I never wanted to be this far Into the business of heaven Chasing my father hunting His soul in the corn and confusion of this harvest My father who is hidden In the last sheaf of heaven maybe Heaven itself My father the corn-wolf Who we must kill but is already dead We will learn nothing Here of sacrifice or the cocaine Of beauty my hands Chattering in eulogy Which is a search for beauty Which is nothing but The elimination of beauty by artifice By artifice we cauterize My father’s drifting life A minor cosmetic surgery Like liposuction a funeral is An elimination of nature by artifice By artifice do you repeat yourself Very well then I repeat Myself as heaven as a golden harvest As a broken ocean of corn The search for beauty is The elimination of death Which requires dying Which is the business of farming Which no one cares to do Anymore in America And like dying we’d rather rent it out Freedom without freedom To hold your dying father up To a razor beneath a golden light And cut him finally in and out of the world
This poem is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
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