But first a little background - this is from Sexton's collection "Transformations" which use mostly the original, undiluted, pre-Disneyfied Grimm's fairy tales as their source. It's really a pretty masterful book, with a lot of incredible imagery and pointed language that does much more than just paraphrase some already macabre source material.
There are so many awesome lines and images here: death as "a little crotch dance," wearing "his righteousness like a swastika," "the big blackout/the big no." Even if you haven't read the original story there's plenty here to savor.
I'm sure eighteen somebodies have already done their theses on this, but both Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath (with whom she's often compared, like a Yankee Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova) appropriate a lot of Nazi/Holocaust imagery in their work. I'd guess one factor could be that at the time they were reaching the peak of their work in the '50s and '60s, previously hidden or unknown historical facts about the war were coming to light. Plus, Nazis were just beginning to be appropriated by pop culture as the unimpeachable choice for arch-nemesis.
Regardless, enjoy and have wonderful nightmares tonight.
Godfather Death
Anne Sexton
Mister tyranny,
each message you give
has a dance to it,
a fish twitch,
a little crotch dance.
A man, say,
has twelve children
and damns the next
at the christening ceremony.
God will not be the godfather,
that skeleton wearing his bones like a broiler,
or his righteousness like a swastika.
The devil will not be the godfather
wearing his streets like a whore.
Only death with its finger on our back
will come to the ceremony.
Death, with one-eyed jack in his hand,
makes a promise to the thirteenth child:
My Godchild, physician you will be,
the one wise one, the one never wrong,
taking your cue from me.
When I stand at the head of a dying man,
he will die indelicately and come to me.
When I stand at his feet,
he will run on the glitter of wet streets once more.
And so it came to be.
Thus this doctor was never a beginner.
He knew who would go.
He knew who would stay.
This doctor,
this thirteenth but chosen,
cured on straw or midocean.
He could not be elected.
He was not the mayor.
He was more famous than the king.
He peddled his fingernails for gold
while the lepers turned into princes.
His wisdom
outnumbered him
when the dying king called him forth.
Godfather death stood by the head
and the jig was up.
This doctor,
this thirteenth but chosen,
swiveled that king like a shoebox
from head to toe,
and so, my dears,
he lived.
Godfather death replied to this:
Just once I'll shut my eyelid,
you blundering cow.
Next time, Godchild,
I'll rap you under my ankle
and take you with me.
The doctor agreed to that.
He thought: A dog only laps lime once.
It came to pass,
however,
that the king's daughter was dying.
The king offered his daughter in marriage
if she were to be saved.
The day was as dark as the Fuhrer's headquarters.
Godfather death stood once more at the head.
The princess was as ripe as a tangerine.
Her breasts purred up and down like a cat.
I've been bitten! I've been bitten!
cried the thirteenth but chosen
who had fallen in love
and thus turned her around like a shoebox.
Godfather death
turned him over like a camp chair
and fastened a rope to his neck
and led him into a cave.
In this cave, murmured Godfather death,
all men are assigned candles
that ince by inch number their days.
Your candle is here.
And there it sat,
no bigger than an eyelash.
The thirteenth but chosen
jumped like a wild rabbit on a hook
and begged it to be relit.
His white head hung out like a carpet bag
and his crotch turned blue as a blood blister,
and Godfather death, as it is written,
put a finger on his back
for the big blackout,
the big no.
No comments:
Post a Comment