Armor
For almost a decade,
my old book collection has been jammed
in boxes in the corner
of my brother’s shop, soaking up gas
fumes and floating ash from the arc welder.
Faust, The Birth of Tragedy,
Parerga and Paralipomena, The Essays of Plutarch,
Letters from
a Stoic, Tulips & Chimneys.
Books whose pages I ravaged
as a young and starving beast. I used to feed
on poems & aphorisms,
metaphors. I wasn’t interested in the food others
of my species
were eating.
To be drunk on the power
of Nietzschean
suggestion – that’s what got me through.
It was like donning
the Armor of Achilles
which not only protected me
from the frauds
& philistines, the dillweeds & Debbie Downers
that dominated my world in those days,
but imbued me with such
a wild & extraordinary sense of exuberance,
such an overflowing
feeling of energy, it seemed sometimes
I was made of explosive
material, strong enough to blow a hole in the side
of the universe.
But the feeling eventually wore off,
like anything.
And soon I moved
to Berlin, the books staying
unloved, unwanted, untouched –
for nine years
the white-hot Armor of Achilles wasting away
in pieces,
in boxes, all its remaining power
given over
to the invading
silverfish.
-- M.P. Powers, TFJ Issue Two: Energy