My Humanities Division Talking of Michaelangelo

My Humanities Division

Comes and Goes

 A goiter it seems I got from this backward craning
like the cats get there in Lombardy, or wherever
—bad water, they say, from lapping their fetid river.
My belly, tugged under my chin, 's all out of whack.
     Beard points like a finger at heaven. Near the back
of my neck, skull scrapes where a hunchback's lump would be.
I'm pigeon-breasted, a harpy! Face dribbled—see?—
like a Byzantine floor, mosaic. From all this straining
     my guts and my hambones tangle, pretty near.
Thank God I can swivel my butt about for ballast.
Feet are out of sight; they just scuffle around, erratic.
     Up front my hide's tight elastic; in the rear
it's slack and droopy, except where crimps have callused.
I'm bent like a bow, half-round, type Asiatic.
     Not odd that what's on my mind,
when expressed, comes out weird, jumbled. Don't berate;
no gun with its barrel screwy can shoot straight.
     Giovanni, come agitate
for my pride, my poor dead art! I don't belong!
Who's a painter? Me? No way! They've got me wrong.

                                                      Michelangelo (Nims)

“The highest purpose

is to have no purpose

at all. This puts one

in accord with nature

in her manner of operation. “

                                                                       John Cage

“[But] As for me, the silence and the

emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see.

—Listen and do not hear—

The tongue moves but does not speak….

I want you to prey for me—that I let Him

have [a] free hand.”                                      Mother Teresa

It’s a Mission Impossible

I serve: blind and deaf,

clod of unknowing,

leaning in to listen

unceasingly

incessantly

precarious.

On the other hand:

confident & fearful,

anxious & cheerfull;.

aware & oblivious,

on whom nothing

is loss & all is loss

and all manner of

things is loss