The new Saint George
Ilya Gutner
But that wee write unto them, that they abstaine from the
pollutions of Idoles, and from fornication, and from
things strangled, and from blood.
- Acts 15: 20.
pollutions of Idoles, and from fornication, and from
things strangled, and from blood.
- Acts 15: 20.
Look at me eating that stink tofu in the street.
Would you ever guess that I am not like other people?
I bought it from that woman over there,
from that one other there who does not like me
because she thinks that I am living off my wife.
Yeah, I am a stinking good-for-nothing.
Got a problem with that?
I can’t breathe.
But I am standing eating that stink tofu
I bought with my wife’s money
waiting for my wife to come from work
and pull that dead white mask from off her face
so I can kiss her.
I can’t breathe.
Yeah, I am eating an imaginary paper bowl of stink-fried tofu
at Jin Qiao Station on the 9th line, Jin Qiao, Golden Bridge, you know,
where they get off the train.
And I can’t breathe.
Why can’t I breathe?
Where am I?
Who am I?
Why is they all looking at me?
What’s going on?
I have been silent for so many years
I can no longer tell my voice is mine:
I speak. Is it the air in my throat speaking
or someone else’s air in someone else’s lungs?
So when I hear these words
I do not know who says them:
I can’t breathe.
Friend, is it me
or you?
Which one of us can’t breathe?
I can’t breathe.
I am dying.
I have so long perceived my dreams make way
into the daily thoughts of me that I no longer know
which of my thoughts are mine, and which are real.
When I see a common looter
killed in a brawl with the police
rise up as if a strong drunk man from sleep
and by the angels be caparisoned
from head to toe, as old books say,
in the bright armor of Saint George,
I do not ask myself why this should happen
and ask no old man in the crowd explaining what it means:
does he not set his lance to kill the dragon,
our dragon of the silence of us all?
Then what is there to say?
I can’t breathe.
You are killing me, good people.
I can’t breathe.
I see him stead his horse’s trembling
and measure out the distance in each step
and take aim for the heart
charge
like at the shapelessness and darkness
the word of God:
Let there be light.
And there is light, and also there is darkness
because we can now speak the heart
and say: George Floyd
lives in the truth that cannot become silent
that the high things of man are all despised of heaven,
and who will raise himself, will be abased,
but whom the world looks down on, them heaven will raise up.
Would you ever guess that I am not like other people?
I bought it from that woman over there,
from that one other there who does not like me
because she thinks that I am living off my wife.
Yeah, I am a stinking good-for-nothing.
Got a problem with that?
I can’t breathe.
But I am standing eating that stink tofu
I bought with my wife’s money
waiting for my wife to come from work
and pull that dead white mask from off her face
so I can kiss her.
I can’t breathe.
Yeah, I am eating an imaginary paper bowl of stink-fried tofu
at Jin Qiao Station on the 9th line, Jin Qiao, Golden Bridge, you know,
where they get off the train.
And I can’t breathe.
Why can’t I breathe?
Where am I?
Who am I?
Why is they all looking at me?
What’s going on?
I have been silent for so many years
I can no longer tell my voice is mine:
I speak. Is it the air in my throat speaking
or someone else’s air in someone else’s lungs?
So when I hear these words
I do not know who says them:
I can’t breathe.
Friend, is it me
or you?
Which one of us can’t breathe?
I can’t breathe.
I am dying.
I have so long perceived my dreams make way
into the daily thoughts of me that I no longer know
which of my thoughts are mine, and which are real.
When I see a common looter
killed in a brawl with the police
rise up as if a strong drunk man from sleep
and by the angels be caparisoned
from head to toe, as old books say,
in the bright armor of Saint George,
I do not ask myself why this should happen
and ask no old man in the crowd explaining what it means:
does he not set his lance to kill the dragon,
our dragon of the silence of us all?
Then what is there to say?
I can’t breathe.
You are killing me, good people.
I can’t breathe.
I see him stead his horse’s trembling
and measure out the distance in each step
and take aim for the heart
charge
like at the shapelessness and darkness
the word of God:
Let there be light.
And there is light, and also there is darkness
because we can now speak the heart
and say: George Floyd
lives in the truth that cannot become silent
that the high things of man are all despised of heaven,
and who will raise himself, will be abased,
but whom the world looks down on, them heaven will raise up.
Ilya Gutner lives with his friend, a variable set of cats, the village dogs who come scraping at the door and the rain that comes knocking at the window, in a farmer’s backshed in a village on the disappearing outskirts of Shanghai, and is a student of philosophy.
|
supported by
|
awarded
|