It begins with a host (an immigration) of spirits clobbering
intestines. Think: “Longing as attention seeking,” or “attention
people, we are starting the show.” I will pay in tennis balls, carrot cake,
kangaroos, and quotes. Here are a few goblins. Take my heavenly glow.
All this in exchange for: a tent, shins behind my back. Your chin resting
on my forehead. A hot percentage of breath on the far end
of my skull. I am always pleading: “I love you. Don’t let this be the end
of us.” Twist a strand of my hair as a ring around your finger. Heart clobbering
my chest. Let me hear you whisper: “It’s better when you earn it.” For the rest
to work itself out we must prostrate to abundance and keen attention.
Watch them move us away from glossy shirt buttons and glo-
-ttal moans crescendoing until they’re half bark half Come back! Will we ache
until we get the Touch of Jupiter and self-driving cars? Our celestial lake
keeps spreading farther into nothingness ess ss s… Who’s to say the end
is not contestable? I know pain splashing out of crates. I know The Fig. Lo-
-re of The Garden. Iblis without bliss. Trust me, this hollow clobbering
may appear at first glance as oxymoronic, but deep down we know attention
is fundamental matter, sacred pinch of salt, the difference between resting
on a bed of clouds removing lint from open wounds, and resting
on debonair pyres surrounded by floating ash. For the sake
of squinting babies don’t ask what shape, what color. Attention
will yield transcendence, though eyes readily distort the end
to comfort the lowest common denominator. Our divine clobbering
may yet enable us to reach the time to shout out with faces aglow:
“A half-rhyme is a jab in the eye of a radical!” Across the telluric glo-
be our ripe bananas in baskets on polished tables will keep resting
until we ask: Why is it still legal for anything but poetic clobbering
to handle our holy books? This is a fisting of sorts, a delicious quake.
Spelled without the ‘G.’ In some spots: an ax, a hammer—to redefine the end
as out-of-body experience in lieu of the central vowel. Our attention
is the key—for what is longing when the object of desire is attention
missing itself? All praise the Higgs boson and his son. In my lungs, a glow-
-ing delirium swirls. This kind of hunger is not the thrum before the end,
but thrumming of every sense to blockbuster soundtracks. Time to rest
the crates of returned Rolexes near the ship’s umbilical cord. We will wake
in astronautic suits. Leave behind fogged-up breath. Embrace the clobbering.
It’ll turn us inside-out and upside-down. Our end will rival Isaac resting
on Abraham’s lap willing his own sacrifice. Let us toast to attention so glo-
-rious it’ll make the hearts of our own spirits ache for a human kind of clobbering.