A WORK OF PERPETUAL MOURNING

In Alexander Nevsky, the vision of brute strength required in battle;

lifting and swinging of all that metal sharp

or blunt. Banging the pot-

headed Germans on their pots. Take

that, you papists!

In my dreaming a truncated

beast and the requirement to cut off

the arms & shoulders of a deceased

Madonna, fit her into

her coffin

Now for some old-fashioned lily-gilding.

I will probably be accused of projecting onto the whole my grief for individuals,

my sorrow at growing old. “If death were single–but it comes mingled.” The point being: it is given to me to live this late stage of life at a time of collapse, generalized. There can be no further talk of figure and ground. Of writhing, suffering figures set off by bucolic scenery. Of “every prospect pleases, and only Man is vile.” We were accustomed to highlight the horrors of war with the ironical device of disposing slaughter’s details against the implacable rhythmic beauty of the wild (that vision of reclining skeletons disposed across the steppe). But we have grown up. “Man” (yes, s/he!) has reified the Pathetic Fallacy. Nature, subsumed, conforms. Mirrors distortions of the human mind.

Science speaks: It’s worse than we thought.

But:

you knew that already.

I flew over a lot of money to get here