First Digression
Last night I dreamed I was surfing idly on the internet. Pretty quickly things got dicey. When I entered search terms or a URL into Google Chrome, I was immediately re-directed to a page of ads. “No,” I thought. “This can’t be right.”
No, that’s not quite it. It was rather that “andrewjtaggart.com” did not lead me to my cozy little home, but the name had been thieved and I was held hostage by a wall of ads and text. That page, filled with noise and fuzz, was andrewjtaggart.com.
I thought, “So this is Hell 2.0.” I thought, “So, this is how people experience this site.”
Second Digression
I glanced at my Dashboard this morning and noticed that someone had searched “resume cv professor andrew taggart.” If you’ve been reading my work long enough, then I hope you’ll laugh at the whole string of characters. (Well, perhaps, the Christian name “Andrew” is not that funny but I digress.)
Preface
The poem below is stitched together from search terms that brought some readers to my website over the past couple days. I fear they came away empty-handed. I hear they are demanding their money back.
The purpose of my modest literary experiment is to see whether, in this threadbare tapestry, this withered linen cloth, I can glimpse something of the diversity of human experience; whether I can enact compassion in the enmeshing; whether I can take the dangerous, the rather dangerous and lewd desires alluded to, and hold them up so tenderly; and, most of all, whether I can let in the vulgar, let in the guttural and raise it up too, allowing it to realize its essence in a higher form. Just as knuckles plead to be wrists, so lust sings to be love.
I do not say that the poem is good. I say only that the poem is right-spirited. Let us say: its heart is in the right place.
A.
— 1 knuckles feet wrists arrogant steps 2 scenes: touching breasts touching lovers breasts lovers touching breasts 3 scene: breast touching breasts touching breasts touching before marriage lovers breasts touching marriage lovers breaths touching marriage 4 rumi stillness integrity, integritasFurther Reading
I take this to be one example of spiritual exercise (ascesis). The curious reader may learn more about ascesis over here. Scroll down about halfway and, while you’re at it, why don’t you be a good sport and grab the tissue on the floor at your feet.
