Notes on Salamanca a Prophecy - Topics in Comparative Literature | ENGL 766, Study notes of English Language

Download Notes on Salamanca a Prophecy - Topics in Comparative Literature | ENGL 766 and more Study notes English Language in PDF only on Docsity! @) (2) a city on a turtle’s back a longhouse / was like Jerusalem 's temple resting on a whale impossible to bring it all together Seneca Nation Salamanca, New York 21.41.74  SENECA JOURNAL 1 “A Poem of Beavers” for Gary Gordon in dream the beavers come to Harry Watt “a child could “speak “communication “were standing in a row “they said I would not “harm them “would not ever “after “hunted mink “& badger “but the beavers were “my friends “& helped me so his story began & I knew it also hearing what he said hearing I knew it was with me from before my time & knew it as a memory of my own grandfathers hot as hunters in the woods but on the edge of old world forests men & women walked by on the way to markets public baths went berrying in summer chased by wolves in winter past the huts where mushrooms hung to dry the old women of the woods lived heavy in grey dresses chin hairs bristling into gentile beards their own familar dogs & cats beside them had the master of the good name learned from these the speech of animals this is the secret all men have retained that greater language of what biological fellowhood will open to us once again ethology the visions of McClure & Chomsky all is changing to a mask Floyd John once showed me had a single tooth if I could make my face a mask I'd be Old Bucktooth Beaver once again old founder of a town we all can live in hoping that no other Duke of Salamanca comes to sponsor a new railroad beavers & blue heron can't live near but hide from in the silence of some lousy cave not a sweet beast he is power not a sweet man he is like a muscle tightened waiting to crack down & break a skull maybe splintering the jaw & making the teeth like his own an almost non-existent row the ghost tooth in the center shining is a mirror we can see ourselves down to the farthest tunnel winding among shining leaves & flowers words & tiny melodies the colors make or if the dream begins with silence in the foot itself that silence stirs it is a dance vibrating at center of each isolated nerve reminds him of the song he wants to sing when dying & if the beaver sings it to him now it means an easy death just as the birth was easy beaver life began in water was a pound of bones & fur sure instinct to the mark sent out his tongue into the left rear nipple sucked sweet yellow sticky milk his mudder gave him “slurp” sez Old Bucktooth Beaver “now I must try a swim around” he’s only an hour old & talking swimming paddling around her tits in noonday sun reclining top of the lodge will learn not to let tail get dry but dribble sweet clarifying.smell from nether hole all creatures hanker for a whiff of smears it on his hands & dabs the fur so comfortable & sweet this is the beaver’s life (sez Old Man Beaver) think I might chew a little wood —just loves to chew & fart— “pleasures are simple “in this world the trick’s “to find a tree & let the sun flash “on my orange tooth “tree chips fly all day “& I will stop never “until the tree shall come to earth “8 never Stop though it may crush me “the film across my eye shall turn to fog “old ones call dying but not without a fight (sez Beaver) Otter stalks him “most cunning raids my tunnels “kicks in my sweetened “mudpatties steaming still hot with my “fragrance stuffs “oil drops & stones up “’s rectum (cries) Me King Otter! Lick Me! the Great Mask of Otter filling Beaver Man’s dreams makes tracks in his corn mush pearly grains of hominy under the otter’s claws otter piss splatters ’s corn soup “sands soft waves of nausea across “my cerebellum o sly dance of “otters on harvest nights full moon “suspended atop an alder pole delights Old Beaver Man gathers descendants around him he stands on the water slaps it hard with his tail (sez) “Old Enemy “Otter “in the name of Longhouse the Great “Rabbinical Council “of elders mystical “mammals the longbeards of ‘Zion America “T have lived my last under the earth “Gnto a new sun I skitter “tribal triumphant (sez Beaver) “I chew off your balls “T survives STIRRING THE ASHES — sun bear moon buffalo 28 THE BEAR ROBE had no claws THE BUFFALO ROBE was headless 30 THE BIG HEADS husk shoes husk belt husk crown bear snout 38