Dead Christ

I typically do not rewrite many of my poems because I’ve seldom sought to publish them. By and large, the poems I have shared on this blog have been whisps I’ve snatched out of the ether rather than statues wrought of steel. There are pseudo-exceptions – The Ballad of the Silent City and Ode to a Carpenter come to mind — but I typically turn my attention toward paying gigs. As a slow, steady droplet makes a hole in stone, this underlying habit gave way to sudden truth: much of my poetic and fictional life has grown frivolous – concerned more with seeking publication than with attempting the profound and everlasting. This will be changing in all of my passion writing, but especially with poetry.

All of that to say the following poem took weeks to write. I will post little else for the next three weeks to give us all time to digest it.

I’ll respond to any comments at that time. Before we begin, two paintings:

The-Body-of-the-Dead-Christ

vittorecarpaccio_thedeadchrist

 


Dead Christ

 

for Jordan Wood, who pushed me across this journey’s first threshold
&
for Ben Quash, whose insight helped me cross the threshold home.

 

 

Holbien fishes bodies from the Rhine
stone or marble forms a slab
he clears green mold, seaweed, the guts
it takes to paint a Chrorpse,
and spreads them out to prompt his work.
Oh yes, he thinks, this one will do,
emaciated brawn like chicken legs,
Oh yes, he thinks, this one works nice
and from decay paints Christ.

(Dig one out of that sink for me. No that one, the one that’s getting sour. Yes, that’ll do, I need brain food before I start this thing… thanks.)

Dostoevsky found it when it’s done,
he stood before it hours till his
wifey whisked him off, afraid
he’d fly into a further epileptic fit,
Smerdykov-like, and Fyodor’s
inspired formed a volume
in which an idiot viewed it, said
‘Methinks it holdeth
force enough to make one lose one’s
faith,’ this from the man who grasped
each broken boy
not as he was – a broken man –
but only as he could be
oh-ho-ho
someday

therefore never saw a dying earth
surrounding him, but mere Edenic gold –
the true, blue Tommy Tom Kinkaide of his day.
Tommy Tom Kinkaide
the Patterson, James
the Purple Barney the Dino
of paint.

‘Here once more, oh laurels, and once more,
oh myrtles brown, with ivy seldom sere,

I’ve come again to pluck your berries crude
and with rough fingers rude
shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.’

Not holy in a mess, Alyosha, no
Mishkin’s much more dead than that Christ
he saw,
stiff,
hanging hanging hanging
on a wall.

(tomato-slicing and remember these were frozen green and shipped two-thousand miles behind a diesel eighteen thirteen-gear that hauls both limes and rest-stop lizards while my grandpa’s garden renders its libations scarlet fruit-worm-eaten both of ‘em fresh how we pluck them early and pluck them late but never right on time)

Joseph Campbell dabbles long
until his dabbles dapple
over every myth and faeble
now with Hello-Kitty-cute
anachronisms forged
of this thinly-veiled dogged heritage
he’s running from,
his Katholische Theoligischen
Annahme: that quest to hold no
Catholic theological assumptions,
blinds him to his own living, cosmic
Christ like every other sage
who reacted to a church that no one
else could know about in our whole wide world wide world
in our age
but us,
especially native tribes who spin the myths
that sound like prophecies messianic,
had pagans had some Jewish texts,
and do, in fact, if you were to ask whichever
Chesterton or Lewis
you meet upon the street.
The Myth
about the dying hero who goes into
the deep, dark, dank black lagoon
to die
for those of us who would die.
And so
Joe’s own host of centrals share one face:
a Catholic Christ,
who plays in ten thousand places
— when I lie down, when I sit down, when I rise —
rather than ten thousand faces playing in the Christ he claims divides
into holistic forms:
shares.

Company.

That’s neither here nor
there in my back yard,
the Spirit of Life who made and sustains
the neighbor’s twenty-pound cat I’ve named Citrinus
for reasons tinted obvious
feels something wrong and groans and cannot
fix the waiting Spirit’s groan so chose some lesser action
elects a broken road that made him
murder a tiny bunny
made him
amplify the groaning
of his selfsame spirit of
life.

and the groan
he’ll try to fix again
tomorrow
rather than groan himself.

But the spirit’s there, The
Word within all things,

both times

and weeps.

Joe said, ‘A man once had a boy
who said, ‘Hold my little bird,
my father,
hear his birdie song.’
But the man ignored his son until
he couldn’t any longer, got annoyed,
then took the bird and snapped its neck.
But when he killed the bird,’ old Campbell said,
‘He killed the song, and so himself.’

