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The Fourth Monster: Deep Fatalism in Beowulf

    In Beowulf, the oldest surviving epic poem in old English, the eponymous hero represents more than just an individual figure. Because he is at all times and in all ways outstanding, omni-virtuous, and protective of the populace, he is an embodiment of (Christianized) Pagan warrior values, a symbol of the good king. However, securing the future is not one of his powers. The outcome of Beowulf, after hundreds of verses about his virtue and strength, is the foretelling of doom for the people that Beowulf once protected. Beowulf initially comes across as a celebration of heroic leadership but the story's conclusion conveys an opposite embedded idea: that individual heroic leadership is a shaky investment at best, and can never provide real security for a nation or an individual.          In Beowulf, a good king is one who is able to establish a protected space. This power of domain is symbolized by the mead hall, a place of ritual gift-giving, celebration and sorting of rank. The Dane Hrothgar showed in his youth that he could wreck mead halls like his great progenitors, having amassed a "mighty army", and in his later years, he builds a hall of his own — the hall of halls. All of this is to say that when this greatest of hall-builders, Hrothgar, humbly accepts Beowulf's help, it shows that Beowulf is greater than the greatest. There is superlative (Hrothgar) and then there is Beowulf, who is something like the platonic ideal of superlative. "There was no one else like him alive," the text recounts (Tolkien’s translation has the Yodaesque "herein might the strongest of mankind was / he, noble and of stature beyond man's measure") (Heaney 190, Tolkien 160). Beowulf's obvious exceptionality is verified when he shows up in Denmark: Hrothgar's coast guard spots the Geats arriving and he flourishes his spear, but his "formal challenge" mostly amounts to telling Beowulf and company that they look fantastic. Even in a theater of heroic and noble actors, Beowulf stands out because he is more than just another player, he is the very embodiment of excellence. 

     Hrothgar's Mead hall is a "circle of light" within an encroaching darkness (Tolkien, Of Monsters) and Beowulf's role there demonstrates his superpower: the ability to protect. Beowulf's protective capacity is reiterated many times throughout the text. Beowulf is strong: he has killed 9 sea monsters before arriving in Denmark, he is the only one who can heft the ancient sword in Grendel's mother's lair, and he is possessed of the firmest handgrip on the planet ( Heaney 576, 1590-1591, 750-751). In addition to Beowulf's deeds, there are plenty of speeches from the narrator and other characters about Beowulf the defender: "(Beowulf), proud and sure, had purged the hall, / kept it from harm" (Heaney, 824-826). "Now Holy God has, in His goodness, guided (Beowulf) here...to defend us from Grendel" (381-383).  Finally, Beowulf himself testifies to his own qualifications: "...I battled and bound five beasts, raided a troll-nest and in the night-sea slaughtered sea-brutes. I have suffered extremes and avenged the Geats (their enemies brought it upon themselves, I devastated them)" (420-424). All of the above shows how Beowulf is above all, a defender against monstrous, unprovoked violence. This constant emphasis on protection coalesces into a worldview: the universe of Beowulf is a dangerous, hostile and terrifying place, teeming with threats both natural and supernatural, and the best thing one can hope for is to take refuge behind a formidable leader.  A good king, therefore, is a king who can slay enemies and create a "circle of light," so to speak.

    Though martial power is the greatest virtue in the scope of Beowulf, the hero also has another quality that further distinguishes him from other men, even from other great leaders. Beowulf is particularly and unusually good — he marries force to fairness and generosity. As with his other superlative qualities, his goodness is confirmed by the narrator, by witnesses, and by Beowulf's own words and actions. Hrothgar acknowledges that Beowulf is a peacemaker: "What you have done is to draw two peoples, / the Geat nation and us neighboring Danes, into shared peace and a pact of friendship / in spite of hatreds we have harbored in the past. " (1858 - 62) Beowulf's goodness is also directly recounted in narration: Beowulf "...behaved with honor / and took no advantage; never cut down a comrade who was drunk, kept his temper / and, warrior that he was, watched and controlled his God-sent strength and his outstanding / natural powers." (2177 - 2183) Most importantly, in the context of the sudsy Mead hall culture, Beowulf's combination of righteousness and strength puts a stop to any beard-twisting skepticism around the benches. After he clears Hrothgar's dual monster problem, all doubtful grumbling is silenced; "every affront to his deserving (is) reversed" (1289). In the event-landscape of Beowulf, the narration, the adventures and the dialogue all let us know over and over again that Beowulf, the character, is the epitome of all virtues. Understanding this categorical identification of Beowulf with good itself is especially important in light of Beowulf's eventual failure to protect. It is this contrast between the greatest of all kings and the most dismal of all fates (exposure to monsters and invaders) that reveals the poem's true theme. In the end, Beowulf is not about heroism at all, it is about futility and loss. 

     Just beyond Beowulf's protective perimeter is an unstable world full of natural and supernatural threats. Euphoric praise of Beowulf is matched with dark, tragic and violent elements and themes. For example, there is Grendel and his mother, who represent both menace and tragedy, born of Cain's original murder and banishment. There is Hrothgar's agonized grief over the loss of his retainers (1320-1325). There is the slaying and plundering of Hygelac (1220). There is the poem within the poem, The Saga of Finn, which recounts how tragedy upon tragedy is heaped on the innocent Hildeburh (1070 - 1150). There is the treasure hoarder's speech, a morbid lament of extinction and despair (2240 - 2270). Taken as a whole, Beowulf  doles out brooding desolation and ultra-masculine bluster and in roughly equal measures. Particularly poignant is Hrothgar's admonition about kingship and warrior-hood delivered to Beowulf over the hilt of an ancient sword:

For a brief while your strength is in bloom but it fades quickly; and soon there will follow illness or the sword to lay you low, or a sudden fire or surge of water or jabbing blade or javelin from the air or repellent age. Your piercing eye will dim and darken / and death will arrive, dear warrior, to sweep you away. (1761-1769)

Hrothgar, who has "wintered into wisdom," is admonishing Beowulf about Beowulf's ultimate enemy, time. The fact that Hrothgar's speech comes on the heels of Beowulf's greatest victory and entry into maturity is not coincidental, it is a response and a warning. "Yes, warrior vigor is great but you are susceptible to being killed as soon as you weaken a bit, and even if you survive, you are going to get old and die anyway," Hrothgar says, in effect, and this message foretells the poem's ultimately fatalistic —and realistic—view of heroic leadership. Although he is warning Beowulf against greed and pride, all the physical threats he catalogs (the sword, fire, surge of water, blade or javelin) will happen regardless of Beowulf's choices — they are statements about the warrior-leader's ultimate lack of control.  What Hrothgar says to Beowulf is what the poem says about Beowulf.

