Asterius
Carey Scott Wilkerson
The Minotaur, not known for small talk,
says put your history behind many doors
and imagine the Greek without translations
and systems of space and pleasure in hidden places.
He is thinking now of the conflicting accounts
in the reflective inquiries of certain scholarly types
who presume to reclaim our truth before
veils of naïve beliefs, draped over
texts of sleepwalking
next to exigent, slow
madmen and participles.
The Minotaur further asserts that there exist only
witnesses to dreams or seminars and pictures
in books as one might love to see immured in a maze
or down an unmapped street
or in the ruin of an incomprehensible game.
It is a box and not some other
as you may have wondered
as you are surely expected to ask
as who would not think to suppose
as to the contents therein
as far as can be discerned
a box a box thus the thing it is.
No one would expect you to believe it,
but the Minotaur, not known for his research methods,
consulted three versions of this strophic invocation
and found each to be a fabulism of eponymic flourishes,
none inconsistent with a fractured view
of the trajectory of Western voice speaking over itself
in reflexive jests,
having not finished a sentence in something like four
thousand years.
It is, therefore no surprise at all to find that the Minotaur says
keep your secrets behind just one door and permit only
those who can do the most damage to inspect the evidence,
your repertory of improperly annotated worlds
filled with words you did not write.
He then proposes providentially that the family is not yourself
but your heart or your face, and however the night converges
on your love, there is yet some possibility for this
language, inside out, under the bed, under scrutiny
understanding, of course, that this is not only his head
but a vision of what will remain.
Nor does the Minotaur remember his name.
Carey Scott Wilkerson is a poet, dramatist, and performance theorist. His books include a collection of poems, Ars Minotaurica, and a play, Seven Dreams of Falling, which premiered in summer 2013 at the Lillian Theatre’s Elephant Studio in Los Angeles. Carey Scott Wilkerson is online at CareyScottWilkerson.com.