Split,
divide the hemispheres,
a seismic
cosmic diagram of crusted molten cores
(that avocado half on your plate there, let me have that for a sec, just a second, I’ll give it back right after a bite)
and then the
straightest distance twixt two points:
from mine and then to yours
a hole — we dig to China –
or your own polar opposite – wherever
— whomever – you are – are you
across our world, yours and mine, there
like here
some larger kith and kin of Citrinus
offs a larger kith and kin of bunny
(Christopher-named Tigger eats what Christopher named Kanga)
to raise again Our Spirit’s groaning out
and in.

I discern no hint of this event until
my puppy quickens my thinker from haze,
she draws me out of reverie with her

chomping chomping chomping
what is she chomping?
chomping chomping

and I come so close to find
grey yarn
of bunny gut strung out

across wide-open little belly,
the way she opens silver packages at Christmas…
How long had it sat there rotting,
and
(is it always that color?)

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My dog
desaturated noodles
(I don’t think them’re noodles, bubba)
in her lips
that look like
“What? Is something wrong?”

Past Me had need of answers
for he remembers smells:
formaldehyde
the smell he smells each time a soul
unwittingly uncaps a blackened,
inch-thick, dubbed ‘permanent’ marker
(black, please, no cream)
the smell of my mother and her nursing

classmates spreading a cat upon a metal shelf
(though stones, rocks, marble slabs would do or cedar planks. I like them served on cedar, but whatever you have is fine)
where six typically pot-luck ladies
ooh and aah over
various bits of viscera
as I, a three-year-old, grow
fast best friends with formalding –
scent of dead – there I lay –
I see me now – upon formica –
suspended dead
suspended on
dead steel
and pinned
with little metal pins.

My brother’s twenty-pound cat
passes and his
wife asked for cremation
so there sits
in the midst of a roomful of Xbox controllers
wine bottles
acoustic guitars
on top of the shelves that hold the current tech for owning films
a cedar chest full of
Big John’s Ashes
a picture of them holding him
— all together now, he’s heavy, lift together –
the collar on top
an expired rabies tag attached by a bendable metal grip
hook

I was made to dissect a fetus
of a pig in public school.
formaldehyde
smell it?
black permanent marker
cat
(No thanks, I’m off of bacon for the month. Why? I heard the pig’s anatomically closest to me, to man. That kosher with you?)
here I am now right alongside
pot luck ladies
slicing slicing
chomping chomping, so
I was made to dissect a fetus
of a pig in public school.
They called Dead Piglet “science”
in the very class that nixed my
right to a creator who,
in another class at the selfsame school,
created me with
certain inalienable rights.
They say they want The Word
removed from the phrase,
yet they praise these basic human rights,
and rights assume a standard right,
a Right One
who holds both sense and power to right the wrong,
so whether or not He’s mentioned,
He’s still present as the
Righter
of these Rightly named “crimes” against humanity.
The South end of the hall forbade
my Right to a creator
while the North end of the hall professed
inalienable Right.
When convenient, they raise Him up
“When you are old, they’ll raise you up”
when inconvenient, they slab him
“and take you where you do not want to go”
this and other tautologies of schools called
high
taught me that it’s never whether
To tautology or not to tautology
but rather
which tautologies we mind.

I digress:

A student came to meet his teacher
back in ancient Greece.
‘Master,’ he said, ‘the world is hanging
out in empty space?’
The master said, ‘Oh no, my son,
it has itself a base.’
‘What is it?’ asked the student then.
‘A turtle holds our place.’
‘But master,’ asked the student next,
‘What holds the turtle up?’
‘Another turtle holds it son.’
He sipped tea from his cup.
‘But master,’ asked the student thrice,
‘What holds that turtle’s shell?’
‘My boy,

it’s turtles, turtles all the way down.’

Well…

We all have our turtles,

but some of us actually hate the sounds they make
under the left rear tire.

And so I chose instead of slicing pig fetuses
to listen up to Tolkien’s Gandalf –
mindset goes like this:

 

He who breaks a

thing

to find out what it

is

has left the path of wisdom.

Two quarks collide
left and Right
wind goes where it pleases
you hear their
hear its
SOUND
— the crash –
where they come from
where they go
no one knows
even when they thought the great crasher
would crash them to make more
they do not know
they do not know where they go
or if they can get any smaller
break them, smash them, crash them
find out what they is
I did this as a kid
with little racing cars made of aluminum,
tin, and filled a three-foot-deep hole with broken
tires and plastic windows
had help from a kid whose dad told us all
‘That cleaner right there’ll take blood right out of carpet.’
then, bored, moved on
did not come any closer to learning how to reconstruct a
model car
so it is.

even The Crasher crashes.

