VÉZELAY JIHAD Poem by Dieter M Gräf

1

(the soft paws of the organ)

(behind the back, shining
Magdalene relic) (you

pillars, you are serving, miracle

working forces)

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Vézelay Occident population 615.
616 my American guest Julia,
prays before
night with the Orthodox Russians
who'd be there: the craftsman,
the priest and his wife,
the bishop and his archbishop.
617 the gravestone of George Bataille,
618 Richard the Lionheart, 619 Le Corbusier,
620 Claudel, 621 Pacificus.
622 the petrified Jesus Christ,
inserted into the tympanum on the day of the thaumaturge:
A Soldier of Christ, I say, is safe
— you giants, pygmies, great
eared peoples, pelicans, you
mythical beasts, dragons, oh baselisk—
when he slays,
safer when he dies.
When he dies, it profits
himself; when he slays, it profits
Christ. Saint
Bernard 623, who gave the cross here,
jihad, burst into flames from
his body maimed by asceticism.
Vomited beforehand, afterwards,
went on, with the train to Paris,
to where the suburbs were burning.

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2

(But
it is such a gentle
slope winds us upwards ...

... to the Magdalene
sanctum, her sacraments ...)


✴


((Oh may you become
genuine, scorned relics!✴))


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On the sides on the road
sides of the fun
society of the great horsetail
the bishop's crook made of young rolled-up leaves
Fontenay woodferns iceplant stoneplant Bloss
feldt seeds Marian songs on the car radio
what a car rented to go to the Zodiac monks
the slow world the slow world the slow world
the slow world the slow world the slow world
the slow world the slow world the slow world
the slow world the slow world the slow world
the slow world the slow world the slow world
the slow world the slow world the slow world
the slow world the slow world the slow world
crashes doesn't crash✴✴ crashes doesn't crash
a flash through double knee a flash through double knee
kneeling man with flash saves in flash the kneeling
nun kneeler with flash saves and nun in flash kneel
ing I believe ing I believe ing I believe
not in hell I believe not in paradise I believe
in a kneeler with a flash and a kneeler in a flash
they will be the last people but
what comes after that I don't know.


✴ all objects should become genuine,
RELICS OF THEMSELVES - -


✴✴here Abelard wanders
around in the range

of the data set,
Cluny IV (1989-)

Translated by Andrew Shields