#dunn
AT THE NIHILIST’S FUNERAL
(Hope delivers the eulogy)
He was always so interestingly wrong.
I loved him, in fact for years couldn’t live
without him, he who helped crystallize
what I thought by being so opposed to it.
But it’s time to rejoice.
Some of the invisible roads
that run parallel to the great boulevards
can be seen now; the era of darkness-
as-illumination has passed. It was useful
while it lasted, but how nice to discover
that so few of us count on negatives
these days to preserve what we hold dear.
My friends, if you can think of me
as such, take heart. Meaninglessness
has ended its long run at the Palace.
Already, a few of us mere specks
in the universe have begun
to insist on our importance.
May the odors of lilac and laurel waft
across the river, and float over his grave.
The great nihilist is dead. He’ll rise again
when needed. He always has.
But those of you standing now,
having turned your backs to me in protest,
how right that you honor him so.
It’s the kind of negation that he, I suspect,
would have thought might lead somewhere,
might even have thought was hopeful.
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 10:41 AM UTC
Here And Now
for Barbara
There are words
I've had to save myself from,
like My Lord and Blessed Mother,
words I said and never meant,
though I admit a part of me misses
the ornamental stateliness
of High Mass, that smell
of incense. Heaven did exist,
I discovered, but was reciprocal
and momentary, like lust
felt at exactly the same time—
two mortals, say, on a resilient bed,
making a small case for themselves.
You and I became the words
I'd say before I'd lay me down to sleep,
and again when I'd wake—wishful
words, no belief in them yet.
It seemed you'd been put on earth
to distract me
from what was doctrinal and dry.
Electricity may start things,
but if they're to last
I've come to understand
a steady, low-voltage hum
of affection
must be arrived at. How else to offset
the occasional slide
into neglect and ill temper?
I learned, in time, to let heaven
go its mythy way, to never again
be a supplicant
of any single idea. For you and me
it's here and now from here on in.
Nothing can save us, nor do we wish
to be saved.
Let night come
with its austere grandeur,
ancient superstitions and fears.
It can do us no harm.
We'll put some music on,
open the curtains, let things darken
as they will.
Apr 24, 2015
Apr 24, 2015 at 3:02 PM UTC