— sound harmartology collides with pneumatological sounds  —

and so
Two quarks collide
one gives way that the other may
quantumly entangle with the soul
of owner,
either
on
or
off
or
both

Wait, what? Both?

A third place
it goes.
(this soup tastes like heaven)

quarks in an atom strung together
into one of many proteins
(there’s more than the steak available, perhaps you’d prefer almond butter or the spinach soup?)
spiral downward into
D
N
A
that compose
(scraps go in the compost)
an intestinal cell
in intestinal walls of
intestinal cells
each holding 46 chromosomes
that eat
that magically turn food to poop
“What comes out of a man’s
what makes him turn unclean”
unlike yet similar to the cat
and rabbit
and our gutted childhood Kanga.
(pass the sausage?)
Rotting gut rotting in my gut
an ache
a worry
a compassion powered by
σπλαγνον
go with your gut
mine and theirs,
mine in theirs.

Right?

Which may be why suffering and dying
remain my visceral themes
(9 pounds of undigested beef was still inside John Wayne’s smaller intestine when he passed)

John Wayne
a regular old John Wayne
was Uncle Bill
who lost his arm one afternoon
when a shotgun leaning against a tree
slipped
went off, blew off
his arm.
He had a hook, one that subdivided
so he’d grip
and hook
and Griphook was that ornery goblin
Harry Potter met first, when they got the elixir
of life from the bank,
then again when they needed to kill the horcrux.
Grip
from a hook on uncle Bill’s arm
he drove a jet-ski that aways,
hooking the throttle,
beer can in the other hand, the good hand, the real hand,
“Hold on Lance,” he said
but he wasn’t holding on
and he died
later on
I saw that grip
hook over the casket wall
there with Aunt Midge
— the gypsy – in line. Hear the bells?
sanctuary.
sanctuary.
sanctuary.

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Enough of this nonsense
give me time
oh give me space to mourn.

Then sign the guest book or something, look there’s an inch-thick
black permanent marker.

Nevermind.

Look…

Here take a magazine,
a game,
something to occupy your mind,
please give me space
while we wait
in line.

Here – take this issue,
you’ll like this one,
it’s got a pastoral lament inside, this sonnet…
here…
let me find it…

there you go:

Mantegna’s weeping echos in our gorge
of thorax swollen, rigor mortis sets
Mary and John, their teardrops bulge and barge
into our world, mourning the shepherd’s death.
Glow and shadow, sun and shade remain
upon dead center: holy genitals.
Phillipe de Champaigne brings muscled thorns,
Carracci lays down tongs that just pulled spikes
Bellini lifts the herder’s head to block
the gorge’s landscape – still it looks so… cross.
Strozzi says, “How young he seems. A fetus
thirty-three years old who died.”
“By torture,” Manet adds, “You see the eyes?
He will not close his eyes.
He will not close his eyes.
He will not close his eyes.
He will not close his eyes.
He will not close his eyes.”

Did you like the poem?
Yes I knew him.
We’re closer to the body, now,
so close…
I don’t want to tell the story,
just read on,
occupy yourself:

Oh sure, there’s other mourners here in line.
Giovanni and his angels,
not a one of them know what to do
what to do
what to do next,
they stare at each other,
Sabbath-like, in fact,
as they hold our lovely little Jewish shepherd king.

A friend of a friend and that is enough, just read:

Gregorio’s here, “Why the knees?” he begs
“They didn’t need to scrape and skin his knees!”

Yes, okay, his name was
Austin. Austin Freeman,
is that enough?
Will you leave me alone?

Mazzola brings his young quadruplets up
both boys are nekked
two little wee-wees
two little girls in tu-tus
all four hold the corpse.
“It’s stiff,” they say, “and cold.”
“Move along,” Mazzola says, “and move alone.”

His stoner friends were in
d-group with me.
What?
It means devotional group.
Why?
To devote ourselves to God, can I continue?
We sought to help one another
find the way to/of godliness,
but none of us knew grace
and so we’d say
don’t do
don’t do
to one another
do, don’t do
don’t do, and
do
they quit the weed
they quit the drinks
they quit the chew
the girls that do
and then we all tried music
do don’t do
burned the discs we all wished we could keep but
do don’t do
snapped euphony
he snapped
they snapped
the group, half left
and that night Austin…
look, I can’t…
just read or leave me be:

We will not breech Pieta,
we will not touch Mike’s stone
cold face,
still he simply lays a still
shot from a film
called Wall-E
I saw it there
in the picture,
when my friend Doug
nudged my shoulder
“look” and pointed
at the next offering in the coffin:
One white Madonna bot
holds the disassembled form
no disassemble
no disassemble
no disassemble
of an simple builder bot,
yellowed.
Then, leaving the poster there,
he kisses Mary on the cheek.
“Thank you, Michelangelo,”
she weeps.

