Amazing Story
EvilToasterElf
Posts: 1,119
this is a poem by Stephen Dobyns from his book Cemetary Nights
Disease of the spirit, disease of the mind--
a man is bored, terribly bored. All day
he works at a gravel pit separating
white stones from black stones. There are too many
white stones. The man feels ready to explode.
Here a stone, there a stone. One day a kid
rips by on a motorcycle, hits a patch
of oil and flips over right at the man's feet.
The kid is pretty badly smashed. He groans
and rolls around on the ground. He's in
great pain. No one else saw the accident.
The man starts to call an ambulence, then
stops to watch the kid a little longer,
moaning and twisting on the ground. You see,
he was so bored. Help me, says the kid.
In a minute says the man. He thinks, Here
is a real life-and-death struggle. The kid
is bleeding from a hundred places. The man
has never seen a movie half so interesting.
He drags the kid off the road and goes back
to separating the stones. In just a moment
I'll call an ambulence, he thinks. But he can't
bring himself to do it. This is the real stuff,
he thinks, this is what life is all about.
Time flies. In the evening after work, the man
drags the kid to his house in a wagon.
His wife is shocked. You brute she says, he's
almost dead. All day she's been painting her nails.
She's nearly crazy with boredom. Don't call
the ambulence just yet, she says, let's see
what he does. They put him on a plastic sheet
on the living room floor. Both legs are broken.
His body's banged up, his face is a wreck,
and he's missing an eye. It's fascinating
says the wife. She serves dinner and they eat
on little TV trays on either side of the kid.
All evening they watch him bleed. That night
for the first time in months they make love.
In the morning the kid is dead. Oh, damn,
says the wife, just when life was picking up.
The man sticks the kid back in the wagon
and drags him to the gravel pit. He tries
to think of all the interesting things
you can do with a corpse. By now the kid's
stiff as a board and sits straight up in the wagon.
The man thinks and thinks. Just like in the comics,
a huge question mark forms above his head.
It looks like half a mushroom shaped cloud.
Although facing each other, he and the kid
resemble bookends--maybe Rodin's Thinker,
maybe the monkey holding the human skull.
Between them appears the obligatory book.
Let's call it The Amazing Story of Mankind.
Who can guess it's meaning? With equal
understanding, the dead kid and living man
gaze at its covers, wondering what's inside.
Disease of the spirit, disease of the mind--
a man is bored, terribly bored. All day
he works at a gravel pit separating
white stones from black stones. There are too many
white stones. The man feels ready to explode.
Here a stone, there a stone. One day a kid
rips by on a motorcycle, hits a patch
of oil and flips over right at the man's feet.
The kid is pretty badly smashed. He groans
and rolls around on the ground. He's in
great pain. No one else saw the accident.
The man starts to call an ambulence, then
stops to watch the kid a little longer,
moaning and twisting on the ground. You see,
he was so bored. Help me, says the kid.
In a minute says the man. He thinks, Here
is a real life-and-death struggle. The kid
is bleeding from a hundred places. The man
has never seen a movie half so interesting.
He drags the kid off the road and goes back
to separating the stones. In just a moment
I'll call an ambulence, he thinks. But he can't
bring himself to do it. This is the real stuff,
he thinks, this is what life is all about.
Time flies. In the evening after work, the man
drags the kid to his house in a wagon.
His wife is shocked. You brute she says, he's
almost dead. All day she's been painting her nails.
She's nearly crazy with boredom. Don't call
the ambulence just yet, she says, let's see
what he does. They put him on a plastic sheet
on the living room floor. Both legs are broken.
His body's banged up, his face is a wreck,
and he's missing an eye. It's fascinating
says the wife. She serves dinner and they eat
on little TV trays on either side of the kid.
All evening they watch him bleed. That night
for the first time in months they make love.
In the morning the kid is dead. Oh, damn,
says the wife, just when life was picking up.
The man sticks the kid back in the wagon
and drags him to the gravel pit. He tries
to think of all the interesting things
you can do with a corpse. By now the kid's
stiff as a board and sits straight up in the wagon.
The man thinks and thinks. Just like in the comics,
a huge question mark forms above his head.
It looks like half a mushroom shaped cloud.
Although facing each other, he and the kid
resemble bookends--maybe Rodin's Thinker,
maybe the monkey holding the human skull.
Between them appears the obligatory book.
Let's call it The Amazing Story of Mankind.
Who can guess it's meaning? With equal
understanding, the dead kid and living man
gaze at its covers, wondering what's inside.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Actually, this poem makes me feel good about a decision I recently made and am really excited (although a little nervous and scared) about.
I like it when you post here, ETE! I really enjoy your work.
Well congrats BE, I hope you find everything you're looking for with academic challenge.
but this isn't one of mine, it's from Stephen Dobyns, one of my favorite poets.
It's a pretty gripping read.
There's more to be said for a poem that can tell a story than a poem that blathers on about a single memoir emotion, extricated over the course ofa hundred abstractions
Spiritual Chickens
A man eats a chicken every day for lunch,
and each day the ghost of another chicken
joins the crowd in the dining room. If he could
only see them! Hundreds and hundreds of spiritual
chickens, sitting on chairs, tables, covering
the floor, jammed shoulder to shoulder. At last
there is no more space and one of the chickens
is popped back across the spiritual plane to the earthly.
The man is in the process of picking his teeth.
Suddenly there's a chicken at the end of the table,
strutting back and forth, not looking at the man
but knowing he is there, as is the way with chickens.
The man makes a grab for the chicken but his hand
passes right through her. He tries to hit the chicken
with a chair that and the chair passes through her.
He calls in his wife but she can see nothing.
This is his own private chicken, even if he
fails to recognize her. How is he to know
this is a chicken he ate seven years ago
on a hot and steamy wednesday in July,
with a little tarragon, a little sour cream?
The man grows afraid. He runs out of his house
flapping his arms and making peculiar hops
until the authorities take him away for a cure.
Faced with the choice between something odd
in the world or something broken in his head,
he opts for the broken head. Certainly,
this is safer than putting his opinions
in jeopardy. Much better to think that he had
imagined it, that he had made it happen.
Meanwhile the chicken struts back and forth
at the end of the table. Here she was, jammed in
with the ghosts of six thousand dead hens, when
suddenly she has the whole place to herself.
Even the nervous man has disappeared. If she
had a brain, she would think she had caused it.
She would grow vain, egotistical, she would
look for someone to fight, but being a chicken
she can just enjoy it and make little squaks,
silent to all except the man who ate her,
who is far off banging his head against a wall
like someone trying to repair a leaky vessel,
making certain that nothing unpleasant gets in
or nothing of value falls out. How happy
he would have been to be born a chicken,
to be of good use to his fellow creatures
and rich in companionship after death.
As it is he is constantly being squeezed
between the world and his idea of the world.
Better to have a broken head--why surrender
his corner on truth?--better just to go crazy.
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
And ETE, I'm sorry I jumped into the 1st poem and didn't realize it wasn't yours, d'oh! *shakes her marbles around* However, I can see why you admire Dobyns work---your work reminds me of his and please don't think I mean that in a bad way, it's definitely a good thing!
And OMG, this "Spiritual Chicken" one.......it reminds me of when I'd ham it up for my sissies and go through this whole act of a dying chicken, much to their amusement.
I'd Imagine a sardine would be more happy in a fishbowl than a tin can
Actually his style shifts pretty dramatically with each of his books. But this book is my favorite, and the style is pretty homogenous throughout.
The whole book is phenomenal though.