Issue 2:1 | Poetry | Mark Harris
3 Poems |
 |
AN AMERICAN LITERARY CHRISTMAS
Mood: The first native storytellers would
describe matter-
of-factly the supernatural in the
story--the Virgin birth, star, angels.
And the
animals would most likely talk, not moo or chatter.
Plot: The explorers, of course, would be
the Magi on a mission,
with just the reverse goal of the
Spanish, French, and English: the Kings
traveled to worship the child they found and to give him things.
Setting: The Puritans
would find the meaning beneath the pageant,
with
Christ occupying center stage, the loving parents
and
adoring Magi rightly back, foreshortened.
Props: Enlightenment thinkers would fixate
on the gold, frankincense,
myrrh, and the gold. They might, Franklinesque,
criticize Herod for not treating
people, e.g., baby boys, with respect.
Theme: Good-citizen Sentimentalists, amidst
alas-ing for what-was-not,
would find the moral in Mary’s
situation, also pointing out that Joseph
wrongly assumed a fallen woman. But his soul-searching makes good
subplot.
Character: The Gothicists, the Poe and Brown
crowd, could have a ball
examining the recesses of diseased
minds, such as Satan’s.
But atypical protagonists Mary and
Joseph didn’t go toward the fall.
Moral: The Transcendentalists, those
easternized explorers, would exhort
us to emulate the Christ-child. After all, as plot facts show, we conform
to Him. But for Emersonian self-reliance, no room at the inn.
Dialogue: The Local Colorists would capture
the 1st-century Aramaic speech.
And they’d of course minutely
narrate and describe each
detail of the stable, mud on the
innkeeper’s arm, frown on his face, etc.
Cause and Effect: Those sour Naturalists would have a
tough time; how to
pretend that what God ordained was
all chance and fate? No class
taboo
either, with the King of Kings being
born in a stable amidst low-life shepherds.
Denouement: Modern enlightened pessimists would
say it’s all a symbol.
But the more cummingsly-optimistic
ones might see the event as that rare
search for meaning that comes up
full.
Conclusion: those happily insane postmodernists love this story
i mean, it’s so absurd and
surreal that it
must be true
Who could/ would
think/make it
up
DRIVE THRU LIFE
Driving
through the streets of town,
a quiet,
cosy hum coming from the highway
a couple of
miles down the road,
like a bird
my car glides in
from the
residential section of town,
as first
stop signs appear; and then stoplights
start to replace
them; the houses thin out,
and trees
stand back safely on the banks.
Then the
trees part for the concrete jungle:
towers of
neon and bright color, fast color,
shrieking
color—manifold reds, oranges,
browns, and
golds (no greens) on
fifty-foot
signs!
The words
on the signs are short enough
for me to
drive right thru and still read them.
(First a
forest of woods, now one of words.)
Every
restaurant has a drive-thru
if inside
isn’t fast enough for you.
My car
follows the lines around the curve,
stops in
front of a garish and informative menu,
and the
speech-fast speaker squawks,
selling me
a meal with a luring name.
I’ll settle
on a #3.
It occurs
to me that my meal is a number.
Banks have
them, burger joints, pharmacies too:
You can get
5 twenties, drive-thru, and a prozac refill
without
ever leaving your car.
What could
be better? What’s next?
Drive-thru
school?
Pull up to
a window at 7:45 a.m., pick up your work,
and ask for
some fries with that algebra?
Drive-thru
church?
Pull up to
a window at 11 on Sunday, give some money
for some
guilt-relief, and ask them to monster-size it?
Drive-thru
marriage?
Pull up to
a priest on Saturday in June & ask for the combo:
a spouse, 2
kids from a previous, and a side of personal baggage?
Why am I
sorry that my number has come up?
THE POINT
We all come
to it, be it
via the
walls crashing down
around us,
or the bright light
focusing
our first sight.
When viewed
in perspective,
it all
comes to a point—
the
background and foreground,
the lines,
the design
draw to a
point.
Foreseeing
but forestalling,
the Welsh
poet missed the point.
Don’t rage
against the dying
of the
light; see
that the
light’s out.
A great
height isn’t the point.
Ascending
to the Alps’ apex,
look
down. Your bootstraps
break, and
air’s beneath
your feet.
Picture that
air.
The point
dawns
that you don’t
Let there
be light.