    This fatalism resolves into doom prophecy by the story's end. The narrator goes out of his way to omnisciently state that the extended lament of an unnamed courier is accurate and prescient ("he got little wrong in what he told and predicted" -3028-3030).

They will cross our borders and attack in force when they find out that Beowulf is dead... the swept harp won't waken warriors, but the raven winging darkly over the doomed will have news, tidings for the eagle of how he hoked and ate, how the wolf and he made short work of the dead  (3,000 - 3,026)

The rider's warning shows how Beowulf's protective powers are as fragile as they are formidable. Though heroic glory may be exhilarating, it amounts to little more than a dream-state. Bloodshed and ruin is the currency of waking reality. The first non-domestic female speaker highlights the gravity of  matters by voicing "a wild litany of nightmare and lament: her nation invaded, enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles, slavery and abasement. Heaven swallowed the smoke." (3150-3155) This pulling-of-the-rug from beneath Beowulf's previous achievements might be viewed as a poetic device to further convey the hero's power by bemoaning his absence, except for a unique moment that takes place while the pyre is being built. "Often, when one man follows his own will many are hurt. This happened to us," Wiglaf states (3076 - 3078). Tolkien's translation amplifies the point about Beowulf's hubris, with Wiglaf saying that Beowulf could not be steered towards any "well counseled course" (Tolkien 2578).  Here, for the first and only time in the poem, Beowulf's bravado is called into question, however passively. Even though it is a small aside, it is huge because of the stakes involved. Wiglaf is admitting that Beowulf's stubborn combativeness ultimately results in the destruction of  his own kingdom. Beowulf has been elevated and praised to God-like status. If this greatest of kings offers no permanent protection against the encroaching darkness, what security is there in the world? An image rather than a literal statement from the poem best answers this question: that of royal gold melting in Beowulf's funeral pyre and seeping into the earth. They let the ground keep that ancestral treasure, gold under gravel, gone to earth, as useless to men now as it ever was. (3165 - 3168)

Works Cited Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999. Print. Tolkien, J. R. R., Christopher Tolkien, and J. R. R. Tolkien. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary: Together with Sellic Spell. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. Tolkien, J.R.R. Beowulf: the Monsters and Critics. DISCovering Authors. Online ed.                    Detroit: Gale, 2003.

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“Here I Am” - Genesis 45 and the Revelation of the Personal

Link to relevant passage:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+45&version=KJV

    Chapter 45 of Genesis describes a turning point in the Joseph narrative in which the exiled hero breaks down and discloses his true identity to his astonished brothers. Joseph is coming of age as a leader of Israel through a personal confession to family members. By shutting the Egyptians out of the room and telling his siblings "come closer to me", the great dream interpreter adds brotherly intimacy to his earlier display of emotion, sealing the deal and throwing in his lot in with his true people. (Gen. 45:4) Whether these events are taken as mythology, revelation, or historical fact, they raise a critical question: why does the author choose a moment of relative vulnerability (weeping and forgiveness) to convey Joseph's coming of age as a national patriarch? Other Old Testament figures come into their own through military, shamanistic and political means: David slays a giant, Jacob wrestles an angel, and Solomon becomes king after a court intrigue. In contrast to these displays of will,  Joseph's ascendancy takes place when he lets his guard down. This emotional candor is not an accident. Vulnerability, forgiveness and a tendency for family closeness are esteemed values which show a person or a people's humanity. The author of Genesis 45 uses the events of this chapter to show Israel's humanity as a nation. 

   The first major indicator that Joseph can be taken as representative of Israel is that Joseph is a favored younger son. Like Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon, he bucks seniority and ascends to patriarchal primacy. The favored-younger-son archetype may be connected with Israel's biblical status as a new nation and an underdog. When Joseph commands his now-obedient brothers to bury him in the homeland, saying "When God comes to you, you shall carry up my bones from here," the author ties Joseph to the divinely-appointed national picture. (Gen. 50:25) The second signifier is the amount of space that the Joseph narrative takes up. E.A. Speiser has noted that "It is at once the most intricately constructed and the best integrated of all the patriarchal histories" (Speiser, 269). This intricate construction is facilitated by the story's length - Joseph's tale is the longest patriarch narrative in the Old Testament. Finally, along with his father, Joseph is the officiator of the national legacy. Although he resides in Egypt, Joseph is elected to be the foremost witness for the blessing of the 12 tribes. This may be an E-document addition designed to promote the Northern-kingdom line, but Joseph's importance still withstands (in other words, it may be a later embellishment of the original Joseph story, inserted for political purposes).

   Once it is understood that Joseph is emblematic it can be shown how his story in general, and Genesis 45 in particular, depicts a uniquely human nation. As stated before, "human" in this context means bearing the qualities of vulnerability, forgiveness and a tendency for family closeness. This sense of humanness is really brought home when Joseph breaks down and cries in Gen. 45:2. "And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it," the narrator states. Far from being a sign of weakness or isolation, the author ties Joseph's weeping to vast political and spiritual power and to the fate of Israel as a whole. After pulling himself together, Joseph says to his brothers "God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and the lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt" (Gen. 45:2). Later in the book, Joseph weeps on the necks of his father, his favored younger brother and his still-suspicious older brothers at least two times each. When he is not weeping he is consolidating power and determining the fate of his generation. Through this pairing of tears and worldly action, the author conveys the sense of a people who excel because of familial intimacy and emotional candor rather than in spite of it.

   None of this is to say that Joseph is a sentimental or soft-hearted being. Before disclosing his identity Joseph punishes his brothers relentlessly through his imperial personae. Later in the book he subjugates the people of Egypt to their Pharaoh through a series of economic maneuvers which, though ultimately helpful, are harshly opportunistic. Thus Joseph is complex and should not merely be viewed as a kind-hearted dreamer. These things noted, two subtle moments in Genesis 45 show cracks in Joseph's armor of political potency. The first takes place in Gen. 45:15: "And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him" [italics mine]. Up until this point the only time Joseph's brothers have knowingly spoken to Joseph has been with hostility, when they reproached him in response to one of his early dreams. In the extreme economy of Biblical narrative, this moment of loose talk shows that restored intimacy is important enough to the author to include among nationally relevant details. This informality is echoed when Joseph admonishes his brothers in Gen. 45:24 to "not quarrel along the way" back to Canaan. Joseph's statement conveys his new authority but also shows familiar sibling rapport. In both the above examples, the author of Genesis 45 paints a picture of a family man who, in spite of all that has happened, has refused to disown his kin. By extension, Israel is shown to be nation that can take time to bond and forgive, even in royal settings with much at stake. 