Fine.

Dream, dream, oh lucid dream of day
daydream
this magazine’s the scene:

That night all the
do don’t do
cracked Austin’s will
he’s high
(why do they call it Hi-
C when it’s on the bottom shelf?)
and drove in that state
and got hit by a train
on Hotze road
in his car
so they say,
so they’re saying in line
and I’m at fault.
His blood’s on my hands for our
do don’t do
demands
no, I won’t serve time, but my
demands
His blood
His blood’s all over my hands,
can’t get it off,
can’t get it off of my forearms,
up to my elbows in his blood that
covers my hands.
It should have been him who heard
‘If you can be a preacher,
why stoop to be a king?’
in Bible College
and me in the coffin,
for he was only high,
and I?
I’ve raped and pillaged
murdered, burned,
cheated, stolen,
done restless work,
carved my gods of plasma screens,
of tortilla chips,
weight changes,
my brother’s lifting weights,
I’ve minted coins in my image,
committed genocide,
avenged,
and raged
inside my mind.
“Worst of sinners”
in my mind
“worst of sinners”

am I.

‘What’s wrong with the world?
Dear sirs,
I am.
sincerely,’

He should have been he who wrote this,
I of him it was written,
for I am always past my prime
and he is always gone too soon,
he the poet dead,
And I?
I take the road all travel by
until they’ve served their time,
a tab is opened at birth,
a tap in the wine cask,
and it pours out
day after day
it pours
and when it’s through, it’s through.
Not fate, no not fate,
we cannot know the time, the way, the day
but when there’s no more, there’s no more,
(when you’re out, you’re out boys, there aren’t seconds tonight)
evermore.

I hear
in Ernest
as I stand before the coffin
of the little shepherd poet:

‘Those who do not last are always
more beloved
since no one has to see them in their long,
dull,
unrelenting,
no-quarter-given-and-no-quarter-received,
fights
that they make to do something as they believe it should be done
before they die.
Those who die
or quit early and easy
and with every good reason
are preferred
because they are understandable and human. Failure and well-
disguised cowardice
are more human
and more beloved.’

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He to die,
I to fight,
both as lost as lovers lost
at sea,
drowning and
drowning longer than normal
and will we ever
surface?

Leave the coffin there,
if you prefer,
oh yes, please take your place in line,
or,
if you’re not there yet
and you prefer,
our universe advances
on the void
it grows
“praise Him, sun and moon, praise
Him all you
shining stars. Praise Him
you Highest Heavens and you
Waters Above the Skies”
space
grows into space
water seeks the lowest place
(catch it! catch it! get a towel or it’ll cover the table and drip to the floor it’s okay it’s just a spill but hurry still oh come on hurry still)

Our universe advances
on the void
that vomited Leviathan on out
and will again,
but expanding is sufficient for
the growing presupposes
germinated seed
that is and was and will be
being.

To stand at that edge, the lip
of universe, to march being forth
into non-being, an ex-nihilo bayonet
(leave it in a little bowl to the side, please, I prefer to keep the blades from mixing with my meals)
charge and watch void voided,
veto non-being
alone on the frontline…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
…Nietzsche said that God is dead
And this is s’posed to shake me.
Nietzche made Dead God undead
And this he thought would wake me.
But all my faith and all my future’s
bolstered by his theocide, for in my
Christ all death has died, for in my
Christ my God did bleed, for in our
Christ God’s ever dead along with we
who die, says Paul,

Another Dead Christ (let’s have
another, shall we?)

