J.P. Grasser
At Last
Because, in the beginning, the minds
of men had not yet swung the idea
of Time into the noosed-shape
it of course makes, they could not see
their histories as deciduous, but instead
believed progress meant forward,
only forward, sword, then steam,
then silicon, & so moved toward
the future as if it were a solid state,
as if they wished upon themselves
an endpoint. One says the minds
of men, because who else, what other
type, should use its rarest muscle
to take an idea & from it fashion
an arrow.
In the beginning,
the corporate sharecroppers
of Iowa found themselves proud
owners of beachfront shacks
& the Texans gouged prices,
charging an arm & leg both,
to watch the Southern Lights
shed gamma rays like the molten
feathers of ostriches.
In the beginning
none gawked; few found
glee in the vast spectacles
of animal migration. Already
their stories were filled
with displacement, with droves
of creatures un-homed, filled
already with consequence
but never the topographies
of inaction—their montages
& dreams alike were woven
of destruction—& so it was
not the skies awash with ash
& vultures that struck them
as surprising, but rather the sheer
multitudes. The bellies of the dead
swelled with maggots. The flies
bloomed to dense clouds,
& with them the birds became
ever fruitful. The sky was bluer
for the sheets of bluebirds who
hung there, looping & frantic.
On every wire, an abacus of crows.
Already they were conditioned
to fear the stench of burning
flesh, the acridity of tire-fires.
They had not planned to smell
boiled halibut, broccoli steaming
in the fields.
In the beginning
they were so kind to themselves.
In the beginning they washed
their cats & gerbils as once they
washed apples. In the beginning
they chiseled shelves into cave-walls
& there preserved the great minds.
In the beginning, they boarded
up every window. They said window
so often, crossing the panes
with duct-tape, covering the panes
with the compressed flesh of balsa trees,
that the word itself sounded closer
to winnow with each passing day.
A Wallace Stegner Fellow, J.P. Grasser is a doctoral candidate in Literature & Creative Writing at the University of Utah, where he serves as Editor-in-Chief for Quarterly West. Read more at: www.jpgrasser.com
Return to July 2018 Edition
Because, in the beginning, the minds
of men had not yet swung the idea
of Time into the noosed-shape
it of course makes, they could not see
their histories as deciduous, but instead
believed progress meant forward,
only forward, sword, then steam,
then silicon, & so moved toward
the future as if it were a solid state,
as if they wished upon themselves
an endpoint. One says the minds
of men, because who else, what other
type, should use its rarest muscle
to take an idea & from it fashion
an arrow.
In the beginning,
the corporate sharecroppers
of Iowa found themselves proud
owners of beachfront shacks
& the Texans gouged prices,
charging an arm & leg both,
to watch the Southern Lights
shed gamma rays like the molten
feathers of ostriches.
In the beginning
none gawked; few found
glee in the vast spectacles
of animal migration. Already
their stories were filled
with displacement, with droves
of creatures un-homed, filled
already with consequence
but never the topographies
of inaction—their montages
& dreams alike were woven
of destruction—& so it was
not the skies awash with ash
& vultures that struck them
as surprising, but rather the sheer
multitudes. The bellies of the dead
swelled with maggots. The flies
bloomed to dense clouds,
& with them the birds became
ever fruitful. The sky was bluer
for the sheets of bluebirds who
hung there, looping & frantic.
On every wire, an abacus of crows.
Already they were conditioned
to fear the stench of burning
flesh, the acridity of tire-fires.
They had not planned to smell
boiled halibut, broccoli steaming
in the fields.
In the beginning
they were so kind to themselves.
In the beginning they washed
their cats & gerbils as once they
washed apples. In the beginning
they chiseled shelves into cave-walls
& there preserved the great minds.
In the beginning, they boarded
up every window. They said window
so often, crossing the panes
with duct-tape, covering the panes
with the compressed flesh of balsa trees,
that the word itself sounded closer
to winnow with each passing day.
A Wallace Stegner Fellow, J.P. Grasser is a doctoral candidate in Literature & Creative Writing at the University of Utah, where he serves as Editor-in-Chief for Quarterly West. Read more at: www.jpgrasser.com
Return to July 2018 Edition