   In Genesis 45 Joseph pays back his brothers' viciousness with great generosity (albeit after scaring them a bit) and this quality of mercy is thematic for the rest of the Joseph narrative. After informing his brothers that he will settle them in Goshen, Joseph goes far beyond familial obligation when he also tells them to "Give no thought to your possessions, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours" (Gen. 45:20). The author goes out of his way to show Joseph heaping graciousness on his shiftless brothers. This tendency reaches its zenith in the last passages of genesis when Joseph responds to his brothers' fear of retribution by saying "Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today." (Gen. 50:19,20,21) Here, Joseph addresses his brothers' terror, conveying empathy. Next, he says he is not God, conveying humility. Finally he deflects their guilt by attributing it to God's plan, conveying mercy. This suite of compassionate values is extrapolated to Israel as a whole when Joseph states that all that has happened was intended for good "in order to preserve a numerous people." Joseph is describing a divine plan but because he is the plan's hero, he is also demonstrating it. The very mercy he is displaying becomes a general quality of the people he is talking about. 

    When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers in Genesis 45, the revelation has multiple levels of meaning. Political alignment, the fulfillment of prophecy, and the rules of patriarchal succession are all issues at play. These things being noted, the unique life of Genesis 45 lies in its insistence on the personal. Joseph and his brothers are depicted by the biblical author(s) as human beings rather than liturgical placeholders. Even the brothers' bickering and jealousy mark them as fallible, natural actors, especially when contrasted with the behavior of the "good" brothers Joseph and Benjamin (Rueben may or may not also be included in this "good" list). As Speiser notes, "Other aspects, to be sure, are in evidence here and there, yet they are never allowed to distract attention from the central human drama...what has come down is a richly personal document" (Speiser, 292). When Joseph begins the work of reuniting his family he tips off a process which is as much emotional and psychological as it is national. By extension, Israel is shown to be a people who value feeling as much as strategy, community as much as religious law. This point is driven home when God speaks to Jacob during the father's journey to reunite with his lost son. "I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again; and Joseph's own hand shall close your eyes" (Gen. 46:4) In this "vision of the night," Israel's deity announces to Jacob the end of a tragic cycle of  separation with the tender image of a son at his father's deathbed. In this way, the author shows that the discovery of the real Joseph is a sacred matter. Human closeness, rather than a distraction, is a pillar of the divine mandate. Ultimately, the human aspect of Genesis 45 is what makes it a foundational chapter in the story of an entire people.

Works Cited Coogan, Michael David., Marc Zvi. Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, and Pheme Perkins. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Print. Speiser, E.A. The Anchor Bible: Genesis. New York: Doubleday, 1964. Print.

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Essay: Genesis 45

"Here I am" - Genesis 45 and the Revelation of the Personal

Genesis 45 LINK:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+45&version=KJV

    Chapter 45 of Genesis describes a turning point in the Joseph narrative in which the exiled hero breaks down and discloses his true identity to his astonished brothers. Joseph is coming of age as a leader of Israel through a personal confession to family members. By shutting the Egyptians out of the room and telling his siblings "come closer to me", the great dream interpreter adds brotherly intimacy to his earlier display of emotion, sealing the deal and throwing in his lot in with his true people. (Gen. 45:4) Whether these events are taken as mythology or historical fact, they raise a critical question: why does the author choose a moment of relative vulnerability (weeping and forgiveness) to convey Joseph's coming of age as a national patriarch? Other Old Testament figures come into their own through military, shamanistic and political means: David slays a giant, Jacob wrestles an angel, and Solomon becomes king after a court intrigue. In contrast to these displays of will,  Joseph's ascendancy takes place when he lets his guard down. This emotional candor is not an accident. Vulnerability, forgiveness and a tendency for family closeness are esteemed values which show a person or a people's humanity. The author of Genesis 45 uses the events of this chapter to show Israel's humanity as a nation.     The first major indicator that Joseph can be taken as representative of Israel is that Joseph is a favored younger son. Like Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon, he bucks seniority and ascends to patriarchal primacy. The favored-younger-son archetype may be connected with Israel's biblical status as a new nation and an underdog. When Joseph commands his now-obedient brothers to bury him in the homeland, saying "When God comes to you, you shall carry up my bones from here," the author ties Joseph to the divinely-appointed national picture. (Gen. 50:25) The second signifier is the amount of space that the Joseph narrative takes up. E.A. Speiser has noted that "It is at once the most intricately constructed and the best integrated of all the patriarchal histories" (Speiser, 269). This intricate construction is facilitated by the story's length - Joseph's tale is the longest patriarch narrative in the Old Testament. Finally, along with his father, Joseph is the officiator of the national legacy. Although he resides in Egypt, Joseph is elected to be the foremost witness for the blessing of the 12 tribes. This may be an E-document addition designed to promote the Northern-kingdom line, but Joseph's importance still withstands (in other words, it may be a later embellishment of the original Joseph story, inserted for political purposes).      Once it is understood that Joseph is emblematic it can be shown how his story in general, and Genesis 45 in particular, depicts a uniquely human nation. As stated before, "human" in this context means bearing the qualities of vulnerability, forgiveness and a tendency for family closeness. This sense of humanness is really brought home when Joseph breaks down and cries in Gen. 45:2. "And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it," the narrator states. Far from being a sign of weakness or isolation, the author ties Joseph's weeping to vast political and spiritual power and to the fate of Israel as a whole. After pulling himself together, Joseph says to his brothers "God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and the lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt" (Gen. 45:2). Later in the book, Joseph weeps on the necks of his father, his favored younger brother and his still-suspicious older brothers at least two times each. When he is not weeping he is consolidating power and determining the fate of his generation. Through this pairing of tears and worldly action, the author conveys the sense of a people who excel because of familial intimacy and emotional candor rather than in spite of it.    None of this is to say that Joseph is a sentimental or soft-hearted being. Before disclosing his identity Joseph punishes his brothers relentlessly through his imperial personae. Later in the book he subjugates the people of Egypt to their Pharaoh through a series of economic maneuvers which, though ultimately helpful, are harshly opportunistic. Thus Joseph is complex and should not merely be viewed as a kind-hearted dreamer. These things noted, two subtle moments in Genesis 45 show cracks in Joseph's armor of political potency. The first takes place in Gen. 45:15: "And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him" [italics mine]. Up until this point the only time Joseph's brothers have knowingly spoken to Joseph has been with hostility, when they reproached him in response to one of his early dreams. In the extreme economy of Biblical narrative, this moment of loose talk shows that restored intimacy is important enough to the author to include among nationally relevant details. This informality is echoed when Joseph admonishes his brothers in Gen. 45:24 to "not quarrel along the way" back to Canaan. Joseph's statement conveys his new authority but also shows familiar sibling rapport. In both the above examples, the author of Genesis 45 paints a picture of a family man who, in spite of all that has happened, has refused to disown his kin. By extension, Israel is shown to be nation that can take time to bond and forgive, even in royal settings with much at stake.     In Genesis 45 Joseph pays back his brothers' viciousness with great generosity (albeit after scaring them a bit) and this quality of mercy is thematic for the rest of the Joseph narrative. After informing his brothers that he will settle them in Goshen, Joseph goes far beyond familial obligation when he also tells them to "Give no thought to your possessions, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours" (Gen. 45:20). The author goes out of his way to show Joseph heaping graciousness on his shiftless brothers. This tendency reaches its zenith in the last passages of genesis when Joseph responds to his brothers' fear of retribution by saying "Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today." (Gen. 50:19,20,21) Here, Joseph addresses his brothers' terror, conveying empathy. Next, he says he is not God, conveying humility. Finally he deflects their guilt by attributing it to God's plan, conveying mercy. This suite of compassionate values is extrapolated to Israel as a whole when Joseph states that all that has happened was intended for good "in order to preserve a numerous people." Joseph is describing a divine plan but because he is the plan's hero, he is also demonstrating it. The very mercy he is displaying becomes a general quality of the people he is talking about.      When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers in Genesis 45, the revelation has multiple levels of meaning. Political alignment, the fulfillment of prophecy, and the rules of patriarchal succession are all issues at play. These things being noted, the unique life of Genesis 45 lies in its insistence on the personal. Joseph and his brothers are depicted by the biblical author(s) as human beings rather than liturgical placeholders. Even the brothers' bickering and jealousy mark them as fallible, natural actors, especially when contrasted with the behavior of the "good" brothers Joseph and Benjamin (Rueben may or may not also be included in this "good" list). As Speiser notes, "Other aspects, to be sure, are in evidence here and there, yet they are never allowed to distract attention from the central human drama...what has come down is a richly personal document" (Speiser, 292). When Joseph begins the work of reuniting his family he tips off a process which is as much emotional and psychological as it is national. By extension, Israel is shown to be a people who value feeling as much as strategy, community as much as religious law. This point is driven home when God speaks to Jacob during the father's journey to reunite with his lost son. "I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again; and Joseph's own hand shall close your eyes" (Gen. 46:4) In this "vision of the night," Israel's deity announces to Jacob the end of a tragic cycle of  separation with the tender image of a son at his father's deathbed. In this way, the author shows that the discovery of the real Joseph is a sacred matter. Human closeness, rather than a distraction, is a pillar of the divine mandate. Ultimately, the human aspect of Genesis 45 is what makes it a foundational chapter in the story of an entire people.

