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Article: What kind of man. (poem)
- Article from:
- The American Poetry Review
- Article date:
- September 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 World Poetry, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"What kind of man are you?" people ask me. I am a man with a complex network of pipes in my soul, sophisticated machineries of emotion and a precisely-monitored memory system of the late twentieth century, but with an old body from ancient days and a God more obsolete even than my body.
I am a man for the surface of the earth. Deep places, pits and holes in the ground make me nervous. Tall buildings and mountaintops terrify me.
I am not like a piercing fork nor a cutting knife nor a scooping spoon nor a flat, wily spatula that sneaks in from underneath. At most I'm a heavy and clumsy pestle that mashes good and evil together for the sake of a little flavor, a ...