Dear Lord, We Lurch from Metaphor to Metaphor, Which Is - Let It Be So - a Form of Praying

See that beautiful cranberry disc? It's my Sidewinder, 168 grams, my second favorite driver. Yesterday on Seneca 25 I hit the basket on the fly, the closest I've ever to an ace. Very possibly my best drive in fourteen years of playing disc - I will never be able to replicate the mechanics. There were, of course, no witnesses, so you either believe me or you don't. Dr Z couldn't play, but Earthgirl and Planet wanted to paint and Air wanted to fish at Seneca so I played the course alone. Very next drive on 26? Pleased with myself for clanking basket on 25 I over-torqued the drive and now my second favorite driver is stuck 40 feet up a cedar where it no doubt remains at this minute. That's today in Fine Metaphors Abounding. My favorite driver, my tie-dyed champ plastic Leopard? It's lost in the tick-filled briars off the fairway of 22, the hole sponsored by me and SeatSix at Seneca.

• Speaking of discs, guess whose CDs I discovered in a pile last night.
• Recursive nightmare.
• Why nature photography is impossible.
• Notes from 299 pages of rereading Infinite Jest.
• These are pulled from yesterday's post. They were below the fold. Few of you ever go below the fold:
• The era of breakdown.
• The power happiness relation and radical rage.
• Another FIFA link. I wish it astonished me that people see FIFA as if it didn't do business exactly like Corporate does business everywhere all the time.
• Three stupid questions about the recent British election.
• Puppetmaster.
• Coming our way.
• Maggie's weekend links.
• { feuilleton }'s weekend links.
• Denise Levertov on how great works of art are born.

PRAYING DRUNK

Andrew Hudgins

Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk.   

Again. Red wine. For which I offer thanks.   

I ought to start with praise, but praise   

comes hard to me. I stutter. Did I tell you   

about the woman whom I taught, in bed,   

this prayer? It starts with praise; the simple form   

keeps things in order. I hear from her sometimes.   

Do you? And after love, when I was hungry,   

I said, Make me something to eat. She yelled,   

Poof! You’re a casserole!—and laughed so hard   

she fell out of the bed. Take care of her.

Next, confession—the dreary part. At night   

deer drift from the dark woods and eat my garden.   

They’re like enormous rats on stilts except,   

of course, they’re beautiful. But why? What makes

them beautiful? I haven’t shot one yet.   

I might. When I was twelve, I’d ride my bike   

out to the dump and shoot the rats. It’s hard   

to kill your rats, our Father. You have to use   

a hollow point and hit them solidly.   

A leg is not enough. The rat won’t pause.   

Yeep! Yeep! it screams, and scrabbles, three-legged, back   

into the trash, and I would feel a little bad   

to kill something that wants to live   

more savagely than I do, even if   

it’s just a rat. My garden’s vanishing.   

Perhaps I’ll merely plant more beans, though that   

might mean more beautiful and hungry deer.   

Who knows?

                I’m sorry for the times I’ve driven   

home past a black, enormous, twilight ridge.

Crested with mist, it looked like a giant wave   

about to break and sweep across the valley,   

and in my loneliness and fear I’ve thought,   

O let it come and wash the whole world clean.

Forgive me. This is my favorite sin: despair—

whose love I celebrate with wine and prayer.

Our Father, thank you for all the birds and trees,   

that nature stuff. I’m grateful for good health,   

food, air, some laughs, and all the other things   

I’m grateful that I’ve never had to do   

without. I have confused myself. I’m glad   

there’s not a rattrap large enough for deer.   

While at the zoo last week, I sat and wept   

when I saw one elephant insert his trunk   

into another’s ass, pull out a lump,   

and whip it back and forth impatiently   

to free the goodies hidden in the lump.   

I could have let it mean most anything,   

but I was stunned again at just how little   

we ask for in our lives. Don’t look! Don’t look!

Two young nuns tried to herd their giggling   

schoolkids away. Line up, they called. Let’s go   

and watch the monkeys in the monkey house.

I laughed, and got a dirty look. Dear Lord,   

we lurch from metaphor to metaphor,   

which is—let it be so—a form of praying.

I’m usually asleep by now—the time   

for supplication. Requests. As if I’d stayed   

up late and called the radio and asked   

they play a sentimental song. Embarrassed.

I want a lot of money and a woman.   

And, also, I want vanishing cream. You know—   

a character like Popeye rubs it on   

and disappears. Although you see right through him,   

he’s there. He chuckles, stumbles into things,   

and smoke that’s clearly visible escapes   

from his invisible pipe. It makes me think,   

sometimes, of you. What makes me think of me   

is the poor jerk who wanders out on air   

and then looks down. Below his feet, he sees   

eternity, and suddenly his shoes   

no longer work on nothingness, and down   

he goes. As I fall past, remember me.