Works Cited Coogan, Michael David., Marc Zvi. Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, and Pheme Perkins. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Print. Speiser, E.A. The Anchor Bible: Genesis. New York: Doubleday, 1964. Print.

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25 Brief Statements on Being and Aesthetics

Part 1: Being 1) Human beings are space and time limited - they have a life in time and a body in space. 2) The space / time field is either infinite or so vast as to be all but infinite. It is essentially impossible to imagine an "end" to time or an "end" to space because these verities are dimensions of being itself (from the perspective of daily life). 3) What a person actually senses or experiences is only a microcosmic amount of what exists. 4) For example, a chair has a shape and a lifespan. If one considers the chair's shape in relation to all the space there is/was/will be, or compares the chair's lifespan to all the time there is/was/will be, the ratio of the chair to everything else is one:infinity. 5) As one pulls focus, so to speak, paying more attention to the infinite field (all time and space) and less attention to the phenomenon of the chair (a single object in time and space), the chair shrinks in proportion. It shrinks forever. To grasp this, it is necessary to imagine the vastness of all universal existence, past, present and future, including the possibility of multiverses and unknown dimensions — and then think of the chair within that category. Where is it? 6) Given the broadest possible view (meaning any object or idea compared to infinite time and/or infinite space) it is easy to see that the chair does not actually have substantial existence - it is a flicker within a flicker within a flicker, reducing in "realness" forever. 7) Yet the chair has undeniable substantial existence in one phase: the chair exists as an idea and as a palpable experience, now. 8) Any given thing —a chair, a memory, a category, any material object, any mind object, an emotion, a galaxy, a field of study, a category  — any phenomenal agent that can be grasped by the mind, including abstract concepts or categories and all physical phenomena — is more real as an idea than it is as an object because the supposed thing must be compared to, or act in relation to, an infinite field of time and space which reduces it to absolutely nothing. 9) It is proposed that this may have been what Plato's allegory of the cave referred to. Any given thing only has "real" existence as an idea. The experience of things and ideas as having substantial (rather than purely ideational) existence is in front of our faces, so to speak, but paper thin and illusory in the larger view — like a projection. 10) As far as the experience of any given object as proof of it's substantiality, one must only think of dreams. Experience is not  proof of substantiality. This "dream" model is also the principle reason for choosing ethics rather than nihilism in spite of the questionable nature of reality— there are other dreamers and they feel things also.  The reality we experience must be honored and treated with sanctity because it is what we actually have, whether it is illusory or not. Conclusion to part one: human beings interact with ideas rather than actual things. Their own existence as something other than pure consciousness is illusory. This is not proposed as abstruse theory but as hard fact. If one considers an object in an infinite field (or even a mathematically sublime field as per Kant), the reality of the object is under extreme pressure except as an idea. Ideas, on the other hand, are real because they have their being in an infinite field called "Mind": ideas are not bound by time or space. Since persons only ever interact with ideas, it may be said that persons live, move and have their being in Mind. Part 2: Aesthetics 13) Art objects arise and have existence in the field of mind. Persons grasp (view/listen to/read) and enjoy them. 14) Every person who enjoys an art object has a scale of quality: "Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty." (Hume, 395) 15) For each individual, low quality art creates aversion, while high quality art creates a rhapsodic response. For the purpose of this discussion, it is proposed that the different types of rhapsodic responses share the quality of liberating pleasure. In other words comedy, tragedy, theater, film, literature etc. are weighted equally. 16) Different art forms will generate the rhapsodic response in different persons. For example, a classical symphony may create the rhapsodic response in a person of high culture, while a terrible pop song may create a rhapsodic response in a person of low culture. However, the opposite may be true (the cultured individual likes the terrible pop song and the uncultured individual likes the symphony) because art tends to break free of its designated strata. 18) The rhapsodic response is a moment in which the art observer comes untethered from the bondage of world-illusions (see part 1). The person, whether laughing or crying, feels free, luminous, hilarious, broken-but-farseeing (tragedy), or otherwise liberated, depending on the type of art. High art = high experience, low art also = high experience (given that a person is enjoying and appreciating it deeply).   19) The reason that art produces the experience of liberation from the density of the world-illusion (suffering) is because art fabrication reproduces the activity of the infinite. Creative activity involves a receptive psychic state in the artist that replicates the open field called "Mind" discussed earlier. 20) In art production, the artist is able to psychically release their attachment to temporality and "create" through a personal reproduction of the activity of the timeless / omnispatial field called "inspiration." For example, just as an author writes a book, the infinite field hosts an object. Just as the infinite field is not exactly an actor but rather a host of the object (chair, war, feeling, idea - all phenomenal agents take place in Mind) so an artist hosts the play / dance / joke / painting, through an activity of yielding to the plastic intelligence that characterizes the totality of things. The details of fabrication (craft) are the part of art-making tethered to the artist's temporal human life. The process of "getting" the art (inspiration) can not be put into words and is cheapened by too much talk, as many artists have pointed out over the years when questioned (Bob Dylan's complaint). 