A new offering
My hands are more brutal
than the hands of those who raped you
but I have never used them.
These shovels, that you touch,
have heaped soil on every father's
grave, yet have no father to bury.
This new offering, spread
like a girl like a magazine,
is wearing a man's body,
is an unburnt offering, has not
been placed on the altar, and
has never been properly ritualized.
It is free and its fangs are all hands,
are all toes in sand, are all soft in touching
where others have wounded
entrances into existence.
8 comments:
Hey, Luke. Just want to say hi, and let you know I've been rapturously eating the entries from your stomach.
ps--yes, the sloth. Excellent choice ;-).
Dear Matina,
did you mean to say "entrails"?
It appears that your use of "entries" was intentional. But I can't help thinking that what you really meant to say was this: "I've been rapturously eating the entrails from your stomach."
That may be the most carnal sentence in all of human history. Eat your entrails out, Marquis de Sade!
Sloths are the most beautiful animals in the world. They appear to be perpetually smiling, and more stoned than any of us have ever been. I could write an entire book of poems rejoicing in the beauty of the brown-throated three-toed sloth.
The male sloth spends his entire life in the same tree. The female only leaves the tree when she gives birth, upon which she leaves the tree to the sloth-child.
Everyone should set aside at least 30 minutes of each day to look upon the sloth.
Thank you for visiting, Matina, and feel free to inject more of your Matina-juice into this blog any time you want.
Luke
"These shovels, that you touch,
have heaped soil on every father's
grave, yet have no father to bury."
powerful stuff. keep posting. i'll return. glad to meet ya.
my blog: www.poetry-is.blogspot.com
Thanks for the compliment. I replied in kind on your site, as you'll see soon.
And yes, of course, feel free to comment again. I'm about to post an article on Whitman that you might find intriquing; feel free to be devastatingly critical, as well.
Can I swallow that down with a nice, refreshing glass of Chianti?
Entries...entrails...same difference ;-).
Actually, entrails sounds more appropriate (maniacal laughter).
As for the three-toed sloth, you sound pretty passionate about that! Should burn incense in front of a sloth shrine, wave to and fro in a trance-like state. Hummm. You will have to educate me on sloths--I know nothing about 'em, but feel a strange sense of oneness with them...may turn me from Agnostic to Slothist!
Dear Matina,
It's nice of you to respond using your (self-portrait?) photo, this time. Now we can all gaze together at your stunningly lovely face. I hope that if I am ever beheaded, I wake up in another world looking at a face like that (where entrails will no longer be needed? I hope not. I LIKE entrails. Especially certain entrails that I could mention).
And speaking of loveliness (though this loveliness is of a very different kind), since you asked about the sloth, I will reply with a litany of slothfulness, or, actually, slothiness, since I want the litany to express the beauty of the sloth, and not slothfully. Here goes:
Let the sloths inhabit the ghosts of elm trees
along autumn new england streets,
and a song be made for the three long fingernails which are their hands.
And let the air of new england become warm enough to soothe them. For the growth of global warming shall maketh the streets of Robert Frost the streets of an endless summer.
Let the male sloth never depart his leafy dwelling, and his teeth never rot from slowly chewing
the vivid nourishment that is also his home
Let the female sloth be born in a beautiful tree whose branches are her whole galaxy
so that her babies will not be lonely in those branches as she departs
And let the sloths show us all how to live
that we might surf our couches with a greater grace than ever before
----
That's okay, I guess, for coming off the top of my head (indeed, my hair is falling out).
Actually, I didn't take all that much poetic license, as you can see from the info posted below for your slothjoy:
The three-toed sloths are the only members of the Bradypus genus and the Bradypodidae family. They are very closely related to the somewhat larger and generally slower moving two-toed sloths. Both types of sloth tend to occupy the same forests: in most areas, a particular single species of three-toed sloth and a single species of the larger two-toed type will jointly predominate.
[edit] Habitat
A while ago, three-toed sloths were believed to have lived only in Cecropia trees, locally known as Embauba trees. Now, further research shows that they also live in at least 96 other tree species. The original assumption was based on the fact that the Cecropia trees have a relatively open canopy, and it is easy to notice a sloth inhabiting these trees.
The three-toed sloth is unlike other mammals because it is incapable of keeping its body temperature constant, much like a snake or any reptile. Because of this, coupled with the fact that its body temperature goes down as the air temperature goes down, the three-toed sloth is only able to live in humid and warm environments.
Usually, a male sloth will stay on one tree his whole life. However, female sloths move around. This is because a female sloth will leave her tree after giving birth to its offspring, giving her tree to her offspring.
---
All this is very wonderful information, but really, you should simply look up pictures of the sloth. They are a shocking delight.
LONG LIVE THE SLOTH!
love,
Luke
Whoa. Feeling oddly enlightened...must go pray to the Sloth now!
;-)
The brown-throated three-toed sloth will hug you if you get too close.
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