Jesse Ball - The Village on Horseback - Prose and Verse, 2003-2008

Though it is often said that Noah escaped the flood due to a warning from God, we find it much more likely that he happened anyway to be building a boat and happened anyway to be amassing a living record of the world, that he happened anyway to be at sail on that particular day when the skies opened. In short it was a mixture of diligence and chance that saved him from that which claimed all other lives. Yet he is not alone in this. For plague is as voluminous as water, as all-seeing, as dark-minded. I shall speak of those who have built arks with which to weather that deft and thriftless horror, the bubonic plague.

I leap down from the still-moving train and cry out to you— after so long, I have arrived at last.

— Have you then, arrived at last, you say doubtfully, and this dream too is confined to a place of disrepute and forfeit.

No! No!

And with that the curtains break from the ceiling and fall, crushing the almost imperceptibly tiny figures below in immense and incarcerating folds.

And with the light of a sudden fields appear and houses, hills topped with green and gray outcroppings of stone.

Those there are walking alone with a stick in black night that come now at once with me to day. In the wood where the reddest bird draws on its beak and ascends to its body, there I will wait and consider what first I will say.

Pastimes are arranged so precisely in this collapsible season to prepare for the arrival at any moment of a still greater conception. This is to say the youngest and prettiest girls put on their best clothes but do not go out or even rise to answer the door.

Recording the moment of his death in the twelfth century, Abbot Corgris had himself dipped in ink and placed on a thirty-foot-square piece of drawn cloth. Has the record since been lost? I have not seen it in my travels to England’s abbeys and convents, but of course, someone could be treasuring it, keeping it in a sacred place and looking glowingly upon it from time to time. It is said his sprawling death moved him first towards the top of the canvas and then away down and left.

A large animal attacked a child between four and five crowds that had been on the avenue. Neither the fourth nor the fifth was there. One had left, one was to come.

The child was alone. Then, a rustling in the bushes. A large animal; yes, a large animal. Presumably it tore the child limb from limb or bit at it over and over while pinning it beneath a hideous forepaw. I really can’t say exactly what happened having not been there and indeed never having heard of the incident until now.

I dug a hole with an antique trench shovel that my great grandfather brought back from the wars. It fits in the hand so nicely, it makes you wish there were more reasons to use a trench shovel. And how it folds up so deliciously and fits so precisely into its tarpaulin carrying sack! I decided then and there I would hate Mrs. Eddling whose place is next over. So, I began by pelting her with stones. When she responded badly to this, the line was drawn. I dug a trench clear across the yard. Eventually I will dig another and another until I reach the house. Then I will push her into a hole and use my antique shovel to throw dirt in until there’s too much for her to bear and then I will rest and after a while finish the job, but oh my it is nice to have this spade and I really don’t mind at all inventing reasons to use it. Don’t you feel the same way?

I saw a man with the wind in a bag go about in a finely tailored suit here and there showing off his finely trimmed hooves and saying, dear sir, dear madamoiselle, are you aware that the show is about to begin?

Six to nine men or women are to be gathered, masked, and cleansed of recognizable detail. There each puts forward some task he or she needs solved. Then unbeknownst to the others, each takes on one of the other’s tasks and performs it secretly.

Opening the vent, I am engaged, yes, desperately engaged, in moving the air from the outside in. It is this way with me that when I become furious and reach a red wall in my thoughts, I do not speak or make any outer countenancing, but go straightaway to this place and open the vent. Thereafter shall follow, thereafter follows, events in which I can take no pride.

And shall we predict the passage of a certain young lady down the street? Yes, a certain young lady, a certain girl, wearing a rather stiff rubber suit. It is a punishment enacted by her father, a veterinarian. He is pleased to drive very thin pins into the back of her neck which swell at his command.

What if you were told of this behavior of his? What if you were witness to it in his house, brought there as a guest? Do you have within you the strength to stand up to him? He seems sometimes to be at least a hundred feet tall, with a face as deep as an avenue.

At the edge of these reflections, there is a little closet into which one can sometimes cram oneself. Then to sit there until everyone has gone, and the house is empty! I wonder, have the hallways of my youth extricated themselves from all our foolish pranks?

The knife strikes here and there, thin as a bird beak, and wanting as much to satisfy some undisclosed covenant of shape that stands as a rebuke to our present geometry.

Do I desire to have the dresses from the backs of all the loveliest workers in this cruel factory? Is it in the name of an inspection that this will be done? Then what smooth well-formed limbs, what lithe shoulders, what slender waists. . are not the women of our collective beautiful? Indeed it is sometimes said that in the factory they are not forced to work at all but only to bathe and groom and shape themselves in long cool tiled rooms while discussing philosophy. Is it true? Is such a hideous rumor true? Well, I confess, our truest natures are to be found in lunacy, and it is over such a realm that I preside, even now. Out with the lamp!

How disappointing it is to find that so many of the doors one comes upon in the hills and between the streets, yes in the town where you were born, beside the towering hospital, lead nowhere and do not give onto that great and stretching second world for which you hope and hope.

Defeating the world’s strongest man in a fight does not make you the world’s strongest man, just as killing Jesse James does not make you Jesse James.

The King is the first: all must obey him, at least when in his presence. That is why the King keeps a court — in order to enlarge his presence.

I went out without my coat. The day was too cold, and I suffered there in the street, going about my business.

Small women and men called to me with their paltry voices. A dog was attaching itself to a very beautiful girl where a green spread of grass met the street. She was using both hands to keep her skirt down, and the weather was bad.