21) This is why art seems to touch on "universal" truths: because it does, in fact, link people to a universal process. Put in terms of an analogy, the infinite : to any relative object is as the artist : to their work. The appreciator of art is equally important to this process because they bear witness to the presence of the infinite and are often the ones who make the particular art's luminosity "real" — The brilliant composer hates his own music but astute listeners discover genius in it.  In terms of the art appreciator, this sense of discovering the universal in rhapsodic engagement was hinted at by Kant: "The judgment of taste ascribes assent to everyone, and whoever declares something to be beautiful wishes that everyone should approve of the object in question and similarly declare it to be beautiful." (428) 22) In religious terms, one might say, the artist imitates God but is definitely no God (in fact, artists are usually woefully "human" and their faculty for inspiration often seems to be connected to psychic anguish in other areas), the art object imitates and perhaps broaches the sacred but is not entirely sacred. Art is limited because although transcendent, it is still tethered to the personality of a "cave-bound" individual both in creation and consumption. 23) To put the same point in nonreligious terms, the aesthetic faculty is a faculty of mind/emotion which allows human beings, normally tethered to illusory forms, to partially break free from those illusions and experience a refraction of a boundless consciousness. This experience is always luminous, always charming, and always bears the unmistakable sense of the real — because truth is good and in spite of the many slings and arrows against good in the phenomenal world, good actually exists. 24) Because truth, in the case of the art, is "filtered through" an individual, great art can't be too prettied up or sanitized, it has to contain something of the rawness and difficulty of life, otherwise the artist self consciously limits their gift of vision, like Little Richard switching to gospel music (if a colloquial example can be permitted). Art must be unbounded, though rendered through craft, which is a conduit rather than an obstruction. Adherence to form ("craft") is different from censorship. The real subconscious of the individual must be at play because the real subconscious is where the artist is able to connect with the infinite, with Mind. This is true both of "high" and "low" art. This is the reason Hell is interesting in Paradise Lost while the Garden of Eden is tedious and contrived, and it is the reason Star Wars disappoints when it becomes self-consciously wholesome for children (Ewoks, etc.). 25) Regarding the claim that art creates a liberating "bridge" to freedom from temporal/spacial bondage, any reader might indulge a interrogative conceit: during the reader's last experience of great art (whatever "great" means to the reader) was there a sense of being untethered from normal fixations and conditioning? Did the experience feel more "truthful" somehow than the waking world? Was time (seemingly) suspended? Was there a sense of something beyond language? Was there a sense of vast potential? Conclusion to Part 2: During immersive aesthetic experience,  the art observer is "crossing over" to a limited but still transcendent experience of the real, (that is to say, of Mind) — both of the real world and the real self. Speaking about the dialectic between self evaluation and reception of outside influences, Hegel cited art as the great synthesizer: "The universal need for art is man's rational need to lift the inner and outer world into his spiritual consciousness as an object in which he recognizes again his own self"(Hegel, 551). While this is a different point than is being made here, it shows art's role in revealing the real. If art is a great revealer of the real, in either the Hegelian sense or in the sense proposed here, then this is good news for human beings because since the aesthetic experience is ecstatic, it means that in spite of the horrors of the temporal world and of the personal psyche, the real is not only good, but it is freedom itself.

[jessemichaelspoetry-blog]

Poem 9 # The Wheel

The Wheel

I swung loose at the riverboat casino One hand reaching for the lights The other hand pulled down into earth by the weight of the dice I threw a nine, a six and an eleven Weighted, reaching The faces of the players were pale and oiled The hum of the machines chanted “again” It must have been the humming of the wheel The bone rattle of dice and chips That allowed the controller to slip through the crowd and  get to me See it was two or three more big hits Before I realized that I had been knifed Saw a short figure in waiter’s clothes slip away- The neutralizer. It wasn’t that my shirt was red and warm but that it was wet And as I threw the dice again I thought to myself They say that the shock mutes the pain But that's not true at all. 50 more rounds in the riverboat Win after win If I bleed out here I’ll be doing it behind money And I wasn’t surprised at all to see The other players bleeding also The controllers slinking between them with sharpened corkscrews The hard nature of the dealers faces I wasn’t surprised at all To see that we all kept playing until The light broke at dawn and the wheel stopped on double zero and jammed.

[jessemichaelspoetry-blog]

Poem #8 - The Big Drag

The Big Drag

An 11 year haul takes 124 crewmembers Of these an average of 13 will survive The contract is simple: your family will be well taken care of Unless you commit suicide in which case they will receive half benefits (38 will commit suicide) Unless you commit suicide in the first year Then its nothing

The Big Drag is broken up into three parts The Short Haul, The Long Haul and The Coroner The Short Haul takes two years and then a one day touch down for refueling The Long Haul takes 6 years and then a one day touch down for refueling And then The Coroner which takes two years and then you arrive at Murdoch No crewmembers are allowed to leave the ship on any of the stops They used to be allowed off-board but too many fled or refused to re-board.

