H
e a r t S o n s & H e a r t
D a u g h t e r s
of A l l e n G i n s b e r g
N
a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 :
A r c h i v e s E d i
t i o n
ELIOT KATZ
Playing Catch
with Cracked Globes
The first thing to remember is bend at the knees
& keep yr back
relatively
straight.
It could be a long day filled with leapfrogging
pitfalls—
easy to throw out spinal discs or lose a wig in
the wind.
Most important is learning the
two-arms-underneath technique:
Let the globe come to you, breathe in slowly,
feel torso expand,
follow yr breath out yr nostrils, winding its
calm way through
the wintry
universe.
Visualize a cracked globe landing softly in your
cupped palms
and whatever else you do, don't squeeze! Or
shards will fly!
Anonymous millions have had throats slashed,
parliaments
dissolved,
for such frivolous crimes as a too-tight grip,
or turning away.
How return the globe to its sender depends on
its age.
If built early, circa 140 B.C. Greece, by Crates
of Mallus,
better not
flick your wrists.
Don't dig fingers in for a long throw, this
globe stops time—
losing this one can incur the wrath of powerful
gods no living
human being
remembers.
Such gods refused to stay still long enough to
be mapped.
Or breaking this ultimate globe could be a sign
fortune on
its way—will
you take such a gamble?
If the globe's from 1492, it is likely the
oldest in existence.
Put the vast blue Atlantic southern hemisphere
as it looked
before
transoceanic piracy
in yr throwing hand, raise it above your
head & hold until
your sender is
ready.
If necessary, wait frozen & careful all night in that half-throwing
position—
it's your butt on the line any time either of
you, sender or catcher,
drops this
ball.
Stare closely like a kabbalist at the letters on
yr globe & it will
slowly reveal
its codes,
its iconic, tectonic, temporal, and
presentational techniques.
In what ways is your globe already out of date
& yet also
a compass for
the future?
How does its
cartography construct the world as well as
reproduce it?
Did he or she
who created this globe pre-plan where its initial
cracks would
appear?
Who agreed to
draw its national borders in solid black marker
rather than
dotted gray lines?
What social and
cultural features has the author left out by paying
such close
attention to proportion and typography?
Is this a
Wolves of War globe, or a mapping of peaceful
emigration
routes?
How this globe
reveal its historical contingency?
How are border
cross-pollinations illuminated for a nation's
internet
connections?
Which regions
are lost to the astronaut's eye on a hazy day?
Did this
globe's creator sufficiently appreciate the value
of a
mercury-free River Nile?
Who decided to
include those beautiful & hideous flags?
What company or
political foundation funded the making
of this globe
anyway?
Have your
masking tape ready, your crazy glue, your double
lines of epoxy,
steady your
lavender candle to drip hot wax to cover up the
smallest,
freshest cracks.
Trace the open
space from its ruptured beginning to end.
See if it
passes through a country called East Timor, Zaire,
Panama, USSR.
See if the East
and West of Germany are divided, the North
& South of
Vietnam.
Does the globe
say Israel and/or Palestine? How many asterisks
appear next to the
name Jerusalem?
Is Algeria
independent yet? Is Bosnia its own nation?
Are no-fly
zones still marked off in North & South of Iraq?
Under which
flag does Hungary fly? Is there a sign saying
whether its
Jews have been placed on cattle cars yet?
How many totalitarian regimes can you name
touching at least
one point in
the breach?
Can you find
any Native Americans on a 17th century
European-made
globe?
How does your
globe assign responsibility for Africa's civil wars?
In 1966, a
95-year-old Parisian globe cracked all the way open
to reveal an
unhatched egg—
shake yr globe
a little to see if there are any secret prizes inside.
Then you can
decide whether to try silver duct tape or a
futuristic
glue,
or you can
check www.repaircrackedglobes.com, but few
international
surfers will find exact answers there.
If the
crack runs anywhere within continental United States,
you have a
complicated task
in your open
palms. You are looking at a country that has set
examples of
cultural freedom
and
semi-democratic elections for much of the world, a country
that helped
erase the axis of fascism
from your
three-dimensional mid-20th century map, that has
built an
unprecedented middle class
which doesn't
look down often, that has committed & sponsored
enough violence
in five-plus centuries
to embarass
mapmakers from the top pole to the bottom.
Look at three
different globes from the 19th century—can you
see how the
numbers
of U.S. states
and U.S.-claimed foreign terrorities increase?
Does your globe
use “America” as shorthand for the U.S. of A.?
Feel the
surface of the continent: Can you
sense the gorgeous
Great Lakes,
the magnificent Mississippi,
the majestic
Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon wonder
of the world?
Can you feel
the dangerous radioactivity emanating from land
lined with
plutonium hair triggers?
If you are
rubbing a cracked globe on your Nebraska rocking
chair porch
remember that
when you get too angry in Wichita another player
shudders on her
Angolan rocks.
Meditate on
this knowledge for 48 hours and you will know
whether this is
a globe that should be returned via overhand toss
or bowling ball
roll,
or perhaps one
of those rare globes that can be drop-kicked
from the White
House lawn.
If yr globe was
made during the new millennium it will be difficult
to locate
origins of the crack.
There are Al
Qaeda volcanos capable of causing leaks anywhere.
There are
Colombian army earthquakes, Chechnyan firestorms,
religious wars
baking in the Kashmirian sun,
burial grounds
housing too many bodies in the Congolese streets,
AIDS spreading
alarming rates in every nation with human
populations
indexed on the map.
There is a
mountain below the Equator called IMF, a WTO River
whose
tributaries remain invisible.
There are oil
tankers crossing oceans with unknown corporate logos,
tribal warlords
and paramilitary death squads, homelessness
&
bone-thinning poverty.
The weather
become too warm, the weapons too destructive
and too many.
There are
random subatomic pin pricks capable of carnage
modern physics
cannot yet explain.
Any of these
could have cracked the globe you are holding.
Can you examine
your globe and discern whether Lula has
been elected
president of Brazil?
This may be a
globe with potential, perhaps even a globe
worth tossing
north?
Although it
looks stationary as you hold it before you, arms
underneath
technique,
your globe is
revolving at speeds too fast for humans to follow.
Ignore my
earlier advice. In truth, no matter what method's
been used thus
far,
there has never
been a foolproof way to send back
a cracked globe
without
smashing it to bits. But you have made the tough catch
& must do
something.
It will be
difficult to invent a new way of returning it safely—
in times like
these, the imagination is worth more than
a thousand pair
of hands.
[Originally
published in NHS 2003, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs03/katz.html.]