chapter 3
poem
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
embracing nil, your dingbat more than that
but only half the whole.
The other half in plus fours
Told it as a crime, a time when the brakeman was annoyed
at Nickerbocker, who was there for re-hab
in the -ilitation for an injury sustained to his cerebral cortex
from the wreck of nations on the railroad track that
used to be an outback songline, wrack of notions that were
once all viable ideals, and so he hit him HARD
with what was handy: horseshoe. He could have put him
In a
or gouged out his eye with a
These are conventions that you see in
Children’s books. Child Aplasia failed all exams.
Aplysia could respond. But where exactly in these snail brains
did one locate the long-term memory, let alone the Ego
and the Id? Could they, anyway, be trained by pain, subjective
and unconscious? (No codes where none intended.
No allusions that have not offended. No mimesis. No thesis.)
If you cross synoptic cleft, target ion channel and inject
The catalytic element, you’re under way. Dingbat is an object
used as missile in the absence of a horseshoe.
Or a gizmogadget with an utterly forsaken ancient name.
A typographical ornament . A silly jerk. A slug releasing ink.
What I’m saying isn’t said by me.
This is your whingding moment: dug out of the ground like gold.
John Matthias, editor at large of Notre Dame Review, has published
some 35 books — poetry, translation, memoirs, literary criticism and scholarship. Shearsman is publishing his Complete Poems in three volumes.