Michael Ives
Calendar Reform
Though the mares of state
foal only unstanched blood
and the streets teem with animals
no one recognizes, and trees
uproot themselves in disgust
at what we have become -
still, since the Great Accession
one may be certain
that the number of heads on pikes
arrayed along the southern battlement
will increase each day
at regular increments.
Even the planters count them
before sowing. I am presently
9,012 heads old. I expect
to assume my patrimony
during my 10,000th head.
Michael Ives
A Secularization
The moment the initiate rushed in to announce that the mysteries had
been parodied, a bird flew directly into the eye of one of the men
assembled and was trapped inside his skull. Another man sitting to
that man’s right, who held the post of Quadrature, stood and
exclaimed suddenly, "It always happens this way when the mysteries
are parodied. A bird flies into a man’s head, who has nothing
whatsoever to do with the situation, and everyone is so surprised at
this that the burlesque of the mysteries is forgotten. What was to
be taken only as a sign of some tremendous outrage becomes the
greater preoccupation." A third man, sitting well behind the rest of
the assembly, rose and approached the first, thrust his hand into
the mouth of the other and drew out the bird. With the bird in his
hand this third man asked the Quadrature, "Is this always what
happens next?" The other answered, "This is precisely what happens.
A third man pulls the bird out through the mouth of the first and
asks, ‘Is this what happens next?’" "What, then, is going to happen
next?" the third man asked. "Exactly," said the Quadrature, "That’s
always what follows." "Wait a minute," said the man clutching the
bird, "How do we know you’re not just watching what happens and then
declaring that this is the way things always are?" "Why," asked the
Quadrature, "would you wish to suggest that what has just
happened isn’t the way things always are?" "A bird just flew into my
head," yelled the first man, "I for one have never heard of such a
thing happening before." "And whose fault is that?" asked the
Quadrature. "Will you dare lay the great weight of your ignorance at
my table? "In all my life," insisted the man still holding
the bird, "I have never, nor, I hazard, has anyone else here, heard
of a bird flying into the skull of a man, and this with no apparent
injury to the organs nested therein. I am a merchant, I am aware of
prodigies both recent and ancient, and I can with justice claim that
when a bird flies into the head of a man it may be accounted
extraordinary." "Of course it’s extraordinary, or else why would we
take notice of it in the first place?" said the Quadrature. "I may
with equal justice claim that when a bird flies through the eye of a
man and into his skull, people take immediate notice. What
imbecility to witness such a sight and take it for a common
occurrence . . ." "Oh shut up all of you!" the seargent-at-arms
screamed, "I know who prophaned the mysteries! I can’t stand to
listen to any more of this. I am prepared to name names." "You are a
liar," countered the Quadrature. "If you had only listened to me, I
said that the prophanation of the mysteries is always forgotten in
the course of the ensuing astonishment at the flight of a bird into
the first man’s head." "But I’m telling you, I know who’s reponsible.
I know for a fact that the mysteries were parodied." "You know
nothing of the sort" declared the Quadrature. "The prophanation of
the mysteries must be forgotten in order for it to have happened" he
insisted repeatedly until all the others fell silent in wonder and
fatigue. "You all must forget the mysteries, and any prophanation of
them, he screamed. "You must forget all of it, or else justice shall
never be done!"
Michael Ives is a musician, and writer. His work with the
performance trio, F'loom, has been featured on National Public
Radio, the CBC, and in the international anthology of sound
poetry, Homo Sonorus. Most recently, his work appears in
New American Writing, Exquisite Corpse, Hunger,
Third Bed, and Fracture. |