Hero Worship, a poem

This poem may be read as resisting the hero or heroic, but should only be read as resisting a certain vision-version—specifically, the socially constructed masculine myth, the phallocentric conquering hero. The Quest is a different version, where She and He meet to become They / We. This poem relates directly to my essay, “(Not a) Poetics of the Hero’s Journey.”

Hero worship

I am hero. I win all battles. I am beer can, whiskey bottle, fishhook imbedded into side of heart’s mouth, penis failed and plunging. I am hero. Hero, bottle, whiskey, beer, phallus, fishhook heart, dear. Dream cream to butter; churn; I win! I win, I earn. I am deleted; dense discussion dismays to reveal.

Leaves, grass, river, flow, erode, change; do not win. Run! Flow! River, grove, leaves, grass, beer, whiskey, decompose dust. I, not alone, am built of bric-à-brac on trick of lack, disease, destroyer, cancer grower, sifted city dust; gifted growth. Foolish flight without breaking out, shout to shaking hordes below: I am, you need not grow city-scape, desert. Blow dust aside. Leaves, river, grass touch.

Break out through, below, above, side to side, into; river ride, dance slide, shove, flow glow. Do you flout doubt? Ride tide, hide guide, un-teach unleashed: fled bed, tread tomorrow without sorrow; glide, glide, glide. Can I unwrap trap crap, unhook lure manure, free bee sting sling? This is the real feel; feel the reel?

Slay it, it does us apart; join joint joist jostled gently, ride to side. Break it, suture it, moochers aside; pull it and tease it, re-seize it, thread it, don’t bed it; red it up. Shock the flock, mock the smock, muck the river bottom through. Rid it, kid it, deride it, re-construct it, fluctuate without it; much too much without  touch. Touch it.

Break make; unmake; take. Know flow, no flow; un-scheme dream, ream upon ream; and ream the dream-scheme, seam upon seem. Flee me light and dark, flight stark raving; shaving quite lightly, flew it. Fluid opposition proposition: no go. Lay it aside and take up its other, don’t smother your brother, druther live, give. Sieve leaks, seeks solid landing: impossible.

I am hero. I am idea unsung, wrung, sung; I am empty sound round which thatch grows, course gorse flowers, continuous semantic somethings un-reveal; concealed, congealed darkly, harbor-sharkly devouring dense discussion; dis-made to re-seal: I am hero. I am in language. I am death. End me.

—Michael Dickel