The souls of biomorphs - we imagine them -
For years, suppose them, pretend them
their wish to fly, fly! But always in the same
formations, these milky white skins, smoky veins,
maintain the same bearing, azimuth and range
from the mezzanine to the 7th or 10th, perhaps the 53rd
floor, looking outward, ever outward, we supposed
their very permanence was evidence of conversation,
some nightly briefing that held them in formation.
Ultimately these skins were not of edifice or blueprint
but of sky and the elements of things aloft, beyond
themselves and the aesthetic that recalls thick walls.
It seems, then, these poor marbleized wretches
were not ready -- were mere pretenders at form -
and would require further preparation. O' unworthy
shines, impermanent gloss on the towering aeries
you defined; be humbled before the wrecking ball, cover
yea with neglect in the stoneyards of the lower east side,
that you must sink from the high station you once occupied.
What? did you think you were quarried for Delphi to remain
cool under the blazing sun or prophesy by the sterling moon?
It's the forties, get over it. Even now, Spandau is the destiny for
pride filled fools and beyond that lay the carcasses of great cities.
In chunks and pieces they would atone with the contrition
of salvage, make acts of plummeting value and take regular floggings
between the rows of porcelain toilets and the hingeless
skeletons of flophouse doors. Better yet, in the condemned
graveyards that once were showcases, these poor stacked souls
pass their days contemplating with the doubt of the unborn.
In the end, they would step down from the perches of arrogance,
to which all edifice aspires and none succeeds -- not the Parthenon --
and at last acquire the thing which not even the Holy Spirit
can bestow - God, why hast thou fosaken me in this pile of crap?
At which point, the creator may appear; can now afford
to complete what He is driven to desire - breathe life into this
slab of available material at an affordable price. Ah! He says,
What atonement! What humility! What a price! They don't glue,
won't bend, twist or fold. Try me, it winks, I got soul.
Noguchi, 1943
