Tlaloc and the Tiger
Prehistory knew
the most important rooms are in the clouds.
Like this arena/storage-locker filling
with armor, shrapnel, skulls produced
not by the symbolic, endless,
necessary pain occurring here
but by collateral conflicts, real, less real.
Two agonists trample
the junk. One is Tlaloc,
once lord of rain and drought,
bright turquoise with red stubby fangs.
Children were drowned for him,
washed down with bowls of their collected tears
(their souls, of course, admitted
to the eternal spring of Tlalocan).
He wields the traditional, stylized,
three-tiered obsidian club. His opponent
the Tiger wears (it’s only fair)
the skin of a man; his weapon
is metal. They feint, weave,
spit, kick, pant, swing,
leap back, well-muscled from eternal war.
The rear wall
seems also to be missing from this image,
and the vast clouds roll
statically by in their eternal way.
As they fight, the two principles
roar and, perhaps, converse:
I HAVE BEEN DEBASED, yells Tlaloc.
I WAS AN INNOCENTLY HUNGRY GOD.
BUT NOW, BECAUSE OF MY MONSTROUS BLUE
AND SOMEWHAT POPEYED VISAGE,
I SIGNIFY THE WORLD-SYSTEM
THAT DESSICATES AND LIQUEFIES
RATIONALLY YET THOUGHTLESSLY.
And Tiger, evading
a deadly silicate edge, cries I
WHO WAS NATURE DISTINCT FROM MIND
AND AS SUCH DID NOT FEEL
ANYTHING, AM FORCED
TO REPRESENT SOME NEBULOUS GOOD
FOR WHICH PERPLEXED I FIGHT WITH STEEL.
They agree they both kill;
that isn’t the issue, or the value,
if any, at issue. They try
to kill each other because they kill,
and even hate each other, but only,
as it were, professionally. On Titan
the clouds are of methane.
Two levels: crystals above,
a damper layer bombing
the mud (– 300° F)
with drizzle, two inches per year.
I find this languid vision somehow calming.
|