Against a Sickness: To the Female Double…

She said: “I’m god and all

of this and that world and love

garbage and slaughter all the time

and spring once a year. Once a year

I like to love. You can adjust

to the discipline or not,

and your sacrificial act

called ‘Fruitfulness in Decay’

would be pleasing to me

as long as you did it with joy.

Otherwise, the prayer ‘Decay,

Ripe in the Fruitfulness’

will do if you have to despair.”

Prayer

You know that girl of yours

I liked? The one with strong legs,

grey eyes, weak in the chest

but always bouncing around?

The one they call “The Laugh,”

“The Walk,” “That Cunt,” “The Brain,”

“Talker, Talker, Talker,” and

“The Iron Woman”? Well,

she’s gone, gone gone, gone

gone gone to someone else,

and now they say that she,

“My Good,” “My True,” “My Beautiful,”

is sick to her god-damned

stomach and rejects all

medication. What do you do

to your physical praisers that

they fall apart so fast

or leave me? She needs help now,

yours or that prick’s,

I don’t know which.

“I have worked out

my best in belief

of the rule, ‘The best

for the best results

in love of the best,’

or, ‘To hell with it:

I am just god:

it’s not my problem.”’

I will sit out this passion

unreconciled, thanks: there are

too many voices. My visions

are not causal but final:

there’s no place to go to

but on. I’ll dance at the ends

of the white strings of nerves

and love for a while, your slave.

Oh stupid condition, I drink

to your Presences in hope of sleep

asleep, and continuity awake.

Copyright Credit: Alan Dugan, “Against a Sickness: To the Female Double Principle God” from Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry. Copyright © 2001 by Alan Dugan. Reprinted with the permission of Seven Stories Press.

Source: Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry (Seven Stories Press, 2001)