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Anne Sexton - The Legend Of The One-Eyed ManAnne Sexton - The Legend Of The One-Eyed Man
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Like Oedipus I am losing my sight. Like Judas I have done my wrong. Their punishment is over; the shame and disgrace of it are all used up. But as for me, look into my face and you will know that crimes dropped upon me as from a high building and although I cannot speak of them or explain the degrading details I have remembered much about Judas - about Judas, the old and the famous - that you overlooked. The story of his life is the story of mine. I have one glass eye. My nerves push against its painted surface but the other one waiting for judgment continues to see . . . Of course the New Testament is very small. Its mouth opens four times - as out-of-date as a prehistoric monster, yet somehow man-made held together by pulleys like the stone jaw of a back-hoe. It gouges out the Judaic ground, taking its own backyard like a virgin daughter. And furthermore how did Judas come into it - that Judas Iscariot, belonging to the tribe of Reuben? He should have tried to lift him up there! His neck like an iron pole, hard as Newcastle, his heart as stiff as beeswax, his legs swollen and unmarked, his other limbs still growing. All of it heavy! That dead weight that would have been his fault. He should have known! In the first place who builds up such ugliness? I think of this man saying . . . Look! Here`s the price to do it plus the cost of the raw materials and if it took him three or four days to do it, then, they`d understand. They figured it weighed enough to support a man. They said, fifteen stone is the approximate weight of a thief. Its ugliness is a matter of custom. If there was a mistake made then the Crucifix was constructed wrong . . . not from the quality of the pine, not from hanging a mirror, not from dropping the studding or the drill but from having an inspiration. But Judas was not a genius or under the auspices of an inspiration. I don`t know whether it was gold or silver. I don`t know why he betrayed him other than his motives, other than the avaricious and dishonest man. And then there were the forbidden crimes, those that were expressly foretold, and then overlooked and then forgotten except by me . . . Judas had a mother just as I had a mother. Oh! Honor and relish the facts! Do not think of the intense sensation I have as I tell you this but think only . . . Judas had a mother. His mother had a dream. Because of this dream he was altogether managed by fate and thus he raped her. As a crime we hear little of this. Also he sold his God.
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