11 October 2013

Anne Carson [Kiss]

from Anne Carson's red doc>:

TYPICAL NIGHT-
HERDING SONGS gallop
their rhythms and tell of
love. G doesn't usually
sing to the herd at night.
He may talk to them listen
stand in the herd. Listen.
That community. A low
purple listening but with a
height to the sound. Them
listening. They direct it up
and out. They stand in a
circle facing away from the
center (calves in the center)
and the long guard hairs
hang down to brush their
ankles like pines. Like
queens. Like queens
dressed in pines. Musk
oxen are not in fact oxen
not castrated bulls nor do
their glands produce musk.
Much is misnomer in our
present way of grasping the 
world. But pines do
always seem queenly as
they sway so grand and
anciently from the sky to
the ground. Motion is part
of listening. As the night
goes on let's say he's there
for a number of hours the
motion changes. At first
they just shudder a bit like
any large entity come to
rest but gradually
imperially they begin
swaying. Then as one
rhythm they pass the sway
from shape to shape around
the circle its amplitude
increasing its warmth rising
from knees to hearts to eyes
its pressures rolling across
the large loose joints of the
shoulders and down the 
long bones of the hips until
at some point with a
phrasing as simple as a
perfect aphorism one of
them spins up off its shanks
and performs a 360-degree
spin in air and returns to
place. Slotting itself into
the undulation of the others
as firmly as temptation into
I can resist anything but.
He slips from thought to
thought. Wilde Wild
Wildness does surely attract
him although what he
knows about it is not much.
Knows (with the oxen) that
they prefer common gorse
to willow shoots and can
balance the topheaviness of
their bodies by plaiting
their feet as they walk.
While with Sad he knows
don't mention warplay.
Funny word warplay.
Never says war or warfare.
I've seen a lot of warplay
he'd say. Warplay had me
pumped those years. Tip of
the spear. Flipswitch
inside. She hit the ground
75 saw the white bag 75
bullets tore her head off I
saw her hand. I wasn't
going to tell anyone back
home about. Oh it found its
way out it surfaced. I had a
tan when I came home no
wounds no cuts. Everyone
kissed me. Sure I sat by the
fire I talked to the old man.
There were the smells. The
bone beneath. Sweat broke
out on me at breakfast. I
didn't expect to come home
that was not in the plan.
Some point I guess the
brain cells just give out.
You read a hundred
military manuals you won't
find the word kill they trick
you into killing. You get
over it it's ok. You have to.
Fear not tolerated. Take
you out back and shoot you
they say. Her eyeglasses in
the grass. Standard
questionnaire. Fine just
say fine. Numb yourself.
Wire-frame. Does it feel
good at first yes. Play.
Guns. Fire. Animals. You
know the Carthaginians
liked to use oxen for night
fighting. I'm talking about
Hannibal I'm talking about
the battle of Ager Falernus
217 BC. Like tanks but
more frightening. They'd
tie lit torches to the horns
and stampede them toward
the enemy. The Romans
panicked some ran into the
herd some got knocked off
the path to the crags below
others tried to retreat and
were lost in the tundra
never seen again. But what
about I'm asking what
happens when the torches
burn down to the horn to
the hair to the head to the
bone beneath. So much
human cruelty is simply
incidental is simply
brainless. Simply no
common sense. You could
take the entirety of the 
common sense of humans
and put it into the palm of
your hand and still have
room for your dick.