Saturday, February 28, 2015

The New Kind of Flesh: "Do you acknowledge the new kind of flesh?"

The poem moves on to its second stanza, connecting the imperative ending the previous stanza, that you get out your animal suit having prepared for the birth of tragedy, with a question that appears to be delivered by the same higher authority speaking previously, but now demanding an active affirmative response, a kind of oath of loyalty to a cult or concept that (after the fact, giving the poem a title) I decided was driving the whole spirit of the poem.  I'm an atheist now, but I was some kind of practicing Catholic when writing many of the poems in Collapse of the Grid, so I'm familiar with rituals that demand a believing response, or a response that in a sense creates its own sense of belief.  That's what faith is: not a recognition of anything that exists, but a yielding to a demand to acknowledge something that doesn't necessarily exist, so that it may exist.  And Christianity is all about a new kind of flesh, almost as though at its inception it had some grasp of the idea that humanity prior to Christianity and humanity after were not even the same species (eugenics, evolution, Childhood's End, apocalypse...)  But the new kind of flesh I was demanding acknowledgement of here was not exactly the same thing, although it could be taken that way, and the acknowledgement itself might not have needed to be a joyful affirmation of faith; it could just as well be an acknowledgement of defeat.

But let me ask right now, before proceeding any further: do you, my legion of readers, acknowledge the new kind of flesh?  Affirm or deny, please.

No comments:

Post a Comment