Existence: From Kickoff to Finale or The Cavalry of Woe

Existence: From Kickoff to Finale or The Cavalry of Woe
an Emily Dickinson Cento
MIKE MEMMESHEIMER
W.C.: >665

Act I - Birth:
(103) I have a King, who does not speak –
(119) Reverently, to the Hungry
(1522) Of Industry and Morals
(285) Because I see – New Englandly –
(756) Why Floods be served to Us – in Bowls –
(45) Within this inner room!

Act II - Growth:
(1760) The opening of a Door –
(461) Midnight – Good Night! I hear them call
(957) Identity to question
(369) As if for lull of sport –
(463) I stand alive – Today –
(1262) That I be adequately dressed,
(1562) As gallantly as if the East
(662) And God
(457) Hum[med] by – in Muffled Coaches –
(708) Until He [was] past the Pain –
(940) In which We first experienced Light
(938) Only to aggravate the Dark
(1067) And later hang –

Act III - Routine Being:
(1570) Forever honored be the Tree
(1062) Groped up, to see if God was there -
(1574) As Jesus says of Him,
(449) “And I – for Truth – Themselves are One –
(476) Itself be given You” –
(568) And Truth – so manifold!
(567) He gave away his Life –
(712) Or rather – He passed Us –
(855) With Silence as Company
(714) While Nature
(441) With tender Majesty
(708) Consoles a Woe so monstrous
(1144) That doubts as fervently as is believes.

Act IV – Routine Being and a Glimpse:
(1145) No moment will there be
(1202) A Symptom of alarm
(1307) That not a Beggar would accept
(1147) After a hundred years.
(468) There yet remains a Love –
(479) A vulgar grimace in the Flesh –
(505) Enamored – impotent – content –
(561) A sort they call “Despair” –
(637) Wide – Like the Sunrise –
(712) Feels shorter than the day
(798) Of Envy, or of Men –
(318) A Ribbon at a time –
(317) Patient – upon the steps – until then –
(153) Death, the only One –
(92) Mortal, my friend must be,
(59) [and] Found he had worsted God.

(759) But Death was Coy of Him –
(913) Stepped with so gay a Foot,
(857) [a] Prize –
(858) To Him, it would be Death.
(914) And I cannot be proud.
(1154) Each bright Mortality,
(1313) While faithful and afar,
(1311) Is freely mine
(1358) To breathe – corrode the rapture.

Act Va - Realization:
(1467) Though Generations pass away,
(1664) [and] the Sun goes crooked –
(1666) I see thee clearer for the Grave.
(1712) To look would be to drop –
(1715) I shall not look again.
(536) The privilege to die –
(1763) It has a sting
(937) Like Balls – upon a floor.

Act Vb - Practice:
(1539) Now I lay thee down to Sleep –
(1376) Dreams are the subtle Dower –
(1290) I wish I had not broken it.
(942) I admonish thee –
(530) You cannot put a Fire out –
(1104) With Hat in Hand, polite and new –
(618) It begs you to give it work –
(616) It spurn the Grave –
(715) When We stop to Die –
(801) As We – Who never Can –
(882) A Shade upon the mind passes
(1107) Between his Holiday.

Intermission:
(550) Or is this Death’s Experiment
(1890) Into the Beautiful?
(1645) His advocate – his Edifice?
(432) Is it like a Planet?
(882) The Loved?
(893) Or some Elf’s Catacomb?
(1085) Is She so much to blame?
(908) Alas – and art though sleeping yet?
(1094) Would you – instead of me?
(1341) Oh, Subsidy of Balm!

Act VI – The Race:
(784) I rose – it followed me –
(519) It multiplied indifference –
(478) I had no time to Hate –
(479) She dealt her pretty words like Blades –

Act VII - Providence:
(279) Goodbye to the Life I used to live –
(352) Perhaps I asked too large –
(408) The Grave is strict –
(434) However, dear,
(465) I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
(545) The Value of its Ten –
(513) Some rumor of Delirium.
(515) The long restricted Grave
(468) With Babble of the styles –
(945) The Funeral of God.

Epilogue:
(944) How ignorant I had been
(1295) On Doom’s consummated Chart.
(1370) This nature – how undone!
(619) Glee – The great storm is over!

Dickinson, Emily. “The Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson.” New York: The Modern Library, 2004.