Portrait of the Fist as a Human
Picture it:
The blood washed clean of it at birth, the first kindness of a mother or nurse, looping the whole of the fist around one adult finger, and then the first kisses in a flutter; the first paw at the bloom of the breast, the first reach for a rest during the first teetering steps; the handle bars of a bike, and school, and the like; eventually, the July air cools a touch at twilight, and hand in hand Fist levitates across the sand, till under a pier, or veranda, or as an owl woos, or as it turns midnight, Fist finds between another's legs the mystery of sex, and forgets its little local universe - instead, the ancient will of each species comes true; and with time, the hand coaxes into life a figure barely the size of a fist, a marvel made of human, such tiny fingers, as if a mirror from the past - or as if a line which, rather than long, thin and straight, and eventually dot dot dotting out to oblivion, there at the end, in fact loops back to life infinitely - a law of survival which lasts forever, even when Fist goes dry, even when to lift up Fist is to release a long, slow, sigh, even when Fist is placed at the end of an X made of arms, across the chest, and no religious or medicinal charms will work, and Fist curls up, and is cast down to rot, even then, in a sense, he is still held aloft, and comes from the earth back up.
Or maybe it's more like this:
Fist flies out and flops about, bloody and battered and blind, gropes for whatever he might find; it's food and a boob at first, and swabbing at his puke; and soon a spliff, a line of coke or nine, a fistful of pills full of who-knows, and don't forget all the booze, and the sickening and fattening take-away food; and don't forget the fist-fights, with strangers in city back-streets, the broken faces; don't forget the fisted women, the bouts of fucking amidst the miles of boredom, before the boredom summed up and Fist pointed the way to the door; and then the tax man and the reality check, the office, the swivel chair and the desk, the stealing and the back-stabbing, the blog and the spamming, even this little ditty; and everywhere, in the city stalks the Shadows of Hades, cooing to Fist come join us - and when they get the finger from Fist, they draw near, mouthing something about death that I, Fist, can never quite hear...
Ah, we know what life contains, if not what it's about; but not now how it ends, although we shall find out.
The blood washed clean of it at birth, the first kindness of a mother or nurse, looping the whole of the fist around one adult finger, and then the first kisses in a flutter; the first paw at the bloom of the breast, the first reach for a rest during the first teetering steps; the handle bars of a bike, and school, and the like; eventually, the July air cools a touch at twilight, and hand in hand Fist levitates across the sand, till under a pier, or veranda, or as an owl woos, or as it turns midnight, Fist finds between another's legs the mystery of sex, and forgets its little local universe - instead, the ancient will of each species comes true; and with time, the hand coaxes into life a figure barely the size of a fist, a marvel made of human, such tiny fingers, as if a mirror from the past - or as if a line which, rather than long, thin and straight, and eventually dot dot dotting out to oblivion, there at the end, in fact loops back to life infinitely - a law of survival which lasts forever, even when Fist goes dry, even when to lift up Fist is to release a long, slow, sigh, even when Fist is placed at the end of an X made of arms, across the chest, and no religious or medicinal charms will work, and Fist curls up, and is cast down to rot, even then, in a sense, he is still held aloft, and comes from the earth back up.
Or maybe it's more like this:
Fist flies out and flops about, bloody and battered and blind, gropes for whatever he might find; it's food and a boob at first, and swabbing at his puke; and soon a spliff, a line of coke or nine, a fistful of pills full of who-knows, and don't forget all the booze, and the sickening and fattening take-away food; and don't forget the fist-fights, with strangers in city back-streets, the broken faces; don't forget the fisted women, the bouts of fucking amidst the miles of boredom, before the boredom summed up and Fist pointed the way to the door; and then the tax man and the reality check, the office, the swivel chair and the desk, the stealing and the back-stabbing, the blog and the spamming, even this little ditty; and everywhere, in the city stalks the Shadows of Hades, cooing to Fist come join us - and when they get the finger from Fist, they draw near, mouthing something about death that I, Fist, can never quite hear...
Ah, we know what life contains, if not what it's about; but not now how it ends, although we shall find out.
posted by Fist at 15:46
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