “I’m a cryptographer, too.”
“Ah, gits weary an' sick of tryin',
“I'm tired of livin' an' scared of dyin'.”
Above is an excerpt from the song “Ol’ Man River.” It is similar to the Edward Hyde excerpt "weary of life . . . unwilling to die." Seemingly, the two excerpts are combined into the Desktop Poem’s proper title “Sick of living/unwilling to die”; “unwilling to die” comes straight out of the Earl Hyde excerpt—and “Sick of living” comes from “sick of tryin’” and “tired of livin’” from “Ol’ Man River.”
And like the Edward Hyde excerpt, “Ol’ Man River” well predates the discovery of the Desktop Poem—found in Riverside, California.
But by paraphrasing “Ol’ Man River” in the title line, what statement is the poet making? . . . If you read Blog Posts #7 and #8, you might be able to figure it out yourself.
By the way, Blog Post #3 is next—and it identifies the Zodiac Killer by name.