Saturday, May 18, 2019


EC706 This is a REENTRY of re-edited
EC663 [Latvian version: “LIECINIEKS (Citas vēstures stāstam)”]s
The Life Review of Robin Ludd/ A Family Epic
By © Anton Vendamencsh, 2017

5 An Augenblink

Consciousness is
But the memory
Of a dream
Encapsuled
By vanity.

Wrote Goethe
(Imagining
Himself as son of
Job or Faust
And, thus, a beneficiary
Of Divine intercession):

“Was du ererbt
Von deinen Vätern hast,
Erwirb es,
Um es zu besitzen.”
(Auth. trans: What you inherit from your fathers, inherit it in such a way as to possess it)

“Was man nicht nützt,

Ist eine schwere Last,
Nur was der Augenblick

Erschafft,

Das kann er nützen.”

(Auth. trans: What one does not use of one’s inheritance) becomes an unbearable burden that survives for but the blink of an eye.)

Goethe knew that
“Hail Death!”
Was embracedby
The trumpet’s blare
(God presented
At the
Devil’s
Victory celebration)
That glorified
Job’s faith.

Is this why
Wolfgang*led
His German sheep
Out of God’s sight?
*Wolfgang is a German name that translates as ‘herder of wolves’, though originally it likely meant ‘guardian of the herd from wolves’, i.e. ‘shepherd’. Because Goethe’s personal names are ‘Johann Wolfgang’, and ‘Johann’ is but a variation of ‘gang’/aka jang, yan, jean, john, huan, ivan etc., all cognates that recall the ancient occupation of tribes as herders of forest animals. Be that as it may, it is this poet’s guess that Goethe’s subjectivelyf identified himself more with the occupation of his ancestors than German intelligentsia of the 18th or 19th csentury.

    I love my cat
    For the Augenblicks
He cherishes
When stretched out
On my lap
After hunting a mouse
And his paws bite
Into my thigh
and I cry ‘Thanks’
and grab him
by the scruff.

    Not surprisingly
    In an Age of
    Conceited
Human lemings
    Thirsting
immortal waters
en masse

    History is become
an Augenblick
by virtue of being
Set in ever so brittle
White plaster
    by historians
Making-believe
Themselves masons
    Of fortifications
For a civilization
    On foundations of
    foreshortened lives
    And corpses

That shield
Cities and states
From consciousness
And lip
Birthday songs
Sans a birth date
Parents or child.

Ours is a time
Tanners
And drives
Gatherers of
Animal hair and wool
Off rosebush stalks

for a living.

Simple men
Hunt elk
And Used car dealers
show antlers
On the walls
Of their mobile home
offices.

Desperate women
    Fuck desperate men
    To spell
    Children
    With a wit as desperate.

Psychologists and
Doctors of Philosophy
Hold to vanity
With convincing
Conceit

No one knows why
They they believe
Themselves
Conscious, and
And know nada
About the anatomy of
The pyche

    Or why
Their children
    Pretend
With narry a doubt
That God is naught
And was created
By some suicidal poet
Desperate for
A human audience.

Just so,
last night
After more
Than fifty years
I again met Silvie
Who once
I was engaged to marry.

I saw her
On a street in Boston
Pushing
A baby carriage
And asked her:

Is that you, Silvie?

She turned to me
Met my eye
And abruptly
Turned again
Away from me.

Taken aback
I said:
”I am sorry,
Take care”
And continued my way
Up Beacon Street
To where it ends
I know not.

Thereafter
Thirty years
Came to make
And became
Nearly forgot
Before another 30
Did their turn.

By some grace
The face of
The babe
Of Anne’s miscarriage
I saw not.

Such
Moments of
Remembrance
When
A foreshortened
Life skids out
From under one
Become
The eternalest
Of curses.

Ai,
As is the habit
of dreams
It awakened me
To another day:

Had I but lived
In the countryside
And been a cobbler
Of horses’ hooves
And you a maid
In my aunt’s kitchen,
I would have been
All over you
Till our
Kingdom in bed
Was aswirl
And your sweet lava of
Honey and cream
Breasts
And gives suck
To another generation
Of innocents.


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