We completed the short haul and touched down on Persophone 2a7a That’s a lunar checkpoint only, no landing surface just a docking tower Rising up from a landscape otherwise covered with razor canyons and spinning acids The ship hovered while some surveyed the planet below out of portholes Most didn’t bother The deadening of the long drive was creeping in around their corners Some had already started whispering at all times Or glancing over their shoulders constantly And then it was back into the reaches for the long haul 6 years until next refuel.

This was the beginning of the real horror Men went ghoul on the decks A condition called Freight Rot You could see the greenish tinge around their eyes They would begin mispronouncing words Their hands would be shaky The would only eat soup They would bore those around them All that fake gravity and compressed water must have gotten to them we supposed When they died the rest of us were relieved Because the weak are unpleasant And because of the freight hauler’s “Golden Rule:” Also known as "B.Y.T. double M"- “Better You Than Me Motherfucker.”

The captain as usual was a bastard Anything over a five year trip and I’ll guarantee you the captain will be a walking anthem It takes a certain kind of man to endure that level of emptiness He never skipped the tanning beds Saw it as a moral duty Neither drank nor gambled Saw the rest of us as the enemy Read the bible in the chapel, tan and alone We walked by and whispered about fragging him So much shit-talk really After all by then we were getting lethargic and couldn’t muster up much real hate By the time The Long Haul was complete 29 were dead and eight were missing Unusually high survival numbers Of the dead 15 suicides eight murders and six unknown causes.

The third leg on The Big Drag is the one they call The Coroner Shorter than the Long Haul but always more casualties and lost minds Men start hallucinating Men and women don’t bother to fuck each other any more I’m telling you the vacuum gets to you man Interstellar shipping is not a joke Past the reach of orbits you can really feel the deadness of things Dragging you first towards killing and then beyond it towards not caring Anger disappears in the Nebula and you are left with not having anything left White holograph rooms and liquor dispensers and entertainment complexes All of it lying unused While the crewmembers sit in their stations and stare Completing their duties and punching in their log codes with minimum movement Some vague memory of the orgies of the first year It all just stops reaching you You’re the floating embalmed You’re the Gathered Alone Nobody can touch any other.

In the last six months 50 men died 20 suicides, 20 from the condition called deep bends, organs giving out from synthetic gravity and melting out onto the deck The other 10 just disappeared The Company counts disappearances as suicides and the rumor is that onboard killbots snatch them into vents and incinerate them It is hard to argue with the financial efficacy of it for cost reduction All those payouts cut in half by the suicide penalty Therefore the rumor is probably true There were eleven survivors when we arrived on Murdoch.

Why or how I survived I don’t know Must have sat a hundred nights alone in my portal staring at the pallet laser One quick pass across the throat and the others can clean up the mess (It’s trucker’s etiquette to commit suicide with a pallet laser So the others can see the blood and have a feeling- By the fourth or fifth year feelings are hard to come by)

I have decided that if I survive the trip back I will not contact my family I have nothing to say to them. It will be my third completed haul after all My bed will be made and I will be set for life because after you have survived three they make you a captain.

[jessemichaelspoetry-blog]

Poem #7 The Minotaur

The Minotaur

I stepped into these corridors with nothing much I thought I was taking a short walk Walls I thought to be hedges steeled up with great heat and speed Then stood and shook still warm with my fists banging on them I started to make maps on found scraps of paper, turned them over to see I was writing on the backs of other peoples' discarded, worthless maps On the third night I found a steel wall still warm and cornered up to it Thought of movies, sought sleep And I heard a sound like growling

Within 3 days I knew there was a beast in these corridors The sky above beamed it’s yellow oblivion I shook my fist from the passages could the cloud eye see my position? One passage leads to another Streams split and then split Branches grow and the grown branches grow other branches Once cell divides into another and so on When it follows the laws of spirit it is called tissue But when it follows its own laws it is called cancer This is a cancer of alleys

A week went by Now I could hear the beast almost daily I figured out a way to move towards the center of this thing: when your feet get heavier you are walking towards the eye And when they don’t you aren’t Having lost hope of leaving I headed for the center, for the labyrinth’s one eye Stalked by the monster Feet taking on weight A collection of soggy maps No weapons to be found I knew if I waited in the center he would find me

Sometimes I felt as though I was the one stalking the creature But when I heard him rasping my flight was automatic Leaden feet bounding Then slowing Turning once more towards the core Now I sit just outside the round, innermost chamber of this catacomb there is a closed, unlocked door I steel myself to enter It has been twenty four days I have a meeting with the animal, he waits in the centrifuge his one hungry eye bloodshot for my questions I am writing on the back of a used map I intend to settle things, his life or mine If I live, on my way out I will burn this note

[jessemichaelspoetry-blog]

Poem #6 - The War

The War

I was done with courses and hung in the chasm, approaching being grown. Somewhere different, land was turning into terrain and drawing operations into its hearts. News from there began to have the sound of stones rebounding off of a wall. They were reaching out to the young. There were three qualifications: Poor, Stupid, Unlucky. Any two would draw you into the theater. Training was brief and consisted of pretending to be shot into madness just before you were actually shot into madness.

We landed near the woods where it was going on and on. When we got there, I saw a man in the airfield with leaves swirling around him in a continuous eddy.  The man was crying. Then I saw that they weren’t leaves but letters, presumably ones written to or from the dead. The sky was full of machines and possible omens: a cloud dissolving, a bird rising and falling. Later, a star that looked like it was moving towards us. Nobody slept that night. We were roused from terrors by a bell ringing underneath us. We went into the price.

The first phase consisted small shocks, but it was the worst thing in life.   Derailed moments.   Flesh is plastic when it is struck by metals. Blood was evidence: “There is this.” Souls rose upward into nothing.   Avoid slipping into that exodus. Hold on to your systems. Obituaries were just notes of selection: That one, that one, that one, in droves of one hundred. Steam came out of the soil and traveled into bodies that had been opened by the big surprise.

A month went by. White flames licked through the clearings. Superstitions replaced both faith and thought: 1. You know you have scored a kill if the shot sounds like a voice. 2. Skulls always shatter into even quarters. 3. Killed men always land on their left shoulder. 4. Men with fiancées die of dysentery, men who want more water than others will end up eye to eye with the enemy. And so on.

