A really fine ouch-punch, Fred
Chirs,
Judy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frederick Pollack" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 7:26 PM
Subject: "I - Thou"
I - Thou
No I *don’t “know what you’re saying,” you idiot.
If I did, you wouldn’t have to talk.
Which would be an immense relief
given your lack of a pluperfect,
which absence conflates all events
in the past (insofar as you *have a past), so that
causality is lost, and the past becomes dreamtime. Likewise
your dangling pronouns and modifiers
that similarly obscure the present.
And “like” every second word,
“you know” every fourth or fifth:
the former confining you
in a merely approximate universe,
the latter seeking reassurance from
and baring your belly to the rest of the pack.
I neither know nor care
whether the merit badges, shrunken heads,
and brand names on your costume
have the imprimatur of a culture
(having a “culture” is like an “attendance award”
in school), or of that blessèd no-culture,
the majority. I also realize
from the unaccustomed vividness
of your affect, hating and alive,
that I’m cruising for a bruising.
(You’ve no idea how long. Thousands of years.)
History teaches, however,
that even your blow, once landed,
will not mean what you wanted.
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