Carpaccio! Carpaccio!
Oh whereforart our ‘Paccio?
I see the ghoul who’s busy
painting yellowed death
upon deserted vistas.
skulls hide under outside kitchen tables
(mom heath broke the patio table again okay no he didn’t it was me this time I was eating maccarroni in the windstorm when it flipped which is why there’s yellow on the siding)
skulls there crushed
the sounds they make
under the left rear tire
women receiving back their dead
shortly after He died, I guess, their dead
who still look dead,
who smell so dead,
whose skin has pulled grey-tight,
bunny gut,
desaturated noodles
who seem to have come to life,
three cross
in upper right from
hanging hanging hanging,
dead twigs,
dead figs,
dead Christ with wounds from
slicing slicing.
“There’s death in the pot!”
an apple core from
chomping chomping
death in the corners,
death in the rivers,
death in obscure figures in the back,
the one obscured in black,
but who’s that in the middle?
Who’s that by the bark?
Who sits below the only blooming tree,
framed by blue waters
and a slightly-purplish mountain?
Who is this who sits below,
the only living color
in the frame that
from decay paints Christ?
His posture – now I know of his posture, I think –
his posture, have you painted this before
Carpaccio?

Is this one of your heroes,
dear Carpaccio?

Oh yes, there he is, now closer up,
with legs still cross,
The Thinker’s posture,
sitting there before the blooming fields
beside a throned, lifeless, slumping Christ.

Is that our Job?

It’s Job.

Job who knew a pain like none
of us living knew. Who lost
his kids, his fields,
who lost his servants, health, his
friendships. Why do bad things strike
good people?
asketh Elder Job, though deep down knows
none is good – and he, and he is bad –
deep down he knows.
In pain – he cries
to God – accuses – while accusing
— says:
“I know that my redeemer lives.”

That man, from the close-up of the two
before our throned Dead Christ,
now sits in the midst of other pigment
in the middle ground
with Christ on a slab
on Holbien’s slab
with the dead around – and the dead
have walked – the earth
returned –
at the death of one,
but one is Job,
who says,
“I know that my redeemer lives.”

He, who’s been full doornail-dead,
for several thousand years,
sitting,
thinking,
below the only blooming tree,
before the rivers green,
beside the blue stream that dips immortals,
and the melting snow in back.
Job speaks of promises to keep,
and miles to go long after we sleep,
and miles to go long after we sleep.

His presence there, at the burial,
at the sepulcher,
before embalming
no disassemble
formaldehyde,
says so simply now:

God suffered more in our world,
than ever we could in his.

“Methinks it holdeth
force enough to make one
find one’s faith.”

Job sits
and waits–
–a vigil–

he will not close his eyes
he will not close his eyes

and waiting isn’t long compared

to four or five thousand lives
waits, he, three short
time, times, half a time…

(“I’ll let everyone who overcomes eat from the tree of life. To everyone who overcomes, I’ll give some of the hidden manna… the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne… through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”)

‘weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.’

for in my Christ all death has died,
for in my Christ my God did bleed,
for in our Christ God’s ever dead
along with we who die,
says Paul,
as often as He rises.

Hear me:

Holbien fished a body from the Rhine
and heard it cough…

monogram new

Copyright © 2013, Lancelot T.M. Schaubert


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  1. Neil Crabtree (@NeilCrabtree2)

    You caught me in a reflective moment and I thoroughly enjoyed this epic outpouring of history and self – and all the time I was thinking one must die to oneself to start the journey, something I’m finding difficult as I drift away from the pragmatic conversations of friends and only now realise the next step is the important one in which I see myself more clearly consuming life’s food (as you would have it) without avarice, while hovering without and viewing within. Thanks Lance – relevant in the moment.

    1. lanceschaubert

      Thank you, Neil. I’ll respond in full after the three weeks are over, but it’s great to see that this hit you in all the right ways.

      Feel free to pass it along to friends.

  2. lanceschaubert

    Okay, gang. Some of you have made it all the way through, so I’m going to start off with this:

    There are five voices in the poem:

    1. Me
    2. Me in dialog after a death
    3. The sounds of consumption
    4. Alternate influences of grief
    5. The voice of scripture

    They start out (hopefully) dissonant and end (hopefully) in harmony.

    Thoughts?

    1. Sedula

      This is where degrees from a Christian College trump a Liberal Arts degree and profession in theater.

      1. lanceschaubert

        haha, we shall see…

  3. sedula

    It has been three weeks. I know the references, but am not …what is with all of the entrails and eating.

    1. lanceschaubert

      Entrails and eating. Got it and will cover it below…

  4. sedula

    Literary references….I mean.

  5. sedula

    This poem is doing a lot at once, it is critiquing, confessional, referential, observational, ah…sacred/profane usually go together..so okay. I can’t say it is subtle. Not finding the harmony, the last line is great. Yeah, mixing critique with confessional is difficult, then well, read it out loud. Is it a sermon? Who is the audience? Lots going on, many voices.

