By: Jonathan Vos Post

Jonathan Vos Post — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:01:11 +0000

Happy Spam-Day! Here’s another of my pastiches from a modern American classic that has hitherto only appeared on a blog. I have several others based on thesame spam, pastiching other classics, but this one gives you a flavorof the set.It has genre elements, being based on a standard e-mail spam, andusing genre vocabulary (mask, spirit, inquisitor, enchanting,ghostlier):Jonathan Vos Post ::: (view all by) ::: July 04, 2005,09:01 PM: [Making Light blog]The Idea of Order in Nigeriaby Jonathan Vos Post[with apologies to Wallace Stevens'”The Idea of Order in Key West”]Miriam Abacha sang beyond the genius of the sea.The water never formed to mind or voice,Like a body wholly body, flutteringIts empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motionMade constant cry, caused constantly a cry,That was not ours although we understood,Inhuman E-mails, of the veritable ocean.The sea was not a mask. No more was she.Saluted in the name of the most high God.The song and water were not medleyed soundEven if what she sang was what she heard,Since what she sang was uttered word by word.What commission? As much as a third,For bank account expenses, once transferred.It may be that in all her phrases stirredThe grinding water and the gasping wind;But it was she and not the sea we heard.For she was the maker of the song she sang.Former first lady, Federal Republic of Nigeria.Inquisitor-hooded, tragic-gestured seaWas merely a place by which she walked to sing.Her daughter had free movement, and could bringAll details to you, unmonitored byNigerian Government Agents of Security.Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knewIt was the spirit that we sought and knewThat we should ask this often as she sang.To save the family from bankruptcy.If it was only the dark voice of the seaThat rose, or even colored by many waves;If it was only the outer voice of skyAnd cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,However clear, it would have been deep air,The heaving speech of air, a summer soundRepeated in a summer without endAnd sound alone. But it was more than that,More even than her voice, and ours, amongThe meaningless plungings of water and the wind,Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped,Like the sum of thirty million U.S. Dollars,Of cash removed through covert meansFrom family safe at Kano State.On high horizons, mountainous atmospheresOf sky and sea.It was her voice that madeThe sky acutest at its vanishing.As vanished General Sani Abacha,Late Nigerian military Head of State,Leaving the widow, the son Mohammed,Undergoing trial in Oputa, Lagos,Abuja, by the present civilian regime.She measured to the hour its solitude.She was the single artificer of the worldIn which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,Whatever self it had, became the selfThat was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,As we beheld her striding there alone,In distress and under house arrest,Knew that there never was a world for herExcept the one she sang and, singing, made.Miriam Abacha, tell me, if you know,When I e-mail you my bank account data,Why, when the singing ended and we turnedTowards Nigeria, tell why the glassy lights,The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,As the night descended, tilting in the air,Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.Oh! Blessed rage for order, dark Miriam,The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,Words of the Web, fragrant portals, dimly-starred,And of ourselves and of our origins,In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

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By: Jonathan Vos Post