Thirteen Ways of Looking at Mulder: A Poem (1/9/97)

This is what happens when one is deprived for too long of new episodes.
I've loved the recent poems by kipler, Pamela P., and, of course, MYRKE
(welcome back, Myrke!).  This is not like those, though.  Don't even keep
reading unless you're in the mood for something strange (and strangely
pointless -- a phrase which reminds me of "Millennium", but let's not get
into that again).
This poem began its life as "Thirteen Ways to Look at a Blackbird" by
Wallace Stevens, which is a good poem (I think), and somewhat strange on
its
own.  However, the simple step of replacing the word "blackbird" with the
word "Mulder" throughout the poem brings it to new heights of bizarreness.
And yet... perhaps to the perceptive reader, a new layer of meaning has
been added?
(Yeah right)
Again, this poem is exactly as written by Wallace Stevens, except
"blackbird" has been replaced by "Mulder", and three instances of the verb
"to fly" have been replaced by something more anatomically correct for
humans.

		Thirteen Ways of Looking at MULDER
				I.
		Among twenty snowy mountains,
		The only moving thing
		Was the eye of MULDER.
				II.
		I was of three minds,
		Like a tree
		In which there are three MULDERS.
				III.
		MULDER whirled in the autumn winds.
		It was a small part of the pantomime.
				IV.
		A man and a woman
		Are one.
		A man and a woman and MULDER
		Are one.
				V.
		I do not know which to prefer,
		The beauty of inflections
		Or the beauty of innuendoes,
		MULDER whistling
		Or just after.
				VI.
		Icicles filled the long window
		With barbaric glass.
		The shadow of MULDER
		Crossed it, to and fro.
		The mood
		Traced in the shadow
		An indecipherable cause.
				VII.
		O thin men of Haddam,
		Why do you imagine golden birds?
		Do you not see how MULDER
		Walks around the feet
		Of the women about you?
				VIII.
		I know noble accents
		And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
		But I know, too,
		That MULDER is involved
		In what I know.
				IX.
		When MULDER disappeared out of sight,
		It marked the edge
		Of one of many circles.
				X.
		At the sight of MULDER
		Running in a green light,
		Even the bawds of euphony
		Would cry out sharply.
				XI.
		He rode over Connecticut
		In a glass coach.
		Once, a fear pierced him,
		In that he mistook
		The shadow of his equipage
		For MULDER.
				XII.
		The river is moving.
		MULDER must be travelling.
				XIII.
		It was evening all afternoon.
		It was snowing
		And it was going to snow.
		MULDER sat
		In the cedar-limbs.


Oh, you've made it this far?  Well I apologize for forcing you to wade
through the above stanzas -- I warned you it was pointless :) .  But these
images attracted me for some reason.  I like the way that they sort of
make fun of Mulder as Hero and Icon....
EP