Michael Dumanis
Oct. 13th, 2004 07:11 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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greatpoetryWe Require an Assertion of Value,
We Are Frightened
1
Before we who survived came to appreciate
cellophane and the fandango,
slot machines, lisping, and overtures,
walking and white,
before we started questioning
insistence on the specificity of digits,
before we, too, demanded specificity
and bought a scarf
because some neck displeased us,
before we dressed ourselves,
when others dressed us –
they fed us things we fail to talk about –
we ran around in laps. We called it playing.
We stood on coals for hours. We called it playing.
We played with rough and sharp.
When parents let us,
when parents reached for wine and did not pry,
we knelt. We reverenced.
We started plotting
on our big hill of thought a cross of bone.
2
Ya-hey and la and la.
Tell me: who stopped it?
Who stole the small train, the big slinky,
the ermine stole imagined from a towel?
The puzzle, it couldn't be solved.
Where is the jungle? The Korean orphan?
Where did three goldfish go? That game is lost.
That game not here, those here for now now have
to find the murderer, the path
to bed and heretofore. The urge
to believe in the blood that doesn't exist
cannot cure or be purchased.
Are you the murderer? Is who the slink?
Where did I hide the block, the pricking
pins, the oval toy, my head, the deaf
boy I beat up, the embraces,
the wine the grownups left, the friend
I made from coat hangers? What did we keep?
The Babel Hyatt Regency stays vacant
except for us and many phones not sounding.
We are alone. There is an eye not winking.
We are alone and do not want to know
what time it is. And do not want to say
too much. And do not want to touch
too much and do.
3
Imagine our relief, our disappointment,
when someone told us the grenade
we had discovered, the grenade
we took delight in kicking to each other,
was just a clump of night or else some earth
or just a heart or else
some lesser organ.
Michael Dumanis
(Indiana Review, Fall 2001)
We Are Frightened
1
Before we who survived came to appreciate
cellophane and the fandango,
slot machines, lisping, and overtures,
walking and white,
before we started questioning
insistence on the specificity of digits,
before we, too, demanded specificity
and bought a scarf
because some neck displeased us,
before we dressed ourselves,
when others dressed us –
they fed us things we fail to talk about –
we ran around in laps. We called it playing.
We stood on coals for hours. We called it playing.
We played with rough and sharp.
When parents let us,
when parents reached for wine and did not pry,
we knelt. We reverenced.
We started plotting
on our big hill of thought a cross of bone.
2
Ya-hey and la and la.
Tell me: who stopped it?
Who stole the small train, the big slinky,
the ermine stole imagined from a towel?
The puzzle, it couldn't be solved.
Where is the jungle? The Korean orphan?
Where did three goldfish go? That game is lost.
That game not here, those here for now now have
to find the murderer, the path
to bed and heretofore. The urge
to believe in the blood that doesn't exist
cannot cure or be purchased.
Are you the murderer? Is who the slink?
Where did I hide the block, the pricking
pins, the oval toy, my head, the deaf
boy I beat up, the embraces,
the wine the grownups left, the friend
I made from coat hangers? What did we keep?
The Babel Hyatt Regency stays vacant
except for us and many phones not sounding.
We are alone. There is an eye not winking.
We are alone and do not want to know
what time it is. And do not want to say
too much. And do not want to touch
too much and do.
3
Imagine our relief, our disappointment,
when someone told us the grenade
we had discovered, the grenade
we took delight in kicking to each other,
was just a clump of night or else some earth
or just a heart or else
some lesser organ.
Michael Dumanis
(Indiana Review, Fall 2001)
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Date: 2004-10-14 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2004-10-14 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-14 02:00 pm (UTC)