P.N.ZOYTLOW

Editor’s Note:  Several readers have advised him (PNZ) not to attempt poetry since his talents are near-exhaustion with such prose as he has offered on this blog. (And, for what it is worth, he despises the word “blog” since, as he says, it “cheapens us all.”) He thanked me for my concerns and went ahead and bade me post a few of his poems, some recent, some not. He agreed to label them “minor,” which he called a “concession” which (he said) this editor, DGB, would regret.

Rats and Fleas and Germs  

[2018]

Rats are the fall-guys for the Plague

Fleas are the fall-guys for the Plague

Germs are the fall-guys for the Plague

But who owns the Plague?

The First Part: The Rat Speaks 

I caused this?

Did I know what was happening?

A hundred million putrescent human corpses!

And they say I’ve done it! Me?

Well, they never liked me anyway:

Was it the leaping out of grain bins?

The scurrying in the rafters? In the nursery?

 My naked tail? Gnawed wires?

And those droppings! (heh-heh)

And who remembers that rats (tons of us!)

died along with people (by the generation!)

rat’s ass, rat pack, rat race, rug rat, sinking ship rats

to rat on someone, cry like a rat eating onions

Dirty Sneaky Vicious Ugly. 

Sewer rats, Wharf rats, Roof rats.

Swung by the tail, pitched into the fire,

Sizzled crisp, the wages of sin.

Innocent fall-guys! Let me just say–

We did not do it.

The Second Part: The Flea Speaks

Here’s what I think, and here is what I 

Have to say: Microbe!

Not my idea to get a hitchhiker. 

I’m small, and the hitchhiker is smaller.

Folks see rats. We do too. Bite the hell out of ’em and ride along.

Rats die? So jump on people!

Folks, in my opinion, are just bigger rats, 

And I bite ’em and vomit

in the bite and then, the main act: my germiness. 

Love the way rats are blamed. Funny.

You human hosts, you laugh at us. 

Imagine a flea circus, a flea market, 

a flea pit filled with fleabags. 

Never a kind word!

On the whole, except for the insults, it was a good deal. 

Bite a rat, move on, bite a kid, move on!  

It’s a short healthy life; ours is. 

The Third Part The Word from Yersinia herself

What do you mean, herself? 

So very human, this business of gender. 

Why bother?

I am. That’s it. Keep it simple.

And the name is Yersinia pestis!

I earned the latter part, thank you.

That’s all.

It’s a busy enough life.

Keep the ball rolling. 

Yes, I infect. 

It’s my job, my sacred duty

To redress the imbalances. 

And you’ve got to go! So sorry it can’t be 

Tidier, but those are the methods I know.

Fever, lumps, necrotic flesh.  

No forethought. Doin’ the job.

Whose idea, anyway: I mean the Plague?

I had a good run. Everyone blaming 

Rats, Fleas, the Devil,  

Sinners, Cats, Jews, and so on. 

Then Yersin found me. Named me.

Antibiotics? Wheee..!

Bet I can beat them, too,

 I am around. God is on my side. 

Don’t I know it! That’s all.

_________________________________

It’s in the News

n.d.

In a bedroom rank with sweat and tabak,

olive anarchists adjust the little clock.

Obscured beneath the padded lady-seat,

Precise, shielded against cold, wet, and heat.

The frame: fuse, primers, powders nails within.

Tires crammed and sealed with paraffin.

Wheeled to the plaza and soon detonated.

That fearful flash. Innocents eviscerated!

A day away in a sunny breakfast hour

The Consul drinks espresso and basks in power.

Wife, children, kittens, maids, eggs, and toast.

Such days are tranquil and loved the most.

Alas! He drops the News and loses his aplomb,

“So now they have perfected the bicycle bomb!”

_____________________________

And to think

2020

Folks resent a quarantina. Yes, Quarantina!

Forty days!  More or less. The Old Venetians were thinking Forty.

Got plague on board?  Stay out of the harbor for 40 days!

But the Dalmations in Dubrovnik thought a trentina might work out, too.

****

Less for a kid with measles in the Forties— Posted that 

old yellowy paper sign on the front door: 

QUARANTINE ! DO NOT ENTER!  MEASLES!

