The Potty Trapeze

Except ourselves, we have no other prayer--Vassar Miller, a cross over sleight of hand

Why I resist the violence necessary for divine grace relates to a failed devotional youth. I do not “praise the Lord” in the fashion of Pentatonix and their aspirational chorus, though their appearance under Steve Harvey’s televised presentation possibly initiated congestive heart failure, whatever Shawn’s concerted efforts on my behalf toward restoration. My armor crumbled against that transcendent lyricism, and yet resistance remains in the shards of equanimity: I cannot restore the faith that Mary, my mother’s sister, never left, not that she expresses her devout sensibilities on the edge, as I would if I tried again. We are quite past the war with God that we would find in the anti-clerical rebellion of Maldoror, and I spent a good portion of my young alienated heart throbs, their wall of separation, being apart from unity with an anthropomorphic creator. The rest of my lifespan is too short, yet this child Kaylee's convinced optimism and passionate invocation is enough to invite the will to perish. I never had that victory in the struggle for or against belief. As far as my circumstances are concerned, I have to work in very small increments until I can create the psychic wall between my necessary intimacy with this care giver, and the isolation a writer needs; and I can’t rebel. He stayed on rather than chancing a better position because I pouted, knowing what I could more easily manipulate to have my own way than not. Yet I do not have the mortal time left to “give it time,” in the common vernacular. You can count the five months as well as I, still in need of file conversion, particularly as I lost my link to Sean. He told me he would help me prior to Victoria’s ill repute gaining ground. Regardless of whether or not I manage to stay out of Inglis—no small miracle—my wick is at low burn. I’m certainly not going to tolerate tubular insertion into my digestive tract, as did my dialectical predecessor, Vassar Miller, who had a normal spastic lifespan.

The light touch I take with poetics is partly due to the vast aesthetics involved. There are too many poets, too many branches, and I am not known for the sterling discipline of a syllabus, but if I had enough access to her output, I'd clear the table for the critical analysis Vassar more than richly deserves. Her own hymnals embedded in her stanzas are as weighty as mine. I may reject the notion that a superhuman being posits humanity as its primary concern, but I take the ecumenical battle with the autonomic materialism of observable phenomena very seriously, as much as did Steven Sontag's mother. Like Jacob, I will not release the angel from my grip. My hip was dislocated long before the wrestling match ensued. That's Catholic atheism, as opposed to an agnostic cop out.