Glossophoria, Utah, 17 October 2018

I knew an angel who adored speaking
In public so much that he could not care less
That no one who heard him understood
His native, only tongue. He gathered
His wings around him like a feathered robe
And hunched his shoulders, drew up,
Nearly to his chest, the knees of his useless,
Groundless legs. He had an idea, he said,
Although not in any language any listener
Could understand. He had an idea why
The divine, in some human traditions,
Had decreed that the angels were less than
The flightless apes who hosted them.
“We” he said, at least in translation, which
Everyone knows is imperfect, worse when
Translating from verse, “are what you can’t
Escape, what your ancestors invented, cages
Allowing you to invade regions too deep
Or too elevated, too dense or too thin for you
To breathe in unsupported. We are games.
Allow me to explain,” he added, to no one
Who could tell he had embarked on explanation.
“You, every one of you, parse existence
As between the artificial and the natural,
The unreal and the real, the actual and fiction,
The world and the game. You are the world,
Or the world made you, the same. We are
What you made once the world made you,
The game. Games have three characteristics,
However marvelously combinatorial their rules
And significations, just three characteristics,
Always the same. One, games are bounded,
Each one with an outside, not the game, and
An inside, the game. Two, the inside has rules,
Which must be followed, may be deadly, but
Only obtain inside the boundaries of that game.
Three, whether trivial or solemn, a matter
Of life or death or really no matter at all,
A game can never attain the ontological priority,
The reality of the world outside the game.
That is, a game can be vicious or glorious,
But it has no authority outside of the game.
This goes for taboos, rituals, legalities. It goes
For languages, mathematics, gods, and demons.
It goes for angels.” He paused, a feathered ball
Clutching his voice in a corner of the public square
Where the crowds mingled noisily, pointedly
Ignoring him, his muttering. “This goes for me.”