    1. lanceschaubert

      For one, she shouldn’t be subtle or smooth or soft. The hope is that she is as stark and harsh and rough as death himself. For death catches us off our guard, death maims us, surprises us while we sit on the toilet or in traffic or in our sleep, and even when he comes gentle, Thomas would have us not go gentle into him.

      A second thought before I really get going on my intentions: if this is a sermon, it’s the worst one I’ve ever written.

      Okay, intentions:

      As said above, I came across five voices in the writing of this. It started out as a meditation on Holbien’s work. That meditation was jarred when I discovered Carpaccio’s work and imagined Holbien’s nested inside the larger painting with Job. This reminded me that all encounters with death work like this — like submersion in the Styx. We must walk through her, pass through her to get to resurrection, for there can be no resurrection without death. This doesn’t mean the same thing as dualists who say there can be no good without evil. It simply means that creation can exist, but that the belief that God has the capacity to create again from what already has been made must, inherently, assume that something’s wrong with creation. Said simpler: why is there so much pain and beauty in the world.

      So there are five ways to go about this question (according to the poem). One is existential. One is dialectic. One is in ignorance — continuing to consume and be part of the problem. One is through mourning with those who mourn. One is through scripture. In some ways, we could even say the stages of grief apply: denial/isolation (self), anger (dialog), bargaining (consumption), depression (mourn with those who mourn), and scripture (acceptance). For me, all five are present before any semblance of understanding can be reached.

      So I move from Holbien to Carpaccio, but it cannot come in leaps. Grief must wander aimlessly at times — but not all who wander are lost. Grief must feel the pain, feel the dissonance of existence, but that does not mean there is no harmony. (If I didn’t harmonize well enough at the end, then that’s a failing of the poem. We’ll see what you think when I finish elaborating).

      We start with Holbien fishing bodies from the Rhine — true story, if you didn’t know. He wanted to paint Christ from a rotting corpse. This idea — to paint living water from a lifeless body — seems as stark as anything. But we must begin here since this is where many begin.

      We then move to the first sound of consumption. Something is being dug out of the sink — what? What would you eat out of the same thing that has a garbage disposal? There’s no answer because the comparison is enough: we eat dead things for now on this earth. All of us. Omnivores kill chickens. Vegetarians kill eggs. Vegans kill off eggplants. All of us take life that we may live — we are all, in a sense, murderers since Adam and Eve needed dead animals to make clothing that would last longer than fig leaves. This is the refrain of consumption — that we all eat of death to keep live, day in, day out. It’s a bargain — we will kill to live a little longer. This parenthesis of consumption undergirds the whole piece.

      We then move to the first influence — Dostoevsky — who stood before the painting itself and thinks it has force enough to make one lose one’s faith. And death does this often, so in that sense, the painting is true. Truer, in fact, than the work of Thomas Kinkaide who pretended as if no fall, no brokenness, no shattering of innocence had ever happened. This won’t work. We can’t go this way — we have to start with the fact that death happens.

      Second influence — Milton’s Lycidas. He’s dealing with the death of his shepherd poet friend. I am too.

      Third — Campbell. It’s not enough to say we’re caught up in a circle of life, like shares of the same company that get traded around. There’s something greater running through everything.

      Back to me — I start meditating on the only encounters with death I have: the rabbit, the cat, my brother’s cat, the pig fetus and these all lead eventually to the idea that we all of some sort of tautology to deal with this constant presence of death. We all have our turtles.

      “But some of us hate the sounds they make under the left rear tire.” Killing the tautologies of others doesn’t really help matters — it’s as bad as running over turtles. Thus we wrap up the section on dissection with Tolkien: breaking a thing to find out what it is removes wisdom for once you break a thing, it is no longer what it was. It’s something else. In this, death itself isn’t really the death of a thing. Killing to understand death makes no sense. Consuming to understand death makes no sense. Breaking to understand death is like saying consummation is the same thing as being born. So we add to what we fear rather than attempting to let “living death” come upon us in the same way capturing and killing and pinning up a butterfly is not the same as letting it flutter around in your backyard. Understanding death, then, must start with the mystic and not with anatomy.

      Which brings us to the particle accelerator — death on the subatomic level. Crashing particles together is no different. We are breaking things to find out what they are rather than trying to let them be. The memory of crashing Hot Wheels together comes up — that to break is easier than to create, and because easier, lesser. This is tethered to the implication of my friend’s father’s words — that getting blood on the carpet was the best way to discover the full purpose of the carpet cleaner.

