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It is not possible,
Just not possible,
To believe in exhausting universalisms
Like Christmas or New Year
For it takes too much to believe,
Too much to anticipate a renewal;
On such occasions
You wish to erase memory from the mind
But find that it continues to exist
On the resin sheet of the unconscious,
The mind leaves clammy traces
That cannot be scrubbed out.
Look into the mirror on any fine morning
And you will recognize what you’ve forgotten,
You miss me and I miss you
And in the few days left
Between conscious life and unconscious death,
Before the passing of you or me,
Before you and I grow old
And are interned, or whatever,
In the ground, river or the fire,
Before a genuine conversion is possible,
You wish your dreams to come back
And when they don’t, you remember,
With forbearance, the breathless moments,
The strenuous trespasses,
The terrified excitements of yesteryears
Even when you have erased them,
I know you are opposed
To the tyranny of the Greek logos
And you do not want to think of the law
But imagine Being,
The philosopher that you are,
You want to think of justice
Without being untrue to yourself
You want to rehearse a classical play
In your own language,
If you have forgotten your Shakespeare or Sophocles,
You want to remember this,
Write without hesitation about that,
You want to make a movie of your life every decade,
You wish to believe in the aleatory and not the computable,
You want to find yourself where you are
And not discover yourself through chance or necessity
In a collective celebration
On the television or the smart phone,
You cry because you are to be sacrificed
To a myth, a hype and event,
You are desperate to escape
But your hands are tied to your back
You want the resurrection of Elijah
Not the quiet surrender of Job
But there seems to be little hope
For everyone is celebrating
The killing myth
Of the almost believable. |
