{"id":1812,"date":"2025-05-08T12:36:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T17:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/?p=1812"},"modified":"2025-05-08T12:37:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T17:37:26","slug":"kinder-hallucinations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/2025\/05\/kinder-hallucinations\/","title":{"rendered":"Kinder Hallucinations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Poetry, my ragged mistress, naked with golden sap dripping from her fingers<\/span><\/p>\n

Offered reprieve from the bonesaw nights of self cannibalism.<\/span><\/p>\n

As that last shot reached my mainline, she came through the room.<\/span><\/p>\n

(I could always spot her by the way she walked, like an old lamp with a warm light.)<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been doing it wrong, <\/span><\/i>she told me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You\u2019re asking the wrong questions:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Do not ask the beast to quit eating.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Feed it, by dreaming it a storm to be wild in.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Do not feed it a low-hanging fruit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Deprive it only of the pair left to its misery.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Rotting fruit, to be sure, is forbidden,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 But by forbidding, God lifts her skirt and winks.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Poetry, my ragged mistress, clothed me in a sheet of silk. Pulled the moonshine from my eyes and planted stars in its place. Poetry bathed me, cradling my head in the water. Her fingers in my hair like a halo, she spoke:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0So let us eat fruit. And by our eating let nectar rot our teeth with kinder hallucinations:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The moon you see is a funny egg!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Who waves at its stupid children sitting below, asking, \u2018what does it mean?\u2019 Those children are not great thinkers, or great sufferers, or great lovers. They are the billions of mustard\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 seeds trying to convince themselves that they are not heaven. Heaven does not take place on a cloud, but in the belly of a giant whose name is the mind. The mind is a mouse chasing a cat\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 through a song.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Music is not poetry, but poetry is music. Like a songbird is a symphony without lies. And lies are not poetry, but neither is the truth. The truth is almost honest. Poetry is never honest\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0but honesty is poetry, a wayward junkie’s tears are honest, but they are not the ocean. The ocean is a far bigger drop of honesty: The tears of the thousands of junkies, on buses, in boxcars, in\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0offices and schools, in soup kitchens and churches, in hospitals and rehabs, the collected weight of them, that is the ocean. The passing of cruel metaphors like a knife in the gut of everyone\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0who ever loved, the sweet song that sows the wound, that is poetry. A kinder hallucination, aching to be born again in better weather, but bleeding for a foggy sun all the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Call the sweet sorrow by its name. It is the broken promise of an apple who never spoke, and certainly never swore. It is the language of liars and lovers and lovers who lie in love,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 whispering the word, <\/span>poetry. <\/span><\/i>Its name is the grass and the skin, and the skin whose soul is alive enough to feel the grass. Waking in a dream and walking with sleep, that is poetry. One\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 weeping body blooming and becoming the body of all who have wept. That form, like a forbidden fruit, forged the truth of the earth in a phrase:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I understand you. Lie with me, and we will tell truths as we lie.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Poetry, my ragged mistress, naked with golden sap dripping from her fingers Offered reprieve from the bonesaw nights of self<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1814,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}