Seven days:  A septina?

*****

Sicilians. Lots of ‘em! Ellis Island, 1891.

“Here’s one! Rheumy eye.”

Lady! Signora!  Per favore! Over there!

No, there, wait there. Stay in Quarantine.

Quarantina!

Chalk mark on your sleeve.

******

Leviticus 13:45

 “Then the priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the plague is, and he shall shut it up seven days more: “[H]is clothes shall be rent, his head shall be left bare, and he shall cover over his upper lip; and he shall call out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’” 

*******

Meanwhile St Simeon Stylite sat atop a pillar for just years and years, Self-quarantine for no medical reason. Just plain old mortification. 2X per diem he stood and spoke to crowds that gathered. There is no record of what he said. The height of the pillar was increased from time to time. No one got near him. He refused to even look at his Old Mother. 

******

And another self-quarantiner: The Unabomber in his Montana shack!! 

Also refused to see his Mother.  Like St. Simeon, a deep thinker.

*****

Advice to the Fourth Graders fearing Josef Stalin, 1952.

“Shelter in Place, O ye Milliions!  Do not emerge lest the radiation 

befoul thee. Yes, kid, you there! In the bomb shelter!

*****

The Trump, trapped in the Peoples House watching himself on Cable, gorging on Behemoth Macs and Salted Fries. Great Friend to Ketchup.  A quarantined man in a foolish time. Unclean, unclean!

And to think.

Attila’s Lament

Excerpt from P.N. Zoytlow’s forthcoming and more extensive interview with the famous Hun.

I met up with Attila, quite by accident, at a highway convenience store in Idaho, en route to Miles City, Montana, to be the graduation speaker at a high school graduation. He was staring at the pump, which dispensed the usual three grades of petrol. The vehicle he was driving, a rental, did not require Premium, but he was filling the tank with it just the same. I wanted to be helpful, so I told him that he could get by with 87 Octane and save a few dollars. He waved a flyer in my face. 

” I don’t want to be late, so I use the top grade. Now you know.”

I read the flyer and learned on the spot where he was going and who he was–Attila! I also knew that he was using an outdated calendrical system and was not due in Miles City for another few days. He was on Julian time, and Montana was not. Simple. I assured him he was in good shape to make it on time. Why not take in the nearby National Park (Yellowstone) on the way?

( I should point out that there will be those scoffers who doubt that this was the genuine article, namely Attila the Hun, and how could that be? The answer lies, of course, in the fusion of several widely misunderstood concepts, namely wormhole theory, time compression, and warp speed.)

And I should also like to mention that he, Attila, was dressed unlike any image of him you probably saw in the history books. Running shoes, tan Dockers pants, an oxford cloth shirt, and a white Clemson hoodie zipped open. He was clean-shaven and wore a white ballcap without any logo. I am telling you that you would never guess he was a barbarian leader capable of terrorizing Western Europe with his Hunnic hordes. He’s as handsome as a men’s store mannikin. 

Convinced and grateful that he was no longer in a rush to reach the commencement, Attila invited me to a cup of coffee in the cafe attached to the fuel stop. We parked our cars met in a booth facing the highway.

“What’s your message to the high school grads,” I asked him. He fished around in a briefcase I had not noticed before and waved a paper for me to see. Its title was “Cultural Appropriation and Misrepresentation: Why Today’s Youth Needs to be Aware.” He saw I was puzzled. “I know what you’re thinking, that this is hardly the thing for high school graduation in North America. And you would be right! They think I will speak on the usual boilerplate topic like “What Youth Must Achieve for Self and Nation.” I accepted their invitation on false pretenses. I don’t care about these graduates, but I do care about setting the record straight.”

“You mean the stuff in Wikipedia? Maybe I can help you with that.” 

“I doubt it. Anyway, with most of that stuff, I don’t have a problem. You know: battles, extortion, marriages. Mostly true. Even that fateful event in 453 when I died of a nosebleed on my wedding night. Very true. My fault, too. But let’s skip that.”

Attila ordered buttered whole-wheat toast and a hot chocolate.

“Comfort food?” I asked. 

“Yep.”

“Is your full name Atilla Flagellum Dei and you come from where?”