I fired and chopped and crawled into the places that I had softened. My will and conscience were split from each other by a huge heaving saw so that I could do anything. It was all just a car driving into a lake and sinking. I targeted eyes, planted bombs in groves. I started to wake up from sleep with my hands clenched and my tongue jutting out between the tips of my front teeth.

There was a man named Porter who had been there since the beginning. I asked him about what he had seen:   “I’ve seen a deer that had been blinded by phosphorous. A dog dragging a chain into the water. Children betraying each other with notes written on leaves. Really, the deer was enough.”  Who benefits-  “The rich.”  How we can do this at all- “Because we can be trained to squeeze the trigger instead of jerking it. We can trained to be dead by the dead.”

A year went by. At one point we were stepping between bodies and we stopped stepping between them and gave in to letting our feet fall on the heavy, soft husks. We gave in to pushing last air out of spent lungs. I learned to assemble my weapon in pitch black darkness. It began to jump forward instead of recoil, Like it wanted to help. Corpses will occasionally sit upright and draw a single quick breath, then fall back into clay.

Living was possible if you shut enough life out. This need to deaden the self in order to survive. Burning oil spreading on the floor of a nursery. Horror is foundational. Not a burden but the executor of human life’s real legacy - a deliverer. In one night watch, the sky went pitch, then ink, then not – black -  but - nothing.

The second year came. Killing to simplify.  After bullets, stalk knife entry. Wrestle into a long curse; push further into the woods.  War is only ever waged against ambiguity. The sunsets had a pearlite warmth that drugged your hands. You relaxed and the canteens clanged like irons. It’s the soft chains that bind the strongest. It was easy to be shot at that hour.

Once we were on patrol in the rain. A radioman near me had the dread look. He wasn’t sure of the source of the transmissions any more, thought some of them were coming from inside his own body. Sure enough, bits of words you could make out, crackling out of the receiver static, sounded like his own voice. Later, he was hit in the neck and began to fall. The radio dropped and he followed it to the earth. I watched but didn’t know which one of us was which. I saw a man drop a radio and follow it and I saw a man in the rain watching me drop a radio and fall, my neck run through, stripped of air and talk. Two dead men were in the rain, one standing, one falling.

In the last three weeks I saw a hut burning in the mists. Inside, between columns of flame, a woman tended a smaller fire in which she burned photographs with kerosene. Porter was there. I asked him what happens to the ones who are losing. “They lose more,” he said.

On the twenty-third month a hand touched my shoulder. I didn’t know what it was touching. My duties were over.  I found myself in an airfield with leaves swirling around me. Then I saw that they weren’t leaves but letters, presumably ones written to or from the dead.

The young men stepping off the transport plane glanced at me. I was weeping. Porter was still in the woods firing shards into undergrowth. He would be there forever. Let him talk to the young; I was no longer young and could no longer talk. We traveled home in the belly of a steel crow. It felt as though when it landed we would be regurgitated into the mouths of its offspring.

[jessemichaelspoetry-blog]

Poem #5 - The Abbatoir

The Abattoir

There was a butcher shop in the old neighborhood that had a man with one hand working in it.

He had attachments for his stump. He was surprisingly fast. You would think he had talons the way he flew through the cuts. He shook the slabs like a combination of a blackjack dealer and a mortician. He was different from the other butchers—his footsteps made no sound. I was fascinated by him, though I tried to hide it. Every time I went shopping, I angled to be served by him, letting other customers go ahead of me, slipping between them to be there when he finished what he was doing.

I almost never missed out on getting the man with one hand to serve me. Every so often, I would simply have to be served by one of the other butchers to save face: I would be caught waiting, they would be right there, no excuse not to just order. When this happened I would walk outside afterwards and throw whatever meat I bought in the trash.

But when I got the man with one hand I would revel in it. I got more meat than I needed, more than I could possibly use.

Just to watch him slap the block, just to watch him pull chop sheets like a mother ripping down burning curtains, just to hear him say nothing.

He was silent— that was the murder of it. He only nodded to the other butchers.

He knew the whole world is a slaughterhouse, that there is nothing to joke about, that you move with the rhythm of the kill, get work done and wait for the store to close. That knowing of his is what made him the best.

He snatched cuts like a feral cat. He swam between the other butchers like an eel. He worked the slicer like a man printing newspapers on the first day of a war. He glanced up at the fluorescents like he would rather be working in pitch darkness, like he wanted to smash them out with the spine of his cleaver so he could close his eyes and really go to work. Above all: he never looked at me.

I am not proud to say this but in the end I am just like any other rube: I started to wonder. How he lost the hand, of course.  When he was slipping attachments on to his stump side to work specialty cuts, cuts I requested, requests he never resented, all I could think was how did it go down. The question turned and grew like a germinating seed, muscling a sprout up through black clay. I couldn't sleep. I began to think about it day and night, but mostly at night. I pictured a slippery floor in the chunk room, customers hearing a grunt and seeing a spray of blood hit the wall next to the steer splitter. I pictured a fight between him and one of the other butchers, stainless steel flashing in the parking lot, knife cases lying open on the perimeter. I threw that idea out because it was like picturing an eagle fighting a moth.

Finally, I decided that I would ask him, knowing full well there was no dignity in it. I kept coming in as always, screwing up my courage, looking at his mouth more than his hands now, wanting the secret more than the cuts.

I kept placing larger and larger orders, as if I could ingratiate him. He never commented or looked at me. Chops hit the scale - back ribs, flank, skirt, top roast, brisket flat half, shank cross-cut. And the specialty meats: owl shrim, rack of cold goat, country hacks, snake splayers, stew grimace, pantry oxen and hand ripped elk shoulder. I was plunging towards the mistake, trying to throw meat between myself and the coming disaster. I felt sick but I couldn't stop it.

One day I knew it was time. I had laid one of the biggest orders on him that I had ever come up with. Christmas, plus Fourth of July, plus Friday the 13th.  There was no actual holiday in sight.  He had all the cuts on the counter, wrapped and stacked large-to-small in two bone-white towers.

I looked at him, regret leeching out of my guts even as the words came out.

"So," I said, "how did you lose the hand?"

He looked up from the register. It was the first time I had seen his eyes.  In them, I saw the kind of hate that comes out as granite indifference. I saw a brushed steel mirror. I saw the end of my youth. I saw maybe the end of the world.

"My job was just too easy with two," he said and hit "sale." The drawer slid out and clicked. Then he looked right at me again and for the first time I noticed that he was not only missing his left hand, but also his left eye. A glass replica nestled in the lids, a good match of the other eye but uncannily still. I knew what I would see if I looked down at his left foot.

