Sunday, December 13, 2009

In The Hole

Here’s a shapeshifting poem. I wrote it in third person. The thing about shifting into a gopher – that’s too far down the food chain. If you shift in, you better leave behind a trail of clarity so you can shift back out by rote. Otherwise you are stuck for the duration. Granted a gopher life is not a long one, but the dying is generally not pleasant. Once in a gopher soul you can’t marshall enough to inaugurate a shapeshift back out, so your out has to be there already formed.

Granted, I don’t know why someone would actually want to be a gopher. But here’s another issue with shapeshifting: it is easy enough to slip sideways if you don’t keep discipline. You can end up a gopher by accident. That’s what I did. Shit.

In The Hole

The gopher digging
his way past the tangled roots
of the rose above,
wondering what's next
and why he should encounter
the hint of fragrance,
the sign of sharp thorns.
It's dark in his hole, but life
glows, lights his dim thought.

March 6, 2009 8:50 PM

9 comments:

  1. i don't see what's so bad about being a gopher... but then... i'm the guy who thinks it would be great to be a ant... at least for a day! but yeah... then you've gotta find your way back

    nice poem here christopher... drew me into the hole in the ground too!

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  2. i am loving this! i think i like your prologue as much as, if not more than, the poem.
    um, aren't gophers prey? not a pleasant end, methinks. then again, fulfilling your purpose in life, what could be better?

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  3. Jon there's nothing immediately wrong with being a gopher. When things are going good then the senses are a constant stream of something approaching joy. On the other hand it is easy for something to go wrong. And wrong is really wrong.

    Standing, I am quite sure there is not one prey individual who doesn't protest at some point in the process of being eaten.

    {{{Michelle}}} I saw your blog. If the rock rolls down the hill you have to push it back up. Not cool, I know. I had it easier with my wife. There really wasn't anyone so I didn't have to struggle over the issue of why I wasn't getting any help. In fact I did get help at critical moments, real blessings because there was no one who was obligated. Then in the end, her sister came out and left me free of the burden. That didn't work for her sister any better than it did for me. Then my wife finally died and left us all free.

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  4. Yeah well, I figure it will be over soon enough and I am trying to count my blessings and not feel guilty for feeling like that :)

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  5. Yes, careful, careful of the sideways slip. Shift you may, but shifting back...always a challenge.

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  6. Hey, Annie. Some say that this life is exactly that, a sideways slip into a world that nobody would willingly travel to. We are all here by that sort of accident.

    If we ever catch on to it in significant numbers then it will dissolve and something even worse will replace it. There are some who say this has already happened.

    Twice.

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  7. Sideways slip up ahead?

    Gopher it!

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  8. Oh my God, we have a punster in our midst. Speaking of sideways slips...

    Never get caught shifting into the mind of a punster. That's the worst of traps. :) Then you start saying things like

    I've never cinnamon with so much wit. That's what I camphor.

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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