ARRvol34 master reduced - Flipbook - Page 92
The Case for Apophasis
The time has come to talk of many things, but before that, I may
have discovered some things, which I fear are largely unknown to
other poets, past and present and future, which must come before them, and which I would like here to share it with my reader,
should you be so inclined to receive this particular potential mystery. First, I have, I believe, written something as incomprehensible
to myself as it is likely to be to another person. This is too pathetic
not to share, and so, if you will permit my impinging on your patience, I would like to do so, and to discuss, at not much length, my
frustrations attempting to interpret this drivelous nonsense. Okay?
Here’s the poem:
To scoff is not a manliness, I think.
The rootish door of naming is a boon
that balks the hill some smith has heaped to ring
a hope. So scoff you naming warily,
hope not, and tread the door to heart. The rootish
door is a dog, I think, and meat’s the ban
it wants. Come holding then that ban in arms,
and lay it at the root. Scoff, and hope,
and die, as at the pass before the door,
the dog is barking with the meat there placed.
You almost certainly have as much of a clue what exactly
that insanity is supposed to mean as I do. However, you likely do
not have the time or the patience to attempt to cut this lunatic knot.
I do have the time and patience, and have spent it, for your convenience, in that effort. I have suffered an ignominious, and depressing, defeat. My results, while depressing, are worth repeating here
for exactly one reason: they suggest to me that I have no idea what I
am talking about, most, if not all, of the time.
Let’s start with the obvious.
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