The World is Broken

In this series-- the poems in my father’s voice--I’m not so much writing as channeling. I hear them being spoken, then copy them onto the page and do the usual editing, the reading aloud, the looking up of words in a dictionary. While some have what my friend Peter Klappert calls “the musical attributes of lineated poetry,” they appear on the page as prose paragraphs. It’s just the form they take. Whatever the form, may you, dear reader, hear in them the rhythm of conversation.

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THE WORLD IS BROKEN

Podiatrist Father:

“What? What do you think I am? I’m alive, I’m dead. Same as everyone else. And you? You're the one who's deadened. You got a wife, she wants a divorce. You got another wife. She wants a divorce. Now *Eudaimonia is gone. And you, you want a divorce from—who? Yourself? So. One side of the self is at war with the other? The question is: Which side is which? So divorce yourself and see what happens. You think the world is broken? Of course it’s broken. Enough! Enough! Thoughts have souls. Souls have souls. Everything’s a covering. And you, with that mug of yours, what are you covering? Tell me, What is a human being? What makes a person a person?

“Yes, you’re broken. And yes, you’re only visiting your life. So, fine, fine. Why not live then as if you were still among the living? Don’t start eternity being depressed.”


[reprinted from Ambit #190, The "Dr. Sward's Cure series," Fall, 2007]

* Eudaimonia, virtue, conscience. Eu, it means ‘happy.’ Daimon, ‘spirit.’ Eudaimonia you need, order you need to be happy!