Planet of the Blind

Afternoon in summer
The shaded turtle
Moved into the light—
Such a discovery
And no one to tell

We arm ourselves with modest joys
Says Auntie History
Birthday cakes, greeting cards
But the brain stem
Knows disasters
Are coming
Weather is unfair
Pinochle is unfair
Children ungrateful
On and on
Lets buy a rhyming
Birthday card—
Now you’re older
Life is colder
C’mon eat from Eve’s tree
And when you eat that apple
Swallow those seeds

Before Charlie Chaplin did it
Uncle History cooked his shoe
He called it “old faithful”
He’d tramped the arctic
The jungles—even
The squares of London
With his agreeable boot
He thought of how
He might write
A memoir called
“The Agreeable Boot”
Meanwhile—alas
His teeth weren’t up to it
No matter how long
He boiled
And what with
The tannic acids
Boot remained boot
Teeth fell out
“Nobody loves you
When your teeth fall out”
He sings
To his aged cat
Then he grasps it:
His shoe carries
Not the world
He thinks is real
But the world itself

We wouldn’t be us says Auntie History
Without the old stories
Of trickery
“Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba”
Or the old Finn tale
“Let’s Pretend We’re Eating”
Anansi the Spider
Weaving webs
Sit down over here
And drink water
She says to passersby
It’s just a cup of water

And shakes his bony fist
Still angry about evolution
Once upon a time
The metacarpal bones
Were like tuning forks
Fingers
Had the first words
Everyone read Braille
Back in the day
He’s pissed we’ve forgotten
Finger-tip vowels
Knuckle consonants
For as we’ve forgotten
We’ve lost more wonder
Than can be replaced
With mere tongues

The Advisor

Sometimes you see this on social media: “if your could talk to your younger self what would you say?” My answer is “read more” and get cracking. I mean read shit you don’t understand. You’re fifteen. It’s high time to read the Nicomachean Ethics. Study Boolean Algebra and for fun read Melville. Picture yourself floating on the coffin of your dead pal. See yourself as an empty set. “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” O Aristotle. Good numbers scrawled on a napkin. My younger self wanted very much to starve himself to death. Melville: “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” Just read and laugh. Read and laugh.

Auntie History has a hangnail
She’s been scrubbing dirty laundry
Since her time at Ur
Back then
Her job was to wash out
Primeval darkness
Easy enough
What with Christ’s fish
In her pocket
A magic flashlight
Of sorts that fish—just aim it
And bloodstained rags
Would glow white
She has a hangnail
Everything good is costly
You want a personality?
Its so expensive
A soul?
Just acrobatics really
And having washed
The shirts
While half swept away
In the blind flux
Of all the world’s
Horrifying events
She has a hangnail

Uncle History is shaving:
Each subtle hair, half formed
Is an idea never
Realized—he knows
His hairs are avenues
Of chance
What might have been
Drops into the sink
He laughs
To think of stubble-rubble
Given all the massacres
The war crimes
He can at least
Cut off remembrances
At his mirror
He’s the anti-Proust
All he has to do now
Is run some water
And minuscule horrors
Will go down the drain

Auntie History collects Edison cylinders
She can hear them without a machine
Good old Mother Machree
And the lovely sound
Of hay scratching hay
Like all hobbies
One can’t get away from it
There’s no criterion of judgment
By the light of the silvery moon
Nearer my God to Thee
The hours so gentle
She thinks she might make a hat
Entirely of cylinders
Just to hear voices compete
Old folks at home
I’m forever blowing bubbles
Come where my love lies dreaming
Let’s cakewalk
Oh yes