Thursday, November 2, 2017

Earlier, a Deer Stood by the Side of the Road Deciding Whether or Not to Kill Me. I Cannot Blame Her, I Cannot Blame Anyone



  • So that happened yesterday. Without forethought, without thinking, blam. Cull this asshole too.
  • FWIW, there's no way I'm responding further.
  • To all the possible lines of thought and debate, all the possible responses, Death to the Either/Or.
  • The Beautiful Changes.
  • Fuck me.











PUT THE LOAD ON ME
    
Nick Flynn


Here, at
your feet, all the gargoyles of heaven—
kneel upon your furnace, their tongues

worship you. You can love only one, the one
you rest your hand upon, his head so

sharp, his sulphur breath...Even now a saint
makes his way up your steps, on his

knees he is coming, he will find you,
with his sword he will kill the beasts, all of them—

he swears this will save you.

                            •

Earlier, a deer stood by the side of the road
deciding whether or not to kill me. I cannot

blame her, I cannot blame anyone—many
animals were hurt in the production of this book

just as many trees were hurt & all
the clouds. Open any book

& the cloud above you bursts into
flame, you know this & yet nothing

stops you, the sky stuck to the end of your finger
as you point to it.

                                  •

This is how it works—the master does not
bow before his servant, he does not

stand naked before her robes, his hands
are empty yet he does not offer—

not even a cupful—of his emptiness,
how could he? How could

the world then keep spinning? He made his money
(as they say) the old-fashioned way, meaning

he earned it, meaning slaves, meaning
go fuck yourself.

                                     •

Geometry deals with properties of space. Figs
(a "multiple fruit") are like strawberries

only inside out—its skin is
a receptacle. Saint Francis didn't eat

for forty days, until his body erupted & now
we call it ecstasy. Years later

Frankenstein found a way
to raise the dead. Friend, his creation

mutters, flower.

                                         •

A storm will come the radio says find a ditch
& lie facedown in it. Find your ditch & lie

facedown & pray we will all lie down
& pray after all there's only so many places

to hide. We all need help the land is vast
& dense & full of eyes & so many flowers the soil

inside us is darker than oil lie down in it
& pray.

                                             •

Remember: it's not that everything has to look like
something else, or even remind you

of something else—everything
is something else. This is the story

we've been telling ourselves
since we could speak. Possess

nothing, Francis says. Do good
everywhere. No one believes

those wings will lift you.

2 comments:

  1. last night on tv there was a show on training a hawk - they don't have to come back to their human unless they want to

    hawks like humans have to be trained while they are young

    under carefully controlled experimental conditions the organism does what it damn well wants to

    tolstoy said god knows the truth but waits

    ReplyDelete