      And in the midst of all of that, the Crasher didn’t work. It “died” in the midst of the experiment because its purpose was used up. So even in trying to dissect death (or things beyond us in general, rather) we come face-to-face with the death of a rather expensive experiment.

      Sound harmatology (study of sin) collides with pneumatological sounds (the study of the Holy Spirit of God). This, in essence, is what I’m saying: that there are two ways to confront death — breaking more or seeking the spirit.

      Which is why there’s the third way presented: life (on), death (off), and both — the being beyond both life and death.

      We then build from the subatomic level up through the atom, the cell, the intestine and come face-to-face with this parenthesis of consumption in the invocation of viscera — σπλαγνον is the Greek word for both guts and compassion, for sympathy and for intestines. That’s the seat of compassion — what we refer to when we say i feel for you, how we hold our stomachs when we sob. It’s the same as the seat of intuition — go with your gut — that often works differently than reason. So I hope by then end of this section, some harmony is achieved between me (denial), scripture (acceptance), and bargaining (consumption).

      We transition via John Wayne to the first funeral — Uncle Bill — which should start to reign in the influences via Harry Potter, comparing the Philosopher’s Stone to the Horcrux, showing how both were destroyed, both tethered to the goblin that knew things the humans didn’t know. So by the end of this section, I hope to have tethered dialog (anger) and influences (depression) together.

      So then, our two sides are set: denial/scripture/bargaining on the one side and dialog/influences on the other. They begin to interact between two funerals: Austin’s and Jesus’

      At Austin’s, I’m denying that it’s happened, I’m showing my obsession with scripture at a young age (to a fault), and I’m bargaining with the reader who is there in line, trying to distract them with a poem from some magazine.

      The poem fromt he magazine shows this angry (and distracting) dialog and the depression of influences — a pastoral lament like Lycidas. The influences show the offerings of other painters. They come to the funeral bringing their perspectives on the death of Christ, who will not close his eyes to the death.

      We return from the “sonnet” to Austin’s funeral and I’m in denial, bargaining.

      Giovanni comes to Jesus’ funeral in the poem (depression).

      I answer another question at Austin’s funeral and point (denial) back to the magazine.

      Gregorio’s angry about the knees at Christ’s funeral. (anger)

      I admit Austin’s name (bargaining).

      Mazzola comes to Jesus’ line and makes the depression stark with his children.

      I go into the story of Austin’s death and show the scriptural influence, but how the influence went the wrong way and I twisted it and Austin left. (acceptance wrestling with bargaining and some depression)

      Michelangelo emerges at Jesus’ funeral and offers a pop culture reference to his own work (dialog and inflences/anger and depression).

      I accept my guilt at Austin’s death, my role in his passing. (acceptance which leads to influences/anger, leading of course to a Chesterton quote)

      I continue to couple the different stages of grief until we get to the Hemmingway quote and we see the similarities between fighting in grief and dying young — how neither answer, on or off. We need the “both” from eariler.

      I then pull WAY out from the funeral and show the same principle at work on the very edge of the universe, of creation advancing on the void and how neither the on or off, the being and non-being are what causes. Something charges. Something pushes being forward.

      We then move to Nietzche — summoning outright the philosophy that mirror’s Holbien’s painting and a realization that Christians already believe that God is ever dead along with we who die — that Christ died, among other reasons, because it is a Human thing to die. This is not breaking a thing to find out what it is. This is immersion. Incarnation.

      We then come to Carpaccio, and the voices are starting to pair up (let’s have another, shall we?). Carpaccio show’s Job alive at the death of Christ as one of the faithful Matthew says rose from death when Christ died and if Job can believe, then what is it saying to us?

      It’s saying that God suffered more in our world that ever we could in his. We twist the Dostoevsky quote from eariler, but now use double-quotes instead of single to indicate its harmony with scripture. Job’s vigil is partnered now with the vigil of the Dead Christ in Manet’s painting — so influences pair up with scripture. His waiting then mirroring my waiting in line — all of us in lines at funerals.

      Then consumption ends with instead of us eating one another, instead of us killing to life, we’re eating of God as in Eden, as in the manna in the desert — the quotes in Revelation about eating from the tree of life, the river of life, the leaves of the tree healing the nations. We are sustained by God’s presence in the New Heavens and New Earth rather than by eating the things we kill.

      We bookend that with Milton’s conclusion — that Lycidas, the poet shepherd, is not dead. This should remind us of Bill’s funeral, of Austin’s, of the rabbit, and of Christ.

