BY JAN HAAG
FED UP
11-2-97
O Devayani, there isn't too much to tell
about your father
except
that he sometimes wore a tiger's eye
--
not only to replace
his one eye removed
at
eight-one,
but when you were a kid as well,
gleaming through the
forest,
angry, inevitable,
seeking vengeance
for,
you are
sure,
he knew not why --
the tiger's eye, the leopard's
and
the lutefisk.
He was fed up!
And so were you.
He's dead
now.
And so are you.
In the night,
stuffed to the
gills,
still the thoughts come,
angry, illiterate,
waiting for
the fog of morning,
terrified to think of the clear
blue
sky,
and the beauty of the seagull's
bright wings
spreading
over the horizon
like a sea,
rich with an invisible harvest.
Caw! Caw! Caw!
They cry.
Caw! Caw! Caw!
You cry
down between the bushes
of the forest,
unafraid to slink
along
in reality,
terrified
to visit the limitless
beauty
in
thought,
terrified to breathe in the peace
of beauty
in the
night.
Sucking the vision into your head,
catalyzes poison in your
veins,
terror coursing along your arteries
to your heart,
among
the branching, branching, branching
tendrils of your
vessels,
sacred,
pumping,
tick-tock heart
"Tiger, tiger,
burning bright..."
Fed up.
Fed up.
Like a
cricket
rasping
in the night
Fed up.
Fed up.
Fed up.
Too
much for breakfast,
too much for dinner,
too much in the
night,
eating,
filling up,
repletion,
overflowing.
Fed
up.
Fed up.
Fed up.
The birds chirping
in the bush.
Fed
up.
And the terror of the clear blue sky,
of flight,
of light from
the western horizon
turning the world to flames.
You wouldn't dare
be happy,
O Devayani,
you wouldn't dare.
Not under the
tiger's eye,
in a world you didn't
create.
No room for vision
inside,
but paper, as you know,
can absorb everything
even the
jellied
remains of a tiger's eye
terrifyingly
bright in the
night
cataracted with the fear of
fog
at dawn.
Copyright © 2000 Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Jan Haag may be reached via e-mail: jhaag@u.washington.edu
BY JAN HAAG