Two poems by James Scully

Two poems by James Scully — There Is No Truth to the Rumor Donatello’s Version

THERE IS NO TRUTH TO THE RUMOR

there is no truth to the rumor
the Constitution’s
a goddamned piece of paper
it’s not vegetable, but animal
dressed as parchment–

invented in Pergamon
in not yet Turkey
3rd century BCE
when the papyrus ran out

Ionian Greeks called sheets of it
diphtherai, or ‘skins’
by the time of Herodotus
writing on skins was common

Assyrians and Babylonians
in what for now is called Iraq
were already writing on skins

writing and rewriting
past traces of earlier writing
on recycled skins
they’d scrubbed and scoured

they wrote what they believed
mattered
on something meant to last

rabbinic books weren’t books
but scrolls of parchment, as
were, later, early Islamic texts

great civilizations as living cultures
writing themselves on skin

writing rewriting
laws, histories, religions, all
on cured skin: split
sheepskin, goatskin, cowhide,
horsehide, squirrel and rabbit

aborted calf fetuses
hairless through and through
as is the skin of angels
would be reserved
for especially precious stuff

yet regardless of grade, without exception,
skin being mostly collagen,
the water in ink or paint
would melt it slightly
creating a raised bed for the writing
like welts on a body
showing what’s been done to it

even today, to write on parchment
or color it
the tiniest bit watery
is to bring all this doing up

each writing a rewriting
overwriting the life of skin

so if its breath is gone, its muscles
having lost all sense of purpose
bereft of heart and liver, still
in the heat and humidity
of human and meteorological exertion
it buckles, shifts, sweats and squirms

uplifting a little,
like from a death bed,
giving lie to the rumor
the Constitution is a piece of paper
damned or not

because, even dead, it will let us know
this was a living matter
that was being painted up, written off on
chewed by dogs and lied over
DONATELLO’S VERSION

1
is unexpected:
the boy David shamelessly naked, one adorable leg cocked at the knee
nonchalant vulnerable soft-bodied a true killer
he wears his helmet like a bonnet, its pointy peak garlanded with laurel leaves

2
the kid’s a winner
little penis big sword
standing astride the craggy winged head of the giant, Goliath

3
Goliath’s head is peaceful, his death like any death is restful, untroubled by desire or regret

4
David’s skin glistens, obscurely under a patina of melancholy
what’s wrong with him
he should be dancing up and down with joy

5
poor David the good guy
victory is the worst thing that could befall him

6
in the glass of his great victory, through the loathsome mist of world weariness
he sees himself becoming King David

7
sees strings of victory twining into distance with strings of defeat
how he will conquer and flee
how puff himself up to hide
how he will dance around the sociopathic Saul
how marry, sire, beget betrayals, adulteries, murders, torture prisoners raked through the brick kiln
a weakness for poetry will have him writing psalms again and again—
for all he has won by this great victory is his own disaster:
his family, his kingdom, his people tearing apart and apart

8
he will go through life eating flesh by the fistful
choking on shadows

9
in the improbable blood of his great victory
he sees all this and is famished

JAMES SCULLY is the author of nine books of poetry, including Raging Beauty: Selected Poems (1994), and three works of translation. He has also published two critical collections, including Line Break: Poetry as Social Practice, and was the founding editor of Curbstone Press’s “Art on the Line” series. The poems in this issue of Logos originally appeared in Scully’s new collection, Donatello’s Version (Curbstone Press, 2007, www.curbstone.org), and are reprinted here by permission of the author and publisher. He is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Connecticut and lives in San Francisco.