Bread and Circuses

 

The crowds, they cheer for you.  You may not see them but you hear just fine and as they introduce your name, you’re engulfed by the excitement and fear and wonderment of barbarous masses.  It’s the sound of late night static, the volume on your television amp’d to the max, green bars filling up the screen.  The buzz shakes your bones and exhilarates you, shouting citizens hurling epithets and lewd jokes, angered by your past, excited to see if you look as they’ve imagined.

 

You’ve been waiting in the big game tunnel, where tomorrow’s hero and yesterday’s dead enter on a weekly basis, something like clockwork.  Here’s what the book will fail to mention, you’re not only bound but you’re naked, shivering wildly. Arms tied behind your back, chains clanking on hard earthen floors, you’re led out into the open, a bomb of sound punching you at the tunnel’s entrance.

 

So, you’re scared and you’re humbled.  There’s some sweet but sad justice at work, the big man made small.  You’re a big ogre but you still enjoy the irony – even in death, the center of attention.  If you had hair, you’d feel a cold breeze running its fingers through sleazy romance novel tresses.  Maybe you’d toy with them a little, playing the weak fool and then bam! explode into a rageful man-killing fury.  You’ll use a stale, fried drumstick or for the stuff of legends, a baguette fresh from the oven.

 

Chains snapping with one last surge of strength, you could be free.  Imagine that, a blind man taking on the rush of a thousand men, each one falling with the collision of bread crust and nose or neck.  One lucky soldier will slice it in two but divine hero you are, you’ll simply find yourself doubly equipped for the scuffle.

 

But who do you kid.  The papers would note the day for something else, equally dramatic.  Arena collapses, thousands feared dead.  And as the pillars fell, you felt crumbling stucco and limestone hit your face and you’re happy for the opportunity because even in failure, you’ve found some redemption.  Your people dig you out of the rubble and though you’re broken through and through, they see a peculiar look on a face made hard with rigor mortis.  From one angle, in this light, it’s triumph but from the sides, well, it’s penitence.  Rabbi Sagacious would note a lesson in the complexities of man’s motives, captured in flesh made stone.  In the tectonics of living, our motives crash and explode like Krakatoa, contradictions and good intentions coming to a boil.  Lady’s Man, Sampson, you’re but one handsome example.

 

And though you were blind, you died with beer goggles made holy, where every living thing is something potentially beautiful but in truth, often pathetic and poor in the eyes of God.  Death by way of falling porticos and tumbling pillars. 

 

As sweet and sad a justice you’ll recall, waking up on the other side.

 

                    ——————————–

 

          

 

                Crosswalk, Wilshire and Union

 

            Strange how a pin dropped in a cave

            Reverberates until you hear it

            And even see it

            And fear it.

 

            I’m carrying two bags

            Made of plastic.

 

            In one bag, my left hand

            Contains a carton of milk, sweet from the cow

            A carton of juice, plucked from the tree

            A bag of granola, a habit from youth.

 

            In my right hand, the other

            Full of bread to live on

            Sugar to dwell on

            Cereal to chew on during

            Tired mornings

            When I have no place to go.

 

            I’m just swimming in crap

            And I can point my fingers

            Call it sunshine

            Hope it sprouts sunbeams

            But it’s still stinkin’ up this

            Lifetime (and then some).

 

            Late night TV screeches

            A loud black and white

            And I’m happy tonight
            Relatively.

 

                That’s his

                Damn Story.

 

            ——————-

 

           

 

            ———————

 

Late this afternoon, I saw a security guard stop a man from taking a shopping cart home.  Robbed of a way to take his groceries with ease, a disheveled man cussed up an enormous storm, shouting at the top of his emphysema lungs.

 

I love LA, no doubt.  But I’ve been seeing some crazy things.  My tray of food was stolen at MacDonald’s today, children spilling my fries halfway across the parking lot.  Might’ve been taken aback but it wasn’t the first time.  Before, eating with a friend, an employee cleaned up a tray thinking the customer was gone.  The customer caught him and flipped out like you wouldn’t believe.  Voices rose and everything got real tense, real fast.  We calmed them down lest a rumble ensue.  I love LA and I eat too much fast food.

 

I bumped into an old college friend out at a coffee shop earlier.  A very pleasant surprise!  It was real nice just catching up with someone I haven’t seen in a lawng time.  And it was fun hearing how mutual friends are doing. We’re all in pursuit of a dream.  Life is good!  But it’s already May.  Man, time flies.

 

           ————————-

             When he hath tried me,

             I shall come forth as gold.

             -Job

 

 

Matt11:28

How You See Things

 

You are in the dark corner of the world

Where cobwebs grow thick and memories

Grow thicker.

 

You are in a bowl where fish swim or

Rather float.

 

You are cracked in places, creeping like veins

Over your brain and even deeper places

Spilling kith and kin.

 

But life is more than you think.

 

For every hundredth break and misshapen hand,

A child is born in a manger.

