Discussion of Rhetoric
Let’s say I tell you that a horse is good for battle.
You’ve never seen a horse before.
I’ve never seen a horse before.
Let me tell you that it has long ears and smells of shit,
is very steady, has an incredible capacity to carry.
Let’s say I’m telling the entire city. Everyone listening.
No one has ever seen a horse.
Am I not
your friend? Is this
ridiculous?
Only, they listen, these city folk,
and I’m not at fault, describing a bad idea
to the best of my ability.
Where can this soul-leading take us, except into the dark heart
of who are our friends and whom shall we marry?
So many things you tell me I believe
before they’ve even formed in your brain.
It’s you I will marry.
I’ve already followed you into thinking
there’s nothing that won’t be victory,
that northern air will render me happy.
There is a single art, if we can call it an art,
face changer, bell ringer.
Even if horse stays only five letters, wielded well, we follow.
When he set sounds to symbols
did Palamedes know what he’d done?
Intelligence designing artificial intelligence,
gilding the air,
leaving clues for each to shatter into phonemes
sounded out for the children. Pah. Lah. May. Deez.
Oh my dearest dear, you go to work every day to a job you hate
and come home looking better than ever.
All the arrangements are made so,
in seven months, we and our closest
and dearest will toast our
Let’s honeymoon in Athens.
Holding me as you fall asleep,
I’m convinced.
I’ll show you the Agora,
the missing pediments of the Parthenon.
But look—they do know what horses are,
tightly bound and powerful,
a line marching along into battle.
Standing there,
our bodies inlayed
and a dry salt wind—
Everything must be put together
as a living creature
if any of this is going to work.