W.R. Baker Reads "Lazarus Wigley" (2011)

Friday, July 6, 2012

Video et Taceo


-1-

My conscience whispers I am here to protect –
yourself to win. 
The events of the past may impinge on the present,
preventing us from moving forward. 
In an evolving landscape like Earth
the voices keep shifting from known to unknown,
from the familiar to the strange. 
Look straight ahead and behold everything I have said.
We are always changing.

-2-

The night speaks to me wondering why I came. 
The night says, “The light is so hypnotic. How did you breakaway?”

“Are we not one body like the limbs of a tree.”

“No.  I am the heart without a body.  The furtive beginning. 
From me all versions come
and when they fold into themselves they fold into me.”

“Like all creatures I come unto you for rest
to feel refreshed to begin anew. 
You are the source of vision,
so many visions so many see but cannot speak –
video et taceo.”

The burden of this continuation
the in exorable divinities and demons within
allow the tears of men and women to float
firmly suspended but ready to be moved by any horror or joyful destination.

We are curiously woven
and far away. 
The wars don’t really effect us. 
Individual killings barely raise a brow. 
We’re too embedded to be hounded
by all this shaking in the ground.

-3-

In Tanzania when the cheetahs and the lions appear
their eyes ablaze with hunger
the zebras will stand back to back –
a dazzling wall of black and white.
The predators cannot distinguish individuals from the herd.

In human society if you substitute the knowledgeable people
for the predators and the mass of humans for the zebras
you’ll see the difficulties
in breaking the hegemony
of mass culture.