The Untitled Postscript Twitching

the untitled postscript twitching


Jung famously said: Gods have become diseases,
but did not Asklepios already know this?
Asklepios asked only the payment of a poem
for his dream services -Noel Cobb


Ken Fontenot goes to the orthodontist
to check on a growth in his mouth
he had a blastoma several years ago
& is being cautious
i tell him of the time when Robert Bly told
the story of the destruction of
the invading army in
the tale Iron John
how my friend
David Fox
wondered
why it was
necessary to
destroy the army
to the very last one
that it seemed indicative
of a consciousness favoring
violence over the quality of mercy
& Bly said: if you had cancer would you
kill every cancer cell save one out of compassion
which ended the conversation though i do not
remember if he went on to describe the problems
of literalization of fairy tales
of any imaginative enterprise: how in describing
a cancer one easily imagines
a demagogue a prophet a salesman convincing
an audience that certain peoples are
cancers: genocidal totalitarianism: Genghis Khan
Hitler Stalin the 19th century American mindset
regarding Native Americans
my way or the highway repression of
“bad” ideas “bad” desires
Ram Dass saying he
never lost a single
neurosis no
matter his
attempts
thru LSD
meditation
channeling
every known
form of search
to destroy the pain
they all still came to
him: greed lust sloth
anger resentment envy
they were simply smaller
he could pat them on their
head & say: o, hi, you again
what do you want of me today
& he would listen & let them pass
thru him as if they were a wind a shadow
another strange light a dream of a bee
sucking at a flower pissing in
the well-manicured lawns where
young boys want to play in the streets
where toads die
how not so many dead toads pancake the road
anymore because we are killing them
inadvertently with our chemically
treated yards or how i still
remember David Napier
squashing them with
his combat boots
how he i still
remember
though
most
names
from 1963
i have forgotten
how i have told this
story these stories before
i repeat myself repeat myself
how Liz (last name unknown) says
i am advice-y—nice word—instead of
expressing the depths of my own shadowy
emotions—how i talk too much & think too much
or how Owen Egerton retells the Christ story
in his Harold: The Illegitimate Son of God
though i recommend he change the subtitle to
The Bastard Son of God
he twists at the end having the people
kill Harold thinking he was Judas
so it is not so much of a twist
is it so simple as to merely
believe a single bullet
one son One Way
out now &
lord i just
can’t get
out that
door
how
Craig
Sullender
showed me
a book on writing
poetry & the author
said poetry is not about
communication that if you
want to communicate write an e-mail
& this is another long poem Michael Gilmore
& it is not as satisfying in its conclusion
& it is not what the news of the day can
ever begin to say about all
those lights & shadows & the eyes that look
at the clock & tremble


Richard Lance Williams

Posted over on Mythopoetics