awareness that hungers always for new victims
like a minotaur, and whose mad thirst for the blood of innocent bystanders can never
be slaked, least of all by tepid gestures toward understanding
seen in a mirror and wrongly interpreted, or lives entirely given over to sacrifice
and austerity, for it is there, cautions the tome, that the greatest losses, the worst
atrocities will be instigated and immediately tallied. For such is the life of a young man
these days; there is still time to leave the boat, which at last report
was committed to its moorings, but of course to quit now
would be to miss the whole spectacle, and that, after all, is what
we came for, and shall insist on staying for, once the dirt has settled
and the bats flown back into the trees. And the cicadas stopped stuttering.
As dead wood floats, the expanding afternoon exhales
its mousy fragrance, battening on the memory of countless similar
ones it thinks are in the heads of those going about in this one,
and so the structure stands, without any apparent support. Doors are left open
as in spring, and beyond them float tunnel-vision landscapes
brought from somewhere else, and none recognizes the clever substitution.
Here a man carries bags
out to his truck, and makes the same trip over and over. There, windows shine.
And on a far-off hilltop someplace a living sacrifice gleams, red
in the puddled haze, and all eyes are cast downward, defrocked,
speechless. And though one can hear the traffic’s swish
as it cuts from one side of the island to the other, one is transfixed,
facing an army of necessary revisions. “How would it be if I said it this way,
or would so-and-so’s way be better, easy on the adjectives?” And if I told you
this was your life, not some short story for a contest, how would you react?
Chances are you’d tell me to buzz off and continue writing, except
it’s so difficult; we barely begin and paralysis takes over, forcing us out
for a breath of fresh air. Meanwhile the vengeful deity whose acts
are being recorded has all the time in the world. “OK, that’s it for today,” as if
one weren’t busy on other fronts too, such as writing letters
to friends in Panama and Hawaii. Not to mention keeping track of expenses
in a ledger acquired for just this purpose. But though reams of work do get done,
not much listens. I have the feeling my voice is just for me,
that no one else has ever heard it, yet I keep mumbling the litany
of all that has ever happened to me, childish pranks included, and when the voluminous
sun sets, its bag full, one can question these and other endeavors silently:
how far wrong did I go? Indeed, one can almost see the answers spelled out
in quires of the sky: Why? it enthuses, and immediately some of the metal trim
falls off, the finish has gotten gooey, but we persevere, and just as the forms
begin to float away like mesmerized smoke, the resolution, or some resolution, occurs.
We are no longer on that island. Here, the inmates
treat us harshly, but like adults, and though as usual no rest is authorized,
one can without too much difficulty keep pace with the majority of them
and see one’s old clothes reflected in that mirror. And shoots keep popping up;
birds are pecking excitedly in the dirt for something, and your shoes
have grown too small; it will be time to change them soon. Of course, one is too old
to be a waif, yet that issue never surfaces; one is judged fairly
though without this set of complex circumstances being taken into account,
and that’s something, more than you think, for by evening
the pronounced moan will have been deadened, and we are free to take our ease,
reveling in the glow, the surface of things, like water nourished on fading light.
You see, we have escaped. But one always goes back voluntarily
before the next roll-call, and that bittersweet dream of complete and utter
laziness is postponed once again, confirmed and postponed. And I
like a minotaur, and whose mad thirst for the blood of innocent bystanders can never
be slaked, least of all by tepid gestures toward understanding
seen in a mirror and wrongly interpreted, or lives entirely given over to sacrifice
and austerity, for it is there, cautions the tome, that the greatest losses, the worst
atrocities will be instigated and immediately tallied. For such is the life of a young man
these days; there is still time to leave the boat, which at last report
was committed to its moorings, but of course to quit now
would be to miss the whole spectacle, and that, after all, is what
we came for, and shall insist on staying for, once the dirt has settled
and the bats flown back into the trees. And the cicadas stopped stuttering.
As dead wood floats, the expanding afternoon exhales
its mousy fragrance, battening on the memory of countless similar
ones it thinks are in the heads of those going about in this one,
and so the structure stands, without any apparent support. Doors are left open
as in spring, and beyond them float tunnel-vision landscapes
brought from somewhere else, and none recognizes the clever substitution.
Here a man carries bags
out to his truck, and makes the same trip over and over. There, windows shine.
And on a far-off hilltop someplace a living sacrifice gleams, red
in the puddled haze, and all eyes are cast downward, defrocked,
speechless. And though one can hear the traffic’s swish
as it cuts from one side of the island to the other, one is transfixed,
facing an army of necessary revisions. “How would it be if I said it this way,
or would so-and-so’s way be better, easy on the adjectives?” And if I told you
this was your life, not some short story for a contest, how would you react?
Chances are you’d tell me to buzz off and continue writing, except
it’s so difficult; we barely begin and paralysis takes over, forcing us out
for a breath of fresh air. Meanwhile the vengeful deity whose acts
are being recorded has all the time in the world. “OK, that’s it for today,” as if
one weren’t busy on other fronts too, such as writing letters
to friends in Panama and Hawaii. Not to mention keeping track of expenses
in a ledger acquired for just this purpose. But though reams of work do get done,
not much listens. I have the feeling my voice is just for me,
that no one else has ever heard it, yet I keep mumbling the litany
of all that has ever happened to me, childish pranks included, and when the voluminous
sun sets, its bag full, one can question these and other endeavors silently:
how far wrong did I go? Indeed, one can almost see the answers spelled out
in quires of the sky: Why? it enthuses, and immediately some of the metal trim
falls off, the finish has gotten gooey, but we persevere, and just as the forms
begin to float away like mesmerized smoke, the resolution, or some resolution, occurs.
We are no longer on that island. Here, the inmates
treat us harshly, but like adults, and though as usual no rest is authorized,
one can without too much difficulty keep pace with the majority of them
and see one’s old clothes reflected in that mirror. And shoots keep popping up;
birds are pecking excitedly in the dirt for something, and your shoes
have grown too small; it will be time to change them soon. Of course, one is too old
to be a waif, yet that issue never surfaces; one is judged fairly
though without this set of complex circumstances being taken into account,
and that’s something, more than you think, for by evening
the pronounced moan will have been deadened, and we are free to take our ease,
reveling in the glow, the surface of things, like water nourished on fading light.
You see, we have escaped. But one always goes back voluntarily
before the next roll-call, and that bittersweet dream of complete and utter
laziness is postponed once again, confirmed and postponed. And I
Similar Books
