Lit Heroes #21 - Akaky

When a retainer – or nose – after time immemorial
Has resolved on running off and away
This is most probably the fault of an apathetic master.
When your loyal overcoat is snatched away or goes astray
Then it's because of the coat owner's unreliability.
Had to keep an eye on, especially when parading it.

One can't see one's own nose and this twerp trades on it;
But it's easy to watch one's own cloak, at least the front of it.
And if you just keep your hand always gripping the collar
None will snitch it from behind without noticeable tugging.

I am me with my nose, so I am else under a fur.
A nice fur, a cat fur, might make something of myself;
On certain spots I must lack natural hairiness.

Whatever I might be deprived of isn't me, and there is lots of
_______________________________________ it.
Whatever I mightn't be deprived of, is that me?
You can swipe my restraint, you can swipe my desire
You can despoil me of my bloody whole being on earth
But, as long as I am present, you cannot divert my attention
_____________________________________a bit.

And I need less a cloak for that
Than such cloak's very loss, or literal experience.

July 25, 2007

Lit Heroes:

01. Cervantes's Quixote
02. Swift's Gulliver
03. Proust's Narrator
04. Defoe's Friday
05. Hugo's Quasimodo
06. Homer's Ulysses
07. Hesse's Siddharta
08. Molière's Sganarelle
09. Grimmelshausen's Simplicius
10. Verne's Phileas
11. Melville's Ahab
12. Miller's Willy
13. Rimbaud's Je
14. Maturin's Melmoth
15. Shakespeare's Romeo
16. Dickens's Oliver
17. Cooper's Chingachgook
18. Mann's Tadzio
19. Murasaki's Genji
20. Sade's Rodin
21. Gogol's Akaky