Two militating pairs of feet conspire to contest
the advance of a single line of footprints. Last
time I felt so fissiparous was during a total
solar eclipse. I read such strangeness in your
battered down countenance that's backlit by
flashing visions of flaming wheels that fill up
all the royal-violet sky. For the life of me I
can't imagine why someone with all the world
to gain would cling to the shredded and moldy
yards of a pirate frigate decomposing among
seas of mud-caked rats that flow down weedy
ditches ‑‑ a woman like you should really be
smart enough to reach her slender arm up and
scoop a few handfuls of all these loose diamond
stars. You ought to realize I'd gladly crawl
across the sun anytime just to get close to you,
but I'm uncertain you'd cross the street to
meet me. What can I tell you about corpuscular
cars that paint metallic swaths across oceans
of golden graham cracker desert sand? I
gazed at the reflections along the Tuileries
gardens and saw your face peering back from
every cherub and in all the strawberry statuary
and while mounting the steps at San Giorgio.
Madmen wrapped in neon and beggars with
top hats and canes read in wind-blown
newspapers from the late 30s of the troubles
in Germany and all those other salmagundis
of sorrow and disorder waiting to boil over
and infect us from somewhere beyond a
comforting, reassuring borderline. But you
make it hard, you make everything so very,
very hard, but I'm speeding. . . .speeding. . . .
speeding. . . .Three kings doff their crowns,
embarrassed to discover themselves suddenly
in the presence of a deluded and amnesiac
empress. I could push my limbs through
crocodile skin and descend into the lowlands
you haunt, and tramp saltwater marshes and
the redwood forests and the great Grand
Coulee dam just to get close to you. Things
sure would have been different had we met at
Pearl Harbor; I mean, just think about it, me
as a wounded soldier and you my nurse.
Cicadas sing and locusts whistle to the burbling
of the brook. How can you explain these kinds
of things? You can't. Just speed. Just speed
on, let the waters glide past the rapids, let the
rivers dump us into their blazing Pacific tomb.
20090626
Two Militating Pairs of Feet Conspire (Amnesiac Empress)
Copyright © 2009 Ernest Bloom.
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Great contrast job there. The man is in the desert- infertile, dry, in the city- civilization and the woman- in the sea, in a garden, in the cherubin. She is constantly fleeting- she might be a lover or, more metaphorically, the beauty and youth the speaker is trying to reclaim. I love how the sea here is presented as the bad guy- the lowly place of scum and decay as opposed to the brilliant skies where the 'flaming wheels fill up all the royal-violet sky'- breathtaking.
ReplyDeleteThe World War II allusion creates a powerful suspension of anticipation- the storm is in the air and we know, living in the XXI century, that the outbreak of hell and death incarnate is inevitable. One cringes as this, in a truly Shakespearian manner, is projected into a universal generality.
"oceans
of golden graham cracker desert sand"- I loved this epithet immensely- implanting both opposite themes in a description of a desert is really a lovely conceit in the tradition of the Metaphysical school.
I relish the ending. We can only speed and let the waves of the sea called life/time carry us onwards wherever it pleases- be it doom or salvation. We are ships programmed from hour zero to reach that dreary and yet inevitable Pacific tomb(that in connection to the Pearl Harbor fragment was really masterful). Somehow, I envisioned the mangled bodies of fallen soldiers floating in a Lovecraftian city of ancient Gods on sea bottom and a Kraken lurking in the very depths of a long forsaken pagan temple. Blood-curdling.
whoa: did i write down such a vision?
ReplyDeleteHahah, you bet you did. Good point though. While you draw art from the very depths of your soul and mind, processing it, filtering like good wine to light it all up in a great firework display of words; a receiver with a shortage of imagination, inspiration or, bluntly speaking, intellect has the crushing potential to incinerate your greatest efforts, rendering your creation void in the eyes of the world. In the modern world where intellect and imagination are perfectly unfashionable, old-age paraphernalia from the past- art simply won't do my friend. I suggest you make a good, jolly movie adaptation to go with your poems- that might give your De Profundis a fair boost of life expectancy though I certainly wouldn't expect a blockbuster, unless of course you throw in Nicolas Cage- preferably playing that lady of the sea- what a vivid picture that would be indeed.
ReplyDeletedon't misapprehend me: i'm always thrilled to learn what it was i was talking about, and it never ceases to surprise and astonish. in fact last night i was looking at something i'd written a few weeks ago and i was pretty mystified and amazed. whatever these wordy constellations might portray, had they some connection to me? nicholas cage is overrated, but at least he's brilliantly honest, and i agree, it would be something to see him in drag in this one, though i'd add it should be done in french, probably black and white with really clumsy and inappropriate symbolism.
ReplyDelete"Fissiparous." Your diction is praiseworthy.
ReplyDelete"You ought to realize I'd gladly crawl across the sun anytime just to get close to you." Oh my God, I may very well cry. Surely you must know how honourable, how beautiful that kind of love is.
"Sorrow and disorder." Was that a subtle allusion to Thomas Mann?
"You make everything so very, very hard." I don't really know what to say. I know how the speaker feels. Perhaps true love also requires knowing what sorrow feels like. Devotion is a tricky thing.
i don't think it's a very subtle allusion to mann at all.
ReplyDeleteah, don't cry: it's life and life only.