The Word Without Weight - Eric Maroney

She is looking for the mumbled word

Slit from the womb of voice

Speck of thought, wearing the clothes of thought

Shedding the garments of voice

While the body is stretched through time

And becomes the instrument of voice

Taken away from us

And you ask from the other room

“What did you say?”

Voices like tumbled stones

Still, they talk on

Grasping, twisting, the

Way of love is spoken

That men swallow their tongues

Swollen, hampered by speech

Seeking the other, but hiding, surprised,

This defense of aging men

Not much to say?

Make a friend of silence

Speak the sound

Say the word

This may be God

A sound of wind on this hill

In the dark upland

Say it, say this

The word without weight

Marcus Aurelius for the People

I have been reading and re-reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations for years.  The translation in the Penguin edition always suffered from a kind of stiff literalism.  It was as if the translator wanted to make the Meditations a more formal work than it is.

Gregory Hays, in his translation of the work, pitches the idea that the Meditations  was never meant for publishing, and as such, varies in formal style and quality.  He tries to capture this in English, by switching from somewhat stiff, philosophical language in some parts, to a more conversational tone in others.  He wants us to see the Meditations for what he believes it is: a kind of self-help book the Marcus Aurelius’ wrote for himself; a reminder of what his goals were and how to achieve them.

This makes Hays’ Meditations a much easier read than its predecessor; he gives Marcus’ voice a freshness and immediacy that is missing in other translation.  Most importantly, he give new life to the voice of a Roman emperor who lived nearly two-thousand years ago.

My Story in the Million Writers Anthology

My story, "The Incorrupt Body of Carlo Busso" will be part of the anthology of noted stories that have been associated with The Million Writers Award.  It goes on sale on June 14th.

Here is the table of contents:

• Friday Afternoons on Bus Number 51 - by Sruthi Thekkiam
• The Incorrupt Body of Carlo Busso - by Eric Maroney
• The Mountain’s Laughter is a Landslide in the Seed Moon’s Light - by J. M. Scoville
• Hospitality - by Summer Block
• I Am My Rooster - by Taylur Thu Hien Ngo
• Do You Have a Place For Me - by Roxane Gay
• Cancer Party - by Nicola Mason
• Interview With A Moron - by Elizabeth Stuckey-French
• Grief Mongers - by Sefi Atta
• Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken - by Matt Bell
• The Infinite Monkey Theorem - by Marshall Moore
• Sandwiches From Home - by Jessica Schneider
• The Black Tongue - by Anjana Basu
• The Rules of Urban Living - by Kara Janeczko
• Madame Sabat’s Grave - by Corey Mesler
• The Boy With the Hole In His Head - by Gokul Rajaram
• Vertically Divided, Blue-White-Red - by Mark MacNamara
• Ditch - by Eric Beetner
• You Are a 14-Year-Old Arab Chick Who Just Moved to Texas - by Randa Jarrar

The Mengele Shame

It seems in our world that it is more and more impossible to hide.  The US government found Whitey Bulger and Osama bin Laden.  In a time of the rapid integration of data sources, dropping out when one is a hunted man is an increasingly difficult, if not an impossible long term prospect.

Bring in Gerald Posner and John Ware’s book Mengele: The Complete Story.  The Auschwitz SS doctor known for participating in “selections” and experimenting on camp inmates eluded capture his entire life.  So lucky he was that conspiracy theories abounded.  An organization called ODESSA, which helped former SS officers escape from Europe, was postulated.  This Masonic like group was so powerful it could make anyone disappear.

This book disabuses us of such notions.  Mengele’s escape and fugitive existence were the results of a series of accidents, sloppy investigative work by various government intelligence agencies and police forces, corruption, stupidly, ignorance and sloth.  Most of all, Mengele’s survival rested in the hands of his wealthy family, which manufactures farm equipment. They supported Mengele all his life, and cynically lied about doing so.  Unlike Eichmann, who had to make a living in Argentina, and therefore led a more stationary existence (which made him easier to catch) Mengele had family money and connections to rely on, moving from Argentina,  Paraguay and finally Brazil when he sensed danger.

The fact that by all accounts he died a broken, sad and bitter man is little consolation.  The fact that Mengele was never brought to justice is the responsibility of his family; they should consider this a shame they always will bear.

Light III

III.

We are hatch-lings
Our feathers are moist
We preen about the nest
And play with this game of molting
Our down is soft and blue
We are new birds, born to
A new life, our wings are
Not wings of height
They are subterranean
They nestle in the earth
They burrow with the roots
Of heat, the great force below the
Crust, that thumps like a great heart.
We are not birds that fly
Ours is the incendiary path
We burn and burn, our trajectory
Is ash, older than any creature
Of the earth, we missed the
Turn of eons, to live in this
Stub of candle, to fly with
The grease of the tallow
To be watched by the eyes of
The watchers,
From their perches,
Dangling high in lustrous trees

Light II

II.

We live in a land of vents
They pour forth
Vaporous and thick
Scented oracles
We see what we must
The smoke curls into shape
A dog, a cat, a parrot
They whisper their auguries
And we hear what we hear
We gaze into the candle
And in the dance of photons
The luxury of heat
Is just a sham
A darkness folds in
It creeps through the doors
And taps on the boards
The redeemer is dark
Memory, light;
They will fight, and this
Is nothing new
A season will turn
And from the smoke
A new prophecy of color
A hard, cold pearl of birth
Will race toward our
Bare feet, bright and blue.

Light I, II, & III

I.

The candle in the window
Knows no dark
Only the flicker of its
Life, the mystery of its
Updraft, the taper's fat
Dull smudge to smoke;
Winter holds no pollen
Its stored up in heat
The deep, dead center of
Life's promise renewed
We are all cured in repose
Dead, we arch up to life
Alive, our heat is leached
Out, by the dead world's
Stones and frozen water
We have no repose
We drag along our vitals
Like a sack of meal
And knead and knead
The life of promise eternally
Renewed, the ancient faith
That we left with the citrus,
The olive, the winter wheat