“Wrongo! You people are so stuck in your identity needs. First name, last name, Social Security number, and so on. If you insist, my Pa’s name was 

Mundzuk. Does that make me Mr. A. Mundzukson of Pannonia? No, a last name would have deprived me of the clout my first name has achieved. Think of how Mr. Mundzuk brought his “hordes” (never an army) to the gates of Paris and so on. About as impressive as saying that ‘Mr. Attila Mundzuk arrived at O’Hare on Delta today. So, no, if I am to be anyone, it has to be Attila the Hun, Scourge of God.”

“Are you a Hun?”

“Yep. And a lot of other stuff, too. I attracted a lot of the lumpen of what you call Eastern Europe. We had Ostrogoths and Bulgars, too. Anyone could join up if they shared our goals.”

“Which were?”

“Make a goulash of the Romans, or a hash, whichever? And that “scourge” business! Let me tell you; I had been dead some years before I figured it out. For the record, I was a bit interested in Christianity or even Judaism. There were no Muslims then, so I was strictly curious about the god or gods of existing religions, but only if they had some traction in Europe. Well, truth be told, the Jews were not high in the charts, but the Christians had already messed with the Romans so, what if I posed as a Christian? I sent out some feelers but was turned down. And years later, they gave the green light to Clovis Merovech, a Frank guy. Why not me? 

No! I was designated as the Scourge! You know what a scourge is? It’s a whip! The Big Shots said god sent me to be his whip to lash bad Christians.”

Attila closed his eyes and shook his handsome head.

“Because you were a barbarian?”

“Now, come on!” But I’ll get to that if I have the time.”

“Can I order you another buttered toast? On me.”

Attila nodded, but I had yet to see him smile.

“This ‘Scourge’ thing–which I was not, is just a label which paints me as the worst of the worst. There were plenty of Christian chieftains who did worse things than I ever dreamt. I mean, the slaughtering, the butchering, the burnings, the defenestrations, the drawing, the quartering, the beheadings, the bashing of heads, the cannibalism, the flaying, crucifying, the drowning, the hot irons and the….”

“You made your point, but you must have done some of that, yes?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment and dipped his toast into the tepid cocoa. The butter fled the toast and formed an oily scum over his drink.

“Only this, we fought, we sometimes slaughtered, and I think I once bashed a guy’s head in and poked around a bit. But that is it. I’ll bet you can read a lot about me, but not about any particular torture devised by me. Think of some of your recent leaders, the ones who started that Iraq war, and what do you get? Water-boarding. Right? But who has heard of an ‘Attila” method? By the way, Cheney and that sort have been designated to the ‘Right of Attila the Hun.’ What can that mean? We had hordes and charisma, that’s it. And we got along just fine.

“Let’s go back to the Scourge of God business. Just another name for Satan. And that was me. Christians used me as a bad penny, a scapegoat, and the author of all evil. But that was not me! I even met with Pope Leo, and we chatted about this and that most pleasantly, so I got out of Italy, which was a nice gesture. Would Satan have done that?”

Attila was looking at his watch, a medium-priced French model. He was going to leave. He had made his point about “misrepresentation” but not about “cultural appropriation,” which could only mean motorcycle clubs with Hunnish motifs, mostly imagined. [For a further discussion of Huns, see my Field Report #8]

“Attila, do you recall any jokes that you and your people enjoyed back in the Fifth Century?” We did not joke around much except a few one-liners about Romans, like this one if I can remember it. 

You know-how for a while, the letters S P Q R were carved in stone all over the Forum? Well, what does it stand for? Smart People Quit Rome.”

I was embarrassed, such a dumb thing, and my embarrassment grew when he guffawed until his cheeks were wet with tears. “Okay, not so good, maybe. What do you expect with a joke that’s 1500 years old? But here’s another: 

“Attila (that’s me) wakes up and hears his wife starting a fire in the hearth. She calls to him, “Whadda ya want for breakfast, hon?”

Abruptly, Attila got up, shook my hand, and departed. I could find no news item on the graduation at Miles City. Either the event was cancelled or there is a news blackout. Or it was merely not news at all.