I guessed he did the eye last.

I came in a few more times after that. I don't know why I kidded myself. As soon as he spotted me it was break time. As soon as I slipped towards him he had something to do somewhere else. A man who was so good he had to create his own obstacles hardly had trouble dodging a spectator. There was always something that needed to be cleaned.

I stopped going in after a week. I stopped having the parties I used to throw to feed out all my pounds and pounds of meat.  Finally, I stopped doing much of anything.

[jessemichaelspoetry-blog]

Poem #4 - The Round Up

The Round Up

I don't know if I told you this but I used to have this job at the Round Up Ha ha shut up Well I was there for 22 years Exactly, right? That's what everybody thinks There were advantages of course

I got other peoples envy, I got the tropical things etc. Rides, gifts, you know I met the lawn boss in every city I had intimates Of course the money was good Life under tarps and everything, sometimes it's what they say it is I remember one summer every day felt like what people think they want

The only problem was the dancing The spins, the jumps, the take-offs, Always with glances Sure the moves are difficult but it's all in the eyes. The eyes are where they get the magic from you. I had to dance for three days straight once I got a pain in my shoulder which I was able to tranquilize Then it was one day rest and another round of desert waltzes

The trapeze guys and clowns always try to sabotage your routines Try doing "Cherokee" with salt in the sawdust and a couple of leotards watching from above hoping for a concussion ending Try doing "Bronx Magic" when it's dark and you don't know where the ropes are or who put them there Try doing "3 Gang Jeopardy" when you think your partners may have been bought off by people who don't love you Try Try Try Try 'till it hurts a little, try some more, try till the applause feels like little strokes, never to be detected by doctors But strokes anyway, the kind you aren't supposed to get until you're old, the kind that will make you skip a number when you count to one hundred- for the rest of your life. I am not getting serious, don't worry ha ha When we toured there was no temperature in the tents. Anything done in them lodged itself in your lung-memory There were a few nights I would rather forget Then the whole thing about the judges! The biggest bruise. They were paid to say "yes" on Monday and "no" on Wednesday All they want is vigor and it's especially important that you look triumphant That's what people are paying for.

You hear about the muscles going wooden and of course it's true you hear about the seven expressions and that's true also A life of small sets Proscribed footwork And when you are moving that way you can see other people's insides The lady in the front row with the two children who just aren't going to make it. The man by the ropes. Dance, dance, dance - accolades are coming Turn left, turn right, turn left, step left, the look of freedom is gold in this business. Don't mimic, idolize. And when you shudder and gasp in bed afterwards, when nobody is watching -consider it shaking off the miracle.

When you are off-site do not stop dancing. Pretty soon you just stop going off-site. Do not stop moving years after the round-up has gone out of business People will still applaud! With or without the marquee. Choreography is immune to everything. There are smaller dances you can do, there are gestures they have taught you that stay with you Like red Dobermans 'Til everything is the good myth and things fall into place like far flung car wrecks going backwards back into solids impossibly fast 2 ton gleaming hulks flying away from each other in reverse and drivers smiling and talking on the phone again forever and more forever.

Until everything is a bloody orgy of good luck. Until the world is as beautiful and convenient as statuary on the chancellor's lawn Cold marble that can not stop moving cannot stop hustling, lindy hopping, tango-ing, vogueing, charlestoning, whirling Until you would never jump in front of a train or slit your throat of course. So I suppose that's why I'm so damn charming ha ha.

And I guess that's why I was thinking it might be nice If I could be a person that you didn't have to dance for.

[jessemichaelspoetry-blog]

Poem # 3 - A Common Laborer

A Common Laborer

Thumb on the problem To strap down the ache Hands fatally useful coax the stone out of the cradle, out of the apricot dangle roses over the wall of the garden In the shed i pinned roses to a lake-green dress the first to be worn underwater I thought about The pleasures of the smoldering cabin where nobody is allowed to move without begging I’ll turn in it with her until the keyholder dissolves gardeners are low people out in the walled landscape I felt the warm earth for a pulse, the other hand dangling something over the edge of the wall A common laborer Here to fulfill the terms of my probation to tether the pit of the fruit to the wet lumber Burning as it drifts down the river Every tide a flue Leaving a trail of pedals Reminding everybody of the duchess’s lake-green dress 👗 I tied the dress to the planks It served as a flag of watery miles I followed her wherever she browsed I know she does good things, that she has a leopard, a divining branch, a raw emerald I wouldn’t bend all that pageantry over the shoulder of the garden if i wasn’t there to serve

[jessemichaelspoetry-blog]

Poem #2 Dread Flats

Dread Flats You go first Lets look up at the hot paste From the white rock pan We came here to die Not to sputter more This sky is all bald steel but like i said, really a bit of a white boil Up there is the cauldron that feathers dumb skin For example: Turn this whole landscape upside down and then it's us looking down into a chowdery ocean of hot starch Us looking down, stuck to a bone ceiling Steam reddening stunned faces We came here by choice We chose inevitability Nobody can resist it

[jessemichaelspoetry-blog]

Poem #1: Thorny Rack

Thorny Rack

Listen, this guy has knock-knock money. Even his weird memories look gilded. I’ll trick him into merging with me. Then we’ll both be shaking off evil. But you got to come with me-I need a side wash.

When he sees double water I’m betting on another sighting: the old “emerald hog” if you know what I mean. Take a bite: we meet at half past. You dress me up volcano over ash and I promise I’ll sing you right into the blue hymnal. That’s the one with five locks and no key. He’s that good. I want to trick him into fucking me while he thinks he’s just sunning the rain pig.

Once I get his “swampy night” in the light of day, you can crack the bay windows because I’ll be all smoke. Did I tell you I have arsenals? I could list them but why untwist the tornado. This is going to play like a clapper’s ovation. Once you’ve seen the big antler all you can dream about is riding the elk. You get two or three hands on that thorny rack, branching upwards from tucked back ears, and you can see down those boney roads all the way back past your failure. Back to the sucking earth with it’s smolder and mulch.

I want that oily, snuffling ride. I want to make a shambles of my case file – first thing I do when daddy takes me to the haystack is trash all seven levels of my slave name. Paint the mirrors sky orange. Scorch the horizon. Meet me at half past, we’re going to walk up to the fight gate. I’ll trim meat off my own body if it gets me through the eye of the needle. The guards can laugh but come next moon i’ll be soaking in the dread and calm of the wet castle.