The End Falls Out On You
And to think, if Weija hadn't got me to watch Rome, this might be a very different poem. In class we were assigned to write a "long poem" -- a very "problematic", fuzzy, but thoroughly Canadian form. It meanders, and is long. Mine is a shorter long poem, at about two pages. It was my first experience using the free writing I did over a few days and trying to integrate the lines/ideas. But a lot of it was written right after watching the first episode of Rome. This is also the most edited poem I've ever written, and probably still isn't done.
In Ancient Rome they got their hands dirty.
Daily bread.
Daily death.
Eating apples and spectating the stench.
Nowadays I put down my spoon till it’s over.
Yet out of my science I envision a God, and I hope
that He, the one I envision, could be proud, because
after all, you make the worst mistakes right before
you grow up. Nowadays we choose to act stupidly,
and that makes us principled.
Most of us today were raised on the pain of the
oppressed, passed down through the generations.
We have given up the ability to burn cities to the
ground and eat an apple.
What have we picked up instead?
- a persistent toothache from our hidden carnivorous ways
- a handheld heart for all those other times, which have become every time
- a broadband connection to images of every unbidden kind at unprecedented speed
- multifaceted covariant bilingual extra-ordinary penpersonship
- and the ability to smirk uncontrollably while striding through a public place, then later forget why. Life is in the details, and one’s mind is usually in the gutter.
We’ve cut all our ribbons.
The raggedy edges flail in the wind with brief contacts at the old incision.
No one watches.
Nowdays, I do my apple-eating at my desk, where the juice,
though spattering uncontrollably,
will not return home for centuries.
Still, may we be saved?
Our stupid principles make us deserving.
We trust each other so foolishly that we’re sometimes scared we don’t.
We have found moments of true union, even though afterwards the priest
goes out back for a smoke break and the poet swears artlessly in the
heavy traffic on the way home from the reading. She just wants a shower
and some leftovers, for God’s sake, and refuses to be observant anymore
until she’s spectated some TV and slept for hours.
The animal peeks through the skinbag.
The Romans would not understand.
In deep circles we reach down together
Things well up unexpectedly
The song of worlds together:
Why do my children divide and diverge?
This needs documenting and quantification.
More penpeople every day.
You were too young to remember.
When the first circle gathered
Apples were a sacrament
Each odour was important.
The whiffs sent messages.
That was a circle I could understand.
You know?
Just people. In a circle.
In those days I had the sense beaten into me.
In those days people trusted life to be the teacher.
In those small circles, that was all the grandeur I hungered for.
The curves were apparent.
The meat was killed and cooked in the centre for all to see
And if a single person broke away
The fire would surely flicker out.
We had no notion of salvation.
Now each
deeper circle
finer fabric
vaster still
till
no single
set
of eyes
can see
the curve.
In Ancient Rome they got their hands dirty.
Daily bread.
Daily death.
Eating apples and spectating the stench.
Nowadays I put down my spoon till it’s over.
Yet out of my science I envision a God, and I hope
that He, the one I envision, could be proud, because
after all, you make the worst mistakes right before
you grow up. Nowadays we choose to act stupidly,
and that makes us principled.
Most of us today were raised on the pain of the
oppressed, passed down through the generations.
We have given up the ability to burn cities to the
ground and eat an apple.
What have we picked up instead?
- a persistent toothache from our hidden carnivorous ways
- a handheld heart for all those other times, which have become every time
- a broadband connection to images of every unbidden kind at unprecedented speed
- multifaceted covariant bilingual extra-ordinary penpersonship
- and the ability to smirk uncontrollably while striding through a public place, then later forget why. Life is in the details, and one’s mind is usually in the gutter.
We’ve cut all our ribbons.
The raggedy edges flail in the wind with brief contacts at the old incision.
No one watches.
Nowdays, I do my apple-eating at my desk, where the juice,
though spattering uncontrollably,
will not return home for centuries.
Still, may we be saved?
Our stupid principles make us deserving.
We trust each other so foolishly that we’re sometimes scared we don’t.
We have found moments of true union, even though afterwards the priest
goes out back for a smoke break and the poet swears artlessly in the
heavy traffic on the way home from the reading. She just wants a shower
and some leftovers, for God’s sake, and refuses to be observant anymore
until she’s spectated some TV and slept for hours.
The animal peeks through the skinbag.
The Romans would not understand.
In deep circles we reach down together
Things well up unexpectedly
The song of worlds together:
Why do my children divide and diverge?
This needs documenting and quantification.
More penpeople every day.
You were too young to remember.
When the first circle gathered
Apples were a sacrament
Each odour was important.
The whiffs sent messages.
That was a circle I could understand.
You know?
Just people. In a circle.
In those days I had the sense beaten into me.
In those days people trusted life to be the teacher.
In those small circles, that was all the grandeur I hungered for.
The curves were apparent.
The meat was killed and cooked in the centre for all to see
And if a single person broke away
The fire would surely flicker out.
We had no notion of salvation.
Now each
deeper circle
finer fabric
vaster still
till
no single
set
of eyes
can see
the curve.