Fragment
The whole of reason
is a fragment
of the man
Psychology forms
the blind spot of science
The place where
the million eyes observant
form one compound eye
Fused into that great
dumb place
The center of all we know
the place too close
to be seen
For as a telescope
can not look back upon itself
So the mind of man
attempts to view
the mind of man
Beagles running in tall grass resemble geese in flight. Their ears must be strong to keep their heads aloft in the sunshine above the tops of the blades. The white tips of their tales are a kind of rudder heading them in their direction. I noticed this as I watched my two puppies run at the county fairgrounds, where we often go, in hopes that the puppies will teach me to hunt rabbits. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to know any more about hunting rabbits than I do.
Even after we learn to hunt rabbits I will still need to learn to shoot. Ironically, I already have a very small shotgun perfect for rabbit hunting. I imagine myself handling my weapon—cocked and ready—with perfect patience waiting for my chance to shoot it off. And then blam! The peppery pellets ejaculate from the end of my gun. How gratifying it must be to see the rabbit flop dead on the ground. In this way hunting becomes a kind of sexual replacement therapy. Like war itself, where thousands of frustrated males gather to spurt their guns off at each other in homo-erotic rage. The battle of the bulge a gigantic and deadly circle jerk, covering the face of Europe in the gysm of war.
On this particular day at the fair grounds my puppies discovered a large pile of what appeared to be dried brown grass. As they dug under the surface of the pile, it became apparent that the stuff was not grass but horse manure. The moist manure was exposed to the air, and the ripe odor of the stuff penetrated my nasal passages. It stank louder than the high notes of the electric violin, but my puppies loved it. They rolled in it until it clung wetly to their coats. They even ate it, choking it down before I could take it out of their mouths. “Ginger,” I yelled at the smallest beagle, “Don’t you have any sense?” Just then someone answered me, “They love manure! It’s like catnip is to cats.” I turned around to see a red haired and freckled man and his little girl approaching from the nearby country road. “Did you know on the African tundra that dingos and hyenas must eat the dung of the wilderbeast because of the digestive enzymes without which they cannot digest their meat?”
“I certainly did not,” I said.
“Yes sir,” he slurred, “I can tell you all about manure and what great stuff it is.” As he spoke, he knelt down beside the pile. He stuck his hands and arms into the manure up to his elbows. Then he pulled handfuls of the stuff from deep within the pile and sifted them between his fingers. “Did you know that the reservoir is stocked with yellow perch this big? Its plentiful with fish, but you have to know when and how to get them. Right now they hit only red worms. All the bait shops in the county are out of red worms, but I know where they are,” he whispered, “they’re in the shit.” And he was right. In his hands there remained ten or so wriggling red worms. “I’ll get a fat perch for every one of these red worms I guarantee,” he said.
Just then the little girl trailed up to the manure pile. “Doggies!” she exclaimed. As if on cue my pair of yelping puppies rushed her and pushed her down on her bottom. Ginger attacked the little girl’s face with her tongue and Missy began tugging on her black curls as she squealed. “She loves animals,” the man remarked as Missy led the girl on her hands and knees by the hair. “In fact I promised her that there would be doggies here, it’s the only way I could get her away from the Dora the Explorer.” I was somewhat alarmed at the apparent violence of the scene but the barefoot child seemed incapable of feeling pain or sensing fear. “She’s a rough little girl,” the man said.
“How could you guess there would be doggies here?” I asked.
“The other day she saw your doggies out the car window. I didn’t actually think there would be doggies here.” Just then the child got her little arms around Ginger’s middle and hoisted the squirming puppy above her head. A perfect clean and jerk. The puppy gave a bewildered look as the beautiful monster child spun around holding the dog’s belly on her face, then tumbled backward in the grass. That’s when I noticed the girl’s blue eyes and shiny black curls, her dark skin.
“Those are the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen on a child,” I remarked. The girl’s smoky blue eyes reminded me of a newborn kitten’s. “Yep, she’s got her mothers eyes,” the man replied.
The Firebird's brain itches for words
She relishes their complex micro-nutrients
With her beak she pulls them apart
Pulling out the root with morbid curiosity
Digesting them like fatty grubs
It is the capacity of the Firebird
To purge away what is unnecessary
To gorge on a rich vocabulary
Allowing her to glide around the globe
Circumscribing it annually
The Eyes of a Wolf
“Wake Up,” growls the Wolf
The depth of the eyes and their brightness
A luminescent feather becomes a quill
One who sees with inky eyes dips a feather
Into a well
Ivan awakes to find the face of the wolf inches away
Growling intently and gazing with his liquid eyes
The voice of the wolf is hunger
One cannot understand the wolf unless
He understands the wolf's hunger
A hunger so deep it is grounded in sadness
His appetite profound long suffering
A man would give his flesh to satiate it
“So you are a wolf and yet you are Irving Layton?
Not perverted like the pornographic wolf
In Little Red Riding Hood
Who is always in bed with grandma
No! More like the wolf in Hesse's Steppenwolf
Presenting the uncivilized aspect of man
His hunger, his vacancy, his need
A wolf that must be contended with
As Satan contended with Death”
At these words the wolf lunges for Ivan's throat
But Ivan's prepared dagger intercepts the wolf
Beneath the chin and the wolf expires
In a violent and bloody baptism
For when the wolf is killed his power is united
With that of the man who killed him
But the wolf can never truly die
The wolf remains a trusted friend of man
He must be fed daily to maintain his strength
Ivan rides the wolf tirelessly in search of the firebird
He journeys far south from his Russian home
At last he comes to to a fork in the trail where a sign reads:
This way to enter the domain of the wise witch
Ivan rides Irving Layton to the witch's door
The wolf prepares Ivan with his poems
For what he will encounter:
“I know this witch and I cannot enter into her domain
You must inquire of the Firebird alone
This Witch: She rides her broomstick so often and well
That one day she may learn to fly it.”
The witch occupies domestic space
Which Ivan can enter but the wolf is not invited
He remains suspended outside the window
Contemplating the witch's conversation with Ivan
On first approaching the witch's domain
Ivan sees the witch through the window
Sailing alone around the room
Upon her broomstick
Ivan encounters her small poodle
Who barks savagely and tugs on Ivan's pants
“Billy Collins!” shouts the witch
“You leave that man alone!
Good Billy Collins
Good Dog”
Ivan stands aghast at what he fears
Must be the actual poet Billy Collins
Turned into a lap dog by the magic witch
His balls suspended in formaldihyde
But no, it is only that the witch
Who is a big Billy Collins fan
Has named her miniature poodle after him
There the poodle stands
Representing the cultured male poodle
Whose only wish is to serve his master
Billy Collins is the perfect dog
Affectionate and benign
Cultured to a feminine sensibility
Without any male sexuality or any bad political habits
As if his politics had been lopped off
As if he had been fixed
Suddenly the poodle smells the wolf waiting outside
He hops upon his master's antique chair and peers
Beyond the translucent glass
Inches away from the face of the wolf
Who intently glares back
Half intending to leap through the glass
But Billy Collins is secure within the witch's domain
The two dogs growl threateningly at each other
On opposite sides of the window pane
“The amazing thing,” says the witch
“Is that there is only one generation between them.”
The Fox condemns the trap not herself
“There is no force more subversive than poetry
And that is why tyrants have always feared it
And sought to suppress it
But not only tyrants, everyone who has a vested interest
In preventing the individual from discovering the truth of his own self
And his own capacities fears the liberating power that resides in poetry”
