Luke Hankins
(USA)
Mechanism
Robert McNamara:
I was on the island of Guam […] in March of 1945. In that single night we
burned 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo—men, women, and children.
Errol Morris:
Were you aware this was going to happen?
McNamara:
Well, I was part of a mechanism that in a sense recommended it.
–“The Fog of War”
When I was born into the mechanism
it sheltered me like a second womb of steel.
I was given the choice of toys, and I chose not
the ball, not the blocks, not the wooden flute,
but the blowtorch, and I practiced welding
on the hatch until I finally sealed it.
There were others in the room—What I assume,
you shall assume a face on the wall said.
It knew how to turn a phrase. Its features
were hardly discernible anymore, integrated
into the wall, and it spoke with all the authority
of the mechanism. I kissed its pseudo-lips.
There was reason to remain in this chamber,
and I soon forgot there had ever been a door.
I grew in stature and influence as the mechanism
asserted itself through me. I began by leaning
on the walls, wanting desperately to be among
the molecules of the wise, glistering steel.
A periscope dropped from the domed ceiling!
I took the mechanism’s perspective as my own—
how else could I even see the world? From here,
I saw the nations glaring at one another
through their own periscopes. The eyepiece melded
with my skull and I screamed in pain for a long while.
When I got my breath, I said Thank you,
oh thank you! and my voice was more powerful
than it had ever been. I tested it. I flipped a switch
on the viewfinder to see inside the chamber,
and said Move. The others stepped into a corner.
I said Beware and they were afraid.
I said Love and they trusted me. I looked on
the world again—Danger. The periscopes turned
toward me and the peoples of the earth trembled.
The inevitability of the next word vibrated
in the walls of the mechanism, it hummed
with purpose, it knew its end, and I said War.
A chorus of the dying rose outside the walls.
Because the mechanism recommends it I said.
Those outside were not us or ours, so the means
of war were justified in the minds of those inside.
We did what was necessary to safeguard our way of life.
Then another was born into the chamber.
I flipped the switch, I heard myself say Welcome
to the human mechanism. She replied
How I love you though she turned her face away.
Without a Word, Without an Image
How does one hold it in the mind? An idea without words. It is there after the words, in the mind without even a trace of an image. An idea or a question, bodiless and wordless, after the words which arose from it in the first place. How does one go on feeling it without a word, without an image?
You are doing it now. If these words ended here, if all the words in your own mind fell away, it would still be there. The very question of how one holds a question in the mind—you are holding that in your mind and still would be if you ceased to think it in words.
It is neither words nor images. It is pure abstraction, and any words that come arose from it. You hold it in the mind, that feeling, that idea, that question. The question came before the words that pose it. This is the soul, holding it. Even now, it is there without a word, without an image.
Dispatch from the Field to Headquarters
It appears that a mistake has been made.
We are currently stationed in existence.
To be precise, at a point
in evolutionary history
when the human mind
can become overly absorbed
in the quest for meaning
and in the fear of death.
I repeat: A mistake has been made.
It is hard to carry out our mission,
with these metaphysical preoccupations.
Nor can we agree on what our mission is.
Some of us have clearly been misassigned.
Many of us. Perhaps all.
There was no warning.
And I hardly need remind you
that we did not volunteer for this—
we were drafted.
____________________________________________
Bio: Luke Hankins is the author of a collection of poems, Weak Devotions, and the editor of Poems of Devotion: An Anthology of Recent Poets (both from Wipf & Stock). His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in numerous publications, including American Literary Review, Contemporary Poetry Review, Image, New England Review, Poetry East, and The Writer’s Chronicle. He serves as Senior Editor at Asheville Poetry Review.