Oblique Strategy

RETRACE YOUR STEPS


I'm assembling photographs, touching fire
to film, touching fist to table. My grandmother &
her tank, my grandfather's snow beard, my endlessly
purple face, the perpetual canteen, the hint of a knife
in the water. The trampling of cows.

Filled with fluid, the problem of history. In science,
edema. Fear like a wet balloon, collapsed & frothy.
The piano sinks in the corner, sullen & ashy. The keys
have seen failure, have seen the blood seep through
the floorboards, a portrait of grief. I touch flame
to wood, fist to brick.

Oblique Strategy

TAKE AWAY THE IMPORTANT PARTS


No grandfather or wine. No kings. Nothing even resembling a song. Only a blanket and the sea. Only the threat of something righteous contained within pork. A pie slowly congealing on the windowsill. Communal knowledge.

The remainder of the equation never equals the sum of its parts. It cannot be helped, the grandfather & his faded hat. The wrinkled hands as they caressed pork fat & pickle juice. The thought of faded royalty. Tininess. The word for something being small.

Oblique Strategy

REMEMBER QUIET EVENINGS


Jesus, that was horrible. The blood still hasn't come out.
& nobody has talked to Uncle Jesse since.

Oblique Strategy

HOW WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IT?


With whiskey and the promise of sin. With feet
& a snow shovel. With grandfather's oil &
a burning lamp. With need. With a solid

left hook. With something resembling a plan.
With a ramshackle van & hand grenade. With
my arms around Castro. With the world's

biggest sack race. Let me tell you about
this sack race--it involves everybody. We
block off the ocean with cones & reform

Pangea through sheer will. Then, at the
drop of Churchill's black hat, we begin.
Elbow & teeth, broken nose & torn burlap.

The struggle is epic. Lives are lost. Nations
are reformed around championship heroes.
That's how we build culture. That's how

we get down.