I GAVE HOPE to a crushed rock desert flowing with beer and fried chicken and illuminated images neoning the formless nighttime horizon. I was weak, but now I'm determined, strengthened by what I found when I opened my words from the corpse I carry around, petrified and perfumed so that it seems living—a seeming life. The body's flayed on a black stone by angels of the fields and the betrayed angels of the beasts I found on the living stone shined out with lust. I used to be weak, but now these global displays don't fool me. The bodies of fishermen and weavers—whole villages—lie rotting with flies in blood and bloated bellies burst with soft little thud-like sounds before black intestines begin to ooze. Inhale the burning ember fumes of Polis. Al-Khuds, the international Zombie City, spreads over the earth, securing our corpses. Zaka abandons the fields. Walls surround the little sylvan groves where once stony herms observed the quiet vicissitudes of the day. Dare I call on Gy, the warrior, or Damballah-Wedo, the snake god, to avenge the vast appetites of the One City? Or is it enough, administered thus, paying off these servants of the demiurge one bill at a time? Ezra Pound was a nut—okay, but. In this he was right: World guv is a crock. "OU TIS / a man on whom the sun has gone down…"
Posted by Dale at May 17, 2004 04:12 PMWow. You know I really love reading these, Dale, every one of them. I have to say that this one really has some great stuff that makes me want to go and re-read not so much Ezra (tho that would be a good thing to do at the moment), but Rimbaud and Baudelaire, both! This is very fine.
Hope you are all doing well in this seasonal bridge to the long summer here. Hugs to all.
Best,
Chris