BAP 2009: "How to Be Eaten by a Lion" (Michael Johnson)

December 13, 2009

I’m glad Jared has taken Michael Johnson’s poem in an interesting direction… it was a poem I dismissed too quickly. First, the poem itself:

"How to Be Eaten by a Lion"

If you hear the rush, the swish of mottled sand
and dust kicked up under the striving paws,
its cessation, falling into the sharp and brittle grass
like the tick of a tun roof under sun
or hint of rain that nightly wakes you,
try to stand your ground. Try not to scream,
for it devalues you. That tawny head and burled
mange, the flattened ears of its sleek engine
will seem only a blur, a shock, a shadow,
across your neck that leaves you cold.
It may seem soft, barely a blow,
more like a falling, an exquisite giving
of yourself to the ground, made numb
to those eyes. It may be easier just to watch,
for fighting will only prolong things,
and you will have no time to notice the sky,
the texture of dust, what incredible leaves
the trees have. Instead, focus on your life,
its crimson liquor he grows drunk on.
Notice the way the red highlights his face,
how the snub nose is softened, the lips made
fuller; notice his deft musculature, his rapture,
because in all creation there is not art
to compare with such elegance, such simplicity.
Notice this and remember it,
this way in which you became beautiful
when you thought there was nothing more.

I’m particularly intrigued by the idea of taking the poem more literally than I have, at least in the sense of assuming that the lion is– well– a lion, and how that connects to the privilege of most of those likely to read the poem (or, for that matter, have time to read any poem) and the nature of– and around– human beings.

In my own self-obsessed-to-the-point-of-myopia manner, I took the poem to be one long metaphor, the lion being whatever threatens to consume us, most likely depression– a more frightening, muscular version of the Churchill’s "black dog."

The language in the first four lines of the poem actually reminded me a bit of some of Jared’s poetry, rather rich, working from the abstraction outward. The fifth line interests me in a formal sense– it is so much more regular and rhythmic than th rest of the lines, which are a rather haphazard, typical free-verse melange. Was this intentional, reflecting the rhythmic rain? I would think it mere coincidence but for the fact that in the line before, Johnson write "under sun" instead of "under the sun," while showing no fear of specificity elsewhere in the poem… so perhaps he’s making a conscious choice I don’t fully understand.

I wonder about Jared’s description of the poem moving toward "points ridiculous" with these lines:

It may seem soft, barely a blow,
more like a falling, an exquisite giving
of yourself to the ground

I don’t see these as ridiculous or even slyly funny, but pointing toward the moment of complete exhaustion, when giving in does become an "exquisite" thing– or feels that way. Having lived these kinds of moments, there’s a deep ambiguity inherent in each, which Johnson recognizes by characterizing the moment as "giving of" rather than "giving up" or "in." This ambiguity reasserts itself a line later:

It may be easier just to watch,
for fighting will only prolong things
and you will have no time to notice the sky

Is this giving in to despair or is it acceptance? And if acceptance, is it a good thing, that state of graceful acceptance where we can truly see the world around us without wholly wrapping ourselves up in it (or warping it around us)?

Gratuitous literary reference/connection that likely only exists in my mind #1: Jared notes the imagery of the poem, which I also admire. The physical description of the lion and its natural art, elegance and simplicity brought to mind Blake’s tiger.

Gratuitous literary reference/connection that likely only exists in my mind #2: the end of the poem reminded me, in a twisted way, of the end of Flannery O’Connor’s short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," where the grandmother finds grace in the moments just before death, though of a very different kind:

Hiram and Bobby Lee returned from the woods and stood over the ditch, looking down at the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky.

Without his glasses, The Misfit’s eyes were red-rimmed and pale and defenseless-looking. "Take her off and thow her where you thown the others," he said, picking up the cat that was rubbing itself against his leg.

"She was a talker, wasn’t she?" Bobby Lee said, sliding down the ditch with a yodel.

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

Tags: bap09, michael johnson, poetry