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Picture of the Cows Feeding on My HeartAuthor(s): Peter WildSource: The North American Review, Vol. 253, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1968), p. 20Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25116847 .

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then sold them. All right, so we'll rent it to you. The same deal as the cattle prod sticks, O.K.?

Listen, Warden, he had sold them, don't worry, this is gonna be a rent economy, time'll be when no one

owns nothing anymore.

What do you mean am I a Red? he had sold them. I'm Red, sure. White and Blue, too. That's what I am ?

Red, White and Blue. Take that back or I'll give you the free demonstration.

Sure, sure I've got to be kidding, he finally sold them. Means? Means means means like with ends, or of production

? nah warden, the inmates would not

eventually own the electric chair. . . .All right, you

insist, so I'll sell it you like I said in the first place. What whillywha has Big Henry Green! Lilah hears

him, he's stronger than ever now. Everybody plays an

everybody wins! Come on in now it's only a dime, one-tenth of a dollar, you too can play and win! Nice and easy slow and steady, that's the way to do it, put the little ball in the box marked special and the little

man scoots up the green grass hill first dimpled dwarf to the top is the winnah are you ready now ? at the

sound of that silver dingdong bell. . . .

Now all is ready, Lilah knows it, the stage is set for Big Henry Green. All the preparations have been

made and he is just in time to bask in the glory of a

mechanical sun. All that remains is for the hidden

executioners, they work in tandem, to throw the heavy, hidden switch, but someone is stabbing eyes, sharp silver eyes, into Big Werewolf Henry Green's nape. It's not her, either; it's everybody else, which hurts him

more. He tries not thinking, but she hears his thoughts. He crumples the contract in his pocket. Somebody had to sell the machine, he answers himself, so why not

me? It's a contribution to society, because the old machine's dangerous. I mean, a machine like that old one might burn up the whole freaken room witnesses and all, he replies, so why shouldn't I get the commis sion for the new one? Who deserves it more than me?

What do you mean this machine will burn them up anyways? I told you it's safe, modern, man. What's the matter with you anyways?

But something deeper inside drugs his thoughts with

strong emotions, Lilah laughs. Big Henry can repress his thoughts, but not these feelings, not the root feel

ings which have forced him here almost against his better judgement. Vertigo overwhelms him, but with out any giddiness, just a whirling from the outside shell of him to his insides until he knows he must cry out or empty his paunch.

. . .

The hand on the clock in the room almost touches twelve's one. Lilah seduces it, wide open, leaning back.

i PICTURE OF THE COWS FEEDING ON MY HEART

I (Irvine, 1967) here there is no daylight;

a canvas tarp

thick as a mountain range oppresses the sky,

lit by a lavender clock the face of a woman,

hung with camel's bells . . .

the moon comes

I wearing a black armband adolescent

wound in moss bandages,

[ an old sea captain walking with a bone cane

leading a kicking flour

I and water calf

by a string

their black beards

drag along the ground, as they furrow the frozen earth

turn up gold coins and trample them

in the dung, in a barren place

root up green skulls . . .

! from the bitter night I a sheep's head

wrapped in a blanket falls into my arms.

GOSHEN

Up in Goshen at the Whale Inn

looking through the isinglass at the silver dripping electric trees

(the Indians bitten, basalt, wore no clouts),

people struck by lightning drowning perfunctorily in the lake;

we sitting in the belly of that animal

sloshing old bourbon around his red tongue,

the ancient pewter and the

glowing maple furniture; gold tines clawed up your knees,

we leaning dreamy, burning our brows

in the spider of the candle,

when he, riding for three nights flank-deep on the post road

broke through the door riddled with arrows

wading through his own mud across the hall, and screaming the screams that had trailed him,

collapsed, dropping his green letters into our laps.

. . .

Peter Wild

PETER WILD is the author of several pamphlets of poems and one hard cover collection, The Afternoon in Dismay, recently published by 7he Art Association of Cincinnati. SHe

appears in the WAR for the first time.

20 The North American Review

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