|
Questions so Stupid that God Triggers the Apocalypse Early
by Erik JensenI. Why exactly did God wait until the seventh day to rest? Couldn't he, after carefully whiping his noncorporeal brow with his white, clinical robes fluttering like feathers caught in summer breeze, following harmonizing molecules, matter and souls into a near perfect mixture for an instantaneous, deafening burst of creation beyond our ability to even come close to possibly reason or grasp, have said, "Oh, I think I'll have me a beer?" and taken the second day off and every other day after that? That way, the song would be singing, "Everybody's Working for Tomorrow" and not "Everybody's Working for the Weekend" on the Oldies 5 at 5 and hummed on the way home for a deserved rest.
II. What sort of bug was Gregor Samsa? I always thought he was some sort of beetle that salivated a lot and was in constant fear of flyswatters but not a ladybug. He seemed pensive, so maybe a praying mantis. Then again, he must have been sad - Kafka wrote nothing but sad, serious stuff. Nothing more serious than a black widow spider, but I guess that's not a insect. Did Kafka know that or did he think anything with multiple legs and venom was good enough? Was Gregor's vision still like ours or crystalline? Did he like nectar or munching on house plants? I wonder how many people could enjoy such small things
.
III. People saw stars, arranged them into shapes and gave those shapes backstories about how men, cursed by Gods, were still beloved by Gods and reproduced in the sky in eternal memorials. I read the stories. Then, we named the stars after Gods. So, who creates who?
IV. The first shape I drew was an oblong circle, more commonly known as an oval. But, I didn't think of it like that. I felt my entire being condense and swirl around with me as I created that circle - indeed, the circle was synonymous with me like the Mona Lisa was with Da Vinci. My masterpiece, my thesis, my epic. When I stood up to deliver my sermon on circle drawing, I was informed that it was an oval that I had drawn and not the desired circular shape drawn so hastily on the board in mint green chalk. Mine, a teal hued monstrosity with green-speckled polka dots, was only close in that it had no points. I won't repeat this to a psychologist one day, because I've eventually come to associate it with that same feeling poets feel when they can't quite capture the word, thought or syntax and can laugh at my arrogant four-year-old self. I will ask myself why I've never mastered the circle since, though.
V. The other day, my wife asked for a kiss, which is a dangerous break in our relationship's protocol. You see, I am the kisser. It has always been in my job description to initiate kisses. I decide the logistics - whether they are short, long, spontaneous, scheduled, covert, announced, clean as innocent grandma kisses, sloppy like New Years Eve, passionate return from a long trip like a sailor's one coming home from Japan with backbend and all or hot like her skin against mine. She wanted a simple kiss with her arms gripped tight around me, squeezing like she's trying to display that she can crush me more than just metaphorically. I gave it to her and wondered why I was so upset about something as simple as our lips.
VI. If you just work here, and you're the only one enforcing the rules, I guess you write the rules too, huh?
VII. Something that I've always held close is Tennyson's Ulysses because it reminds me of hope. Hope, the stupidest, most utilitarian of all emotions. It screams above all other conversation about how damned we truly are and simply doesn't understand facts, statistics or other instruments for illustrating that one thing or another will simply fail. It's always the first to throw a punch in a bar fight with reason. We should fear how reckless it is, but yet, I find myself holding it tightly and asking what other superhero qualities it has. 01/02/2012 Author's Note: Oddly, this is both much more experimental and conventional than my other work simultaneously. I don't expect it to poetic in the traditional sense. I guess I'm playing with what we understand as poetry.
Posted on 01/03/2012
Copyright © 2024 Erik Jensen
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Meghan Helmich on 01/03/12 at 03:38 PM I love this. |
| Posted by Lori Blair on 01/05/12 at 07:16 PM I logged on after reading this...what can I say except it truly made my day! Excellent..and too bad we can't be working for tomorrow instead of waiting till the weekends! ha! Thanks! |
|
