"The Dilemma"

Rob Carlson


The wombat had a dilemma, so he sold it for some food.
He ate the food and suddenly had a new dilemma, which after a while he
traded for some wombat shoes.

Mildred stared at a snake, dead upon the grass. A toad had died in that
snake's throat; they both had a dilemma.

Clancy took another drink. He had a dilemma.

These circles swirling around the sun; they've got a huge fucking dilemma.

Zeke declared himself king saying, ÒI shall fix everyone's dilemma.Ó He also
had a dilemma.

Strip it all down now, scale it all back - before the words and before
the sound, before the death of innocence. And what do we see, a mere
dilemma, shooting sparks between the two pointsÉ shaking fast. Then
spiraling onwards, and on top of that is another and another until we are
walking mirrors; stacked and stacked all atop one flighty dilemma - and
each fragment, every facet - can be divided in two again right down right
down again, to that flickering little speck. And just what do we do in the
face of that?

Some draw pictures and some dig pits,
Some turn around and some run fast,
Some build castles and some burn them down,
Some dwell in darkness and some bathe beneath the sun,
But we are all heavy,
weighing down on that speck,
weighting down upon that flicker of light.


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