Kennedy - Nietzsches horse

Nietzsches Horse

Christopher Kennedy

Dzanc Books
1334 Woodbourne Street
Westland, MI 48186
www.dzancbooks.org

Copyright 2001 Nietzsches Horse by Christopher Kennedy

All rights reserved, except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher.

Published 2012 by Dzanc Books
A Dzanc Books rEprint Series Selection

The following poems appeared in these publications, some in slightly different form:
Decomposition #239 and The Broken Lock - 3rd Bed
Pets - Heliotrope
Three Stories - The Mississippi Review

eBooks ISBN-13:978-1-937854-46-1
eBook Cover Designed by Steven Seighman

Published in the United States of America

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

For my daughters, Margeaux and Tessa, and for Steph, whose love and friendship sustain me.

You have wanted to pet all monsters.

Nietzsche

My father was a holy ghost. My mother a 20 Zenith. The progeny of religion and television, a machine with a soul, I wandered, unplugged, searching for a current. And when the neighbors asked me in, out of curiosity or spite, 1 plugged myself in and kept them entertained with visions of an electric heaven, a neon hell. When 1 signed off, I sang the national anthem, led them in a prayer, and as the star-spangled banner unfurled across my chest theyd stand and salute, say what a good boy I was.

I cant say exactly when it turned bad. Their faces as they stared began to have the quality of raw meat, marbled slabs caught in the false reverie of my cathode ray rapture. I could feel myself becoming human, the sharp edges of my cabinet rounding out, muscles and tissue where I once held transistors.

When emotions crept in, I knew I was finished. Pity came first, then all the other annihilating Truths. So when I finished my last performance at the Golden Age of Television Tent Revival Meeting, I shed my first tear and said a prayer under my breath for the sold-out crowd as I pulled the plug on myself, ashamed of mine own America.

After the minotaurs timely or untimely death, depending on your perspective, the new occupant, a pleasant mythological creature named Stan, who had a human head, an elephants body, a kangaroos hind legs, and an ostrichs vestigial wings, set up home. He brought his prints with him and hung them on the walls: Mondrian; Picasso; Miro; Chagall. He loved them all, and though it took a few years for him to be sure hed hung prints on every wall, he couldnt rest until the place felt homey. Of course, in the process, he discovered exactly how to get in and out of the labyrinth in a few minutes. So he could leave at any time, but he decided it was nice inside the labyrinth and stayed. Those who were sentenced to wander there agreed with Stan, and it was inevitable that once they met him theyd become friends.

At Stans parties, the guests, or the condemned as they liked to refer to themselves, would see who could get to the exit of the labyrinth the quickest. But theyd always go back to the party, reporting their time to Stan, who was busy arranging finger sandwiches on a silver tray or tasting a new pt.

Eventually, word of Stans parties got to the king, and he entered the labyrinth himself to check out his information. Nice pad, Stan, said the king, when he saw all the modern art on the walls. And this is how the modern world came into being. Not at all scary, not at all as serious as you might think.

I found van Goghs ear in a box of cereal. I poured the cereal into a bowl, and there amid the flakes and raisins lay the ear. At first, I didnt recognize it. I thought it might be a piece of dried fruit, fig or apricot. But when I picked it up and held it in the palm of my hand, I knew it was an ear. Now, I had to decide whose ear. I ruled out Gettys grandson. It was too big, as his, I remembered, was curled and small like a snail. No, it was Vincents ear, ant-crawled, decomposing, listening, perhaps, to the (metallic) sound of Gods voice. Delicate layers of skin, wrinkled and peeling, until all that was left was a soft cartilage. I put it back in the bowl and poured on the milk. Then there was the matter of a spoon.

My love affair with tapioca ended as quickly as it began. It was, and still is I suppose, varicose veins that ruined the marriage. Methuselah loved the lake in winter. I was as lonely as Emily Dickinsons gynecologist.

Ill never forget the man with one finger who looked me in the eye and said, Maybe if you cut your hair, you wouldnt look so much like Francis Bacon.

The smell of formaldehyde, thats what Ill remember best, the antiseptic glow, the Nuremberg in her eyes. That Hermione should choose to marry a moose was no surprise, accepted even.