After I entered the forest, I had some worrisome thoughts, but cloaked in the self-assuring garment of an anthropologist, and I would not say I was insecure. That would come later. I have been doing that (dressing up) for some time since wallowing as a graduate at an [unnamed] easily recognized institution in North America. I succumbed to the lure of anthropology, whether physical (learned I was an animal), archeology (stuff beneath my feet), or cultural (good anecdotes and so liberating).

Forests are occasionally enchanted or cursed; some say it is always so. That is especially true if it is a dank and gloomy older forest with the muted sounds of unseen birds and adorned by spider-looped webs. My idea had been to walk a mile or so into this gloom, looking for mushrooms to photograph. There were few of these along the way and the pale brackets affixed to trunks was not what I wanted. About to turn back, I perceived that the path was ending and opening into an area where the sunlight was strong. Here was an unexpected road, smoothly paved. In the distance, I could see a house in a rustic style, and then another. Of course! This must be ______. [The reader will recognize this old-fashioned anthropological convention of affording a community some anonymity while one exploits its culture in the interest of the social sciences.] And possible academic glory if read at the annual conference.

Was this a forgotten village, a hidden upscale enclave of rusticity, or something else?

But enough of that. Over the next hour or more, I wandered the silent serpentine streets and kept expecting to see a fellow human, someone with whom I would be exchanging a reassuring wave. There was no one. A light breeze broke the silence in the pines’ tops; somewhere, a hidden woodpecker was hammering. I stopped facing another one of these “summer retreats,” as the locals liked to call them. Large “second homes” of “comfortable class” members worked in a distant city and who might appear on the weekend. What had stopped my stroll back to the forest path trailhead a mile off where I had left my vehicle?

It was a bear, carved by a chainsaw, which stood mid-yard in front of the house. One paw raised in greeting, a hint of grinning on its face, the bear stood about five feet tall and was an ebony color. I guessed this was intended to be a black bear since this species was most common or had been in this area. Over time, shrinking habitat and hunting seasons had significantly reduced their numbers. These yard bears had moved in, replacing them.

How had a missed seeing carved bears in nearly every yard? The ordinary ones were already noted, and then those holding a salmon or waving a flag. Some bears showed loyalty to a university; others were climbing up a tree. Others hung from the edge of a roof. One was dressed as a clown and did a handstand. I hoped to find someone to ask why the bears were so commonplace or even more baldly: “Why do you have a chainsaw bear in your yard?”

But there was no one available to explain this potent pattern., I began to muse about it and to float some theories. Everything happens for a reason. True?
Theory #1: Sold at bargain prices along the road. Buy one, and the second one of similar size goes for half-price.
Theory #2 The power of demonstration and envy: if the folks next door have one, so should we.

I just had to go deeper than that! Was this a nod to the indigenous people who had once lived here? And the acknowledgment that the bear population was decimated through habitat destruction and hunting? Or an even deeper, hardly perceived search for a solution for existential emptiness?

I had heard of neototemism. Could I be seeing it here, however, much of a parody it might seem? None of the bears seemed very serious, for the most part, though a few were leaning in the direction of being conduits to a likely spirituality. If this were so, then perhaps the better term would be protoneototemism. Well, I was proud of that term, especially since I could find it used or written anywhere.

Protoneototemism! How I amazed myself, but then recalled an unhappy incident while a sophomore at Ballast College. I had asked a coed out for breakfast. It was a spring morning, maybe Palm Sunday, perfect for something special like Eggs Benedict. (Who was this Benedict?) I ordered the Eggs Benedict and encouraged her to try them as well. But she preferred pancakes. With hindsight, I understood that my Eggs Benedict made her uncomfortable. After the orders arrived, she pulled a bobby pin out of her flaxen hair and, using the rounded end, began to probe into her left ear. “Itches.” That was what she said. And I said, “..bet your otorhinolaryngologist wouldn’t approve of that.” How I loved that word!
There is peril in such words: she became silent and unsmiling. I never saw her again.

I was still standing in front of the same property, staring at a wooden bear with a carved smirk on his snout. The afternoon shadows had altered his look: his smile was gone. I realized that my reverie about protoneototemism now meant that I had best find that path and avoid a night in a village inhabited only by totemic bears.