THE FOLLOWING EXEGESIS IS MADE POSSIBLE BY A GRANT FROM THE RHETORICAL FOUNDATION
Here in the interior the grasses
wave in a wind
that has been here before; time sets
a hellish pace for the nothing
that happens again and again until someone
gets it right. We long for the pales and the quick brushstroke
of a composition being created for our benefit in a room stale
with raw emotions, a still life with apple core and coffee grounds, portrait
of a rag doll in rapture, nude like you wouldn’t believe, erotica
at its finest. Meantime, the walls tick by, matter being fluid
not static, and we breathe air in processed handfuls
and chunks. In the clearing,
where the lions are, the day bends
in half, and we take it that time has come
to sup. The sun like a thief is unlike
a thief. The weather is unseasonably moderate. The shadows
are where they were yesterday, or seem to be. No matter. The company
is bright, the conversation is lively, and we have
no place else to be anyways. In the clearing, where
there may or may not be lions, we can hear the birds calling to each other
in a language they must have made up, for nothing sounds like that
naturally. Such rattlings and squeaks are clearly nothing
by God's design. But such rattlings may at least amuse until the shadows
long into the yard, and the settling
Ping of metal cooling in the evening
becomes the evening air. In the clearing
Stands a boxer, wondering where the Hell everybody went. In his
gloved hand he holds a rose, symbolizing the beautiful things, and in
his other gloved hand, he holds a rose, symbolizing the beautiful things, and
we know this to be true. God is in his Heaven, after all, and might be
watching. As we wait, we are certain that any second now he'll raise
a rose, dash it into a thickening blob of scarlet and blue, thrust it again
against the startling white canvas, a slash of color we knew possible
but never expected to see, again a crushing blow against the palate,
again a masterful rift appears in the white, and soon that new true world
that we knew true was is there in all of it's bold and bright that never
never was, and what a wonder what a wonder
what a wonder it will be
But for now the Boxer simply stands and waits, and we merely stand and
wait, and the birds merely stand and wait, making noise
like flightless chinamen, and the walls flow and the air hums
and the sun goes into apostase. We must rest well, for the Apocolypse
is tomorrow, then again the Apocolypse
is always tomorrow, sweet and fresh from the mind
of God, unexpected, colorful, and dramatized
for your convenience.