From cartoons for a poem “It can make you grotesque”

It can make you grotesque, give you only

one eye–and murderous hunger. You eat two men per day, like the

story, but then are blinded in your sleep–with a lance the survivors

heat in your own fire, as they must. This is the world. Whatever life

you led before, shepherd and cheesemaker, astronomer and child of a

god, is over. What else is there but to avenge the end of cheese and stars

and gods’ love? and before the moment is lost. Weeping blood from

your great eye, you must roll the cavestone aside, moving your sheep

one by one between your legs. The poem is touching each sheep,

reassuring them while searching their wool for enemies. Lest they

follow your dear ones out to freedom. The suspense kills you, as it

must, bleeding from your one blind eye, tempted to give up and follow

the last–your faithful ram into soft grass, still blue with predawn and

dewy, though you won’t see it ever again. You listen for the river. You

do follow it and would gladly tumble from the cliffs to your death. But

the jeering from the sea wakes you. Feel through trees for a crag of rock

to break and hurl toward the voice. You are that powerful. But you

hear the human voice again–from his fleeing ship, and hurl another

massive rock toward it. What won’t you hurl after it, again and again,

long after the voice has quieted?