Twelve
a poem
Twelve
How many times must you bang the baby’s
head against the jamb before
you can recall—not fitfully, not once
on an August afternoon, the shadows
off a trembling sun reminding you,
but—always and on instinct, as a chess
master sees the pieces and the grid
in every scattered set of condiments,
that this, this small and red-faced ululating
extension of your body does extend
indeed beyond your body’s limits, past
your grasp and into what recedes beyond
the cracking plaster of the damaged wall
beside the open door?
Borges, Uqbar, Cannonball Blues
[Seven-and-a-half years ago I wrote (in another venue) an essay about folk music that much to my surprise has turned out to be about Chat GPT (et al.). As part of the self-indulgence that I will be wallowing in these upcoming weeks, I thought I’d reproduce the essay, only slightly edited, and let the other shoe hang there, Damoclesistically. What have I…