Certain heretics were burned atop
the things that grow on the forest
floor. Bushes, twigs, thorns and leaves
burn slower and hotter. It was more
favorable then to know flesh cooking.
They can be returned to the ground
and scavengered upon by beasts
digging shelter in the open field.
The animals’ fodient appendages unearthing
the joy of the worm at the very deep who did rot.
For the place vacated by the rarefied choreography.
Doomed by the air she is
about to suck. At the trials of Joan
of Arc Magnificent
and monumental tissue breathing,
a gurgle, and smoke. Jehanne:
‘I ask for the Cross to be held before
my eyes while I am being burned.’
Fire now stands
for the pinnacle,
the appalling
responsibility to live our lives.
This movement proving, via negativa, my body's rigidity—
bowed deep
folded over like the unborn—
can unhinge and be part of the consequential
human form. Every act of attempting
to transcend the body illustrates a need dissonant.
Is that so?
Question that was not:
Bergson: ‘A problem well posed is, in essence (i.e., virtually), a problem solved.’
And just who the fuck am I in this adventure I am asking.
Response: Aloneness.
I do not know A from B.
and I do not know how best to steady my hand other than constant faith that my
convulsions shall
cease when my hand has reached my glass and lifted it to the margins of my lips; then,
perhaps, the drink shall wreck the quaking.
If I were now in a wood, I should hear the voices coming at me. I can feel them with
my eyes. A splendid priceless experience asked how I am better than my fate. And
theirs.
What form did you see?
I saw the face.
To Those who Spoke of the Danger of the Way
The Archbishop: ‘O Jehanne where do you expect to die?’ Then Jehanne:
‘Wherever it should please God most.’
The bleak ambiance
above a dark bar
time a-dying in the red lights, and the whole mob inside of you, in pursuit of you,
looks toward the end of the bar.
It's wonderful to watch the disconnect grow inside of you. There are consequences to
the human form. We lack the courage to make it stop and the strength to participate in
our own abuse.
She cannot
conceptualize how
long this will last.
Her ennui so
and the duration insensible,
its accretion teaches that
one cannot live slowly enough.
Yet her fascination
with speed remained untroubled.
The only conception for the future is populated
with whips and scorpions, hot irons and what they can do to other people.
The space into which one stared
—there she buried the clutter of objects she once inhabited in a darkening sky.
Captured, our maid. Say ‘Our Father.’
Has the Angel failed you since you are now captured?
How can an Angel fail?
Was their hair long and hanging?
You shall not learn that from me.
I would do the voice's bidding in the end, no matter
what was to befall me.
To have claimed you were directed to jump from the tower. We admonish that evil thing
you did. And to call it martyrdom . . . That is an answer of great weight . . .
I hold it also to be a great treasure.
Recant.
You take great pains to seduce me.
Recant.
I was the Angel and there was no other.