Scarecrow Questions

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scarecrow

Scarecrow Questions

Though my tongue withers from disuse and
drought, I taste from across the sea astringent
smoke and the progeny of a hundred bullets
buzzing by like misguided insects through
the theater of the dying, and I question how
pride and greed, hubris and fear, unwind their
cords to detonate these differing yet tangled
lines. How to fathom such depth of mistrust?
The Christian paints her door frames azure, a
Muslim carpets his tile floor, the Jew panels his
walls, yet among each, various segments clash,
and all of their houses implode. I feel nothing,
yet shiver throughout the sun-blazed afternoon.
Then I consider the structure of zero, whether its
body contains or extracts, negates or compromises,
hollows out duplicates within duplicates, exorcising
with a blade so sharp as to peel away memory from
those it crosses without the faintest murmur. Gone.
Erased. Banished to never having been. I neither
breathe nor digest, but I absorb and recall. How do
you so willingly forget history? This post determines
my destination, but not my destiny, not tomorrow’s
promise, nor the returning birds and faith, the long
nights, their stars, their deaths, the following days.

Eifel

46 thoughts on “Scarecrow Questions”

  4. Keep in mind that zero had to be invented. It doesn’t exist anywhere except in the imagination. There is no space in the universe that can hold zero; energy and material always find a way to manifest themselves. Humans are made up of the remnants of exploded stars. Those exploded stars still hold a quality of existence, their cosmic DNA remains.

    Somewhere in ancient Japan a noble Okaji looked up at the stars and contemplated eternity, contemplated finality. He still does when you do. And zillions of imperceptible bosons just passed through you while you were reading this sentence.

    We only cry over memory… poetry as creative memory, and yours is beautiful! 🙂

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  7. I’ve been following your site though new to this forum. I love your work. With that being said, these words would have so much more impact if you abandoned the from and changed the end stop of some of the lines. I don’t mean to criticize but I find ,with my own work, suggestions from other poets helpful. I hope you don’t take offense as I do find your words mesmerizing.

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    • Thanks, Lori. No offense taken – I welcome criticism and suggestions. I’ve written about a dozen in this series, and all but one are in this form. But that certainly doesn’t mean that they’ll stay that way. 🙂

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      • Change NOTHING about this work. Any critique of this work as structurally unsound are aesthetic, and not inherent underneath its skin. It is a sound work, it has what the old Chinese master painters called ku-ch’i (“bone spirit”): your work speaks to the very essence of structure itself. Its structural considerations (ku-fa: “bone means”) have been weighed and the poem is what it is.

        Don’t repaint this peach blossom of a poem… it has gone beyond.

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  13. Wise, sad, beautiful. I especially like “the progeny of a hundred bullets” and your meditation on the structure of zero. Melancholy, meaningful work, dear poet.

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  15. “…nor the returning birds and faith, the long nights, their stars…”

    Why do we forget? Collectively and individually? Is it easier short-term? Are we too weak of heart? If you discover the answers, please share.

    ps — Loved this.

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  19. Your prose is in streams of consciousness narrative, leaving the mind to think of the hypocrisy of established religions and at the same time leaving an iota of though that’s fragile, conscientious to be aware of becoming a good humanist. Anand Bose from Kerala

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