Roger Zelazny: To Spin Is Miracle Cat

Two hundred-six bones,
held together with passion and flesh,
four hundred-twelve bones.
ditto,
cushioned against rattle and stress,
facing the future with a smile,
show entropy’s got poetry inside.

Be my Valentine, awhile.

The moth,
seeking a gateway to another dimension
where moths wear crowns,
trusts the flickering door atop the pillar.
Have I overlooked the comparison?
You, to whom I address these lines,
have asked for my trust.
I did not crawl out of my cocoon yesterday.
I came to pray; mocking, I stay.

Lobachevsky alone has looked on Beauty bare.
She curves in here, she curves in here. She curves out there.
Her parallel clefts come together to tease
In un-callipygianous-wise;
With fewer than one hundred eighty degrees
Her glorious triangle lies.
Her double-trumpet symmetry Riemann did not court?
His tastes to simpler-curvedness, the buxom Teuton sort!
An ellipse is fine for as far as it goes,
But modesty, away!
If I’m going to see Beauty without her clothes
Give me hyperbolas any old day.

The world is curves, I’ve heard it said.
And straightway in it nothing lies.
This then my wish, before I’m dead:
To look through Lobachevsky’s eyes.

[It begins and ends,
that’s what it does,
and then again begins,
with tremulous cadence slow,
usually getting me off the john
or out of the bathtub.
The eternal note of sadness
is what I call it,
among other things …]

Ask not whom the bell tolls
and you often get stuck with a collect call,
as I that one from thee.
I suppose it’s easier
to be a Number than an Islande,
but I resent the use of one
much more than the other
and wish to remain unlisted
though I’ve no objection to begin mapped.

As any idiot with nothing to say
delights in calling to say it,
I eagerly await my diminishment in thee,
geographical anomaly,
if continenthood
be the best one can hope for.

Yet, while it’s doubtless difficult being
an Islande, the shrinkage does seem worth
the effort, J.D., if others reports bear true,
and I will keep at it.

The 17th Century having no number
I can reach, I am writing all this out
and would welcome any second thoughts
you may have had on the matter,
for it’s hard (that’s little conceit)
much of the time,
and I would welcome
shrieking gulls, mindless surf, gusty winds
in place of all these confused alarms,
tolling for, telling at,
belling after me.

R.S.V.P. via bottle.

cc: M.A.

Where the last flag is raised
and the last body laid
two birds in a bush
and one in the hand
are equivalent no more.

The sound of one hand clapping
requires a face
for its fulfillment.

I never let the right
know what the left was was doing.
Consequently, I castrated myself
while opening a can of beans.

A Great Big Hand
For The Little Lady
came in through the window
and whisked away.

The Devil finds work
for the idle,
such as this.

I would like to come and live in your Utopia
where brotherhood, sisterhood, joy,
simple communal pleasures, each to every,
dancing, singing, studying, sacrifice,
group therapy, nationalized poverty,
healthy pacifism, modern dance,
lots of wholesome food, mass calesthenics,
cold showers, jogging, writing workshops
and maybe a little flagellation
add backbone to the salt of the earth,
so to speak.

I will build you a great long wall.
Give me your wretched refuse
who do not believe in all of the above.
We will cause them to stand
with their backs against the wall,
blindfolded, as they were blind to the truth,
and I will help to preserve your ideals,
for even the best of us need protectors
every now and then.

Beneath my feet
grass withers.
Poison drips
from my lips.

I smash orchards,
burn churches,
sink sailors,
foul rivers.

I rend white knights,
raze castles,
gulp virgins,
breathe arsons.

But love’s my hoard,
where gold’s gleams
comfort me,
just like thee.

Paranoia is fun.
I once thought of inventing a board game
with that name.
Roll the dice. Deuce.
Go two.
Draw a card.
Your cat has died
after eating the dinner’s scraps.
Go to hospital. Have your stomach pumped.
Forfeit a turn.

The possibilities are endless.
Read the instructions:
Watch out! They are all around you.
I wouldn’t be too quick with those dice.
Keep an eye on the other players.
Listen.
What you do not hear is also important.
Or see, or feel, or taste,
touch, smell or kinesthese;
none of the above;
or all of these.
It is a good day.
Sort of makes you wonder.
Don’t be the first to move.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
One of the other players has instructions
for a different game.
It is called Manic-Depressive.
He/She is watching too, just now,
but the adrenalin is rising.

When things get desperate,
you could draw a card.
Or not.
Nobody wins, of course,
but the best loser
if undefeated in a certain spiritual sense.
The way out is to draw the black card,
though it may only say “Taxes”.