      We add onto the earlier refrain by finishing out Paul’s verse: we who die with Christ will also rise live with him. “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”

      We then return to Holbien, whose slab (according to the poem) is now immersed in Carpaccio’s painting. The perspective shift has not only affected the painting, the author and (hopefully) the reader, but Holbien himself is surprised that the very body he pulled from the Rhine is no longer dead. This is more than resuscitation, for the body has been dead for the length of the poem and the painting based on it.

      So a perspective shift has retroactively reframed every funeral in the poem, every death, every breaking — including the original dead body that inspired the painting that inspired the poem.

      In short: once you immerse yourself in Christ who immersed himself in death, you will be able to partner with resurrection in such a way that will, more and more, make it possible to exist without breaking other things, without consuming other things, without denying other’s pain, without bargaining for other deals, without raging at other deaths, without dwelling in other forms of depression in order to survive. It’s a poem about going beyond breaking others to survive and understand. It’s a poem about learning to thrive in the middle of pain.

      Whether it accomplishes all of that, I don’t know, but that’s the intent. Apologies for the verbose explanation, but I couldn’t think of a shorter way to get at everything. And of course, there’s all sorts of imagery and moments I missed.

  6. sedula

    I hope that is a pickle.

  7. sedula

    From the sink. AHHH!

    1. lanceschaubert

      Haha.

  8. sedula

    It is fine to be verbose. I understood some of the poem but not all. Some of it is new to me. Not consuming dead to live, but the whole post-modern symphony of death is a lot to take in. I am not uncomfortable with death. Planning for it is not morbid but a caring act.
    Coming from where you know I do, some of this seems do dark. I think my pinball reference is best. I must think more on this.

    1. lanceschaubert

      Yeah, and it may very well e. I need hope to be glorifying death and if that’s ever the impression then I failed and the poem fall short. My hope is more to look death square in the eye, weep, and then weep no more, little shepherds, weep no more.

  9. saralynn

    Well, I just bumped into this site and, after reading your poem, I have decided to become a follower.

    1. lanceschaubert

      Haha. Well, you’re in for a ride like the rest of us.

      Thanks for the follow!

  10. The Hypocrisy Cycle | Lance Schaubert

    […] is pretty dang hypocritical, and I’m the biggest hypocrite of all. If you’ve read my Dead Christ poem, you know that the things that have gone on in my mind are far worse than anything some […]

Quick note from Lance about this post: when you choose to comment (or share this post with your friends) you help other readers just like you.

How?

Well, see, your comments & sharing whisper a few things to those who come after you:

The first is that this site is a safe place to speak up & stay curious. That it's civil. That discussion is encouraged. That there's no such thing as a stupid question (being a student of Socrates, I really and truly believe this). That talking to one another and growing together is more important than anything we could possibly publish. That the point is growing in virtue and growing together and growing wise. That discovery is invention, deference is originality, that we all can rise together. The only folks I'm going to take comments down from are obvious jerks who argue in bad faith, don't stay curious, or actively make personal attacks. And, frankly, I'd rather we talk here than on some social media farm — I will never show ads and the only thing I'm selling anywhere on the site or my mailing list is just the stuff I make.

You're also helping folks realize that anything you & they build together is far more important than anything you come to me to read. I take the things I write about seriously, but I don't take myself seriously: I play the fool, I hate cults of personality, and I also don't really like being the center of attention (believe it or not). I would much rather folks connect because of an introduction I've made or because they commented with one another back and forth and then build something beautiful together. My favorite contributions have been lifelong business and love partnerships from two people who have forgotten I introduced them. Some of my closest friends NOW I literally met on another blog's comment section fifteen years ago. I would love for that to happen here — let two of you meet and let me fade into the background.

Last, you help me revise. I'm wrong. Often. I'm not embarrassed to admit it or worried about being cancelled or publicly shamed. I make a fool out of myself (that's sort of the point). So as I get feedback, I can say, "I was wrong about that" and set a model for curious, consistent learning, and growing in wisdom. I'm blind to what I don't know and as grows the island of my knowledge so grows the shoreline of my ignorance. It's the recovery of innocence on the far end of experience: a child is in a permanent state of wonder. So are the wise: they aren't afraid of saying, "I don't know. That's new: please teach me." That's my goal, comments help. And I read all reviews: my skin's tough, but that's not license to be needlessly cruel. We teach one another our habits and there's a way to civilly demolish an idea without demolishing another person: just because I personally can take the world's meanest 1-star review doesn't mean we should teach one another how to be crueler on the internet.

For three magical reasons — your brave curiosity, your community, & my ignorance:

Please comment & share with friends how you prefer to share:

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