For every lamentation, a song.

But people are caught in frozen moments of jocularity

Long seconds of hilarity -

Living moments of clarity. 

       

    It’s perpetual,

    If you let it be.

 

People are sincere if you’ll let them be.

Sometimes

Smiles are smiles

Laughter is laughter.

 

Catch it and cup it in your hands

Colors flying like the smile that broke

Across dry land or
Noah’s grizzled face.

 

Sticks

You thought you were sleeping but in reality, you’re falling.  Open your eyes and see your pj’s flutter with a rapid wind.  Your hair is air-mussed beyond belief and with your back to the ground, you see the sky, pulling away distant.  You fall for a time and the thrill is gone and now you’re in some strange new realm of bizarre monotony, the plunging act grown old.  So, you look at your hands and inspect your nails.  You consider where they’ve been, each crack and line some mark of hokey destiny.  Perhaps the middle swirl of your right thumb marks you for this peculiar day. 

And like that, a new world, your eyes hit by a novel light.  With a thud not unlike that of stacks of paper slammed on a desk, your back finds the solid surety of ground.  No bruises or bumps, you stand amazed at your good fortune.  What strange new world is this.  Lines, colored light-blue, streak across an opaque sky, cartoon clouds streaking with red smudges. 

A crowd comes tiptoeing your way and they look in amazement.  You look in amazement too at these big, round-headed folk with dots for eyes and loopy lines for smiles and frowns.  For them, every expression is amplified fivefold and there’s not a lot of subtlety.  Words come by way of big bubbles and your thoughts, above your head for the world to see.

A paper sun – or is it a moon – offering light, you stand up, shake skinny hands and get your bearings.  The world is black, white with blue lines all over.  Off to the western horizon, the margins keep everything in place.

—————————–

Link  Harper’s Index for March:  Fun

Matt11:28

they wash it down with gin

Tumbleweed rolls huge like Texas, ambling and bouncing away in a cloud of dust.  Rows of cacti form a worshipping chorus, prickly arms lifted high.  Just around the bend, a sandy road.  Follow it through rolling hills of desert and there you’ll find it nestled, a miner’s little town.  Purple mountains ominous rest quiet on a long stretch of horizon.  If you look toward the sun, it rises like a slow nosebleed, somewhere north of noon.

 

Wagons hustle out the town square, eyes peering out beyond closed doors and cracks of smeary windows.  The wind blows with a swirl of minerals, kicking a haze into squinting sockets.  Sand hits wood and glass like the crinkle of a butcher wrapping dead steer.  Twinkling spurs spin with the gust and the tinkling sound is both quaint and fearful.  Two men stand bowlegged, staring hard from an empty space, marked forty paces.

 

His hands are quick.  But his hands are quicker.  Grimy steel springs from the holster, western swords sprung from the scabbard.  All in the span of a half-blink and here’s when time stands still.

 

So, I’ll shoot you and here’s a flash of light and burning smoke for proof.  One barrel points from the hip, a twitching trigger finger depressed slightly, subcutaneous fat dispersed gently over thinly curved metal.

 

So, I’ll shoot you and here’s more bang for your money.  One barrel points at a man’s chest, somewhere just two inches above a badge.  Two degrees off the mark, two degrees amplify into ten at a distance.  If the Lord sees a sparrow, he sees a bullet punching through aimless air.

 

In one set of eyes, a hellish pleasure mixed with tinges of tightly wound anxiety.  A thick Pringles moustache curls gracefully over thin, pursed lips.  Moreover, across the way, eyes bug wide in panic, mouth opened to a big O.

 

Cracking echoes ripping into an airy vibrato, two men stand silent, unsure of everything.  The same old wind keeps on blowing and antsy eyes watch from the sides, moving from one man to the next and back.  He breaks a confused smile and falls to his knees, the first prayer of a bandit’s storied lifetime.  Everything becomes languid and muted, as he pulls off his ten-gallon and places it gingerly on the ground.  A new sensation, he thinks he’d like to pick a flower from this new vantage point, a daisy for an unfound love.

 

He collapses forward and kisses dirt.  He sees an ant scurry by, a massive breadcrumb held aloft in its jaws.  Ah, with a sigh, all God’s work a beautiful analogy.  He sees the saloon doors, leather britches and boots hiding stupidly behind.  There’s the barber, cowering near the window, his balding head catching light.  The bordello girls stare scared, makeup melting. 

 

Life is a game of poker and sometimes you pull the Ace of Spades. With a loud whoop, saliva and chaw hit the polished rim of a golden cupsidor.

 

There’s a peculiar scent of lavender and honey.  An outlaw feels himself lifting, gathered in the strong arms of a most radiant angel.  His lamp is burning and he waits for the bridegroom.  A braving crowd gathers around him, a man who’s tasted just desserts.  Index finger and thumb form a gun and he points downward, a lazy smile across a grizzled face. 

 

It’s a miner’s little town, soon a home for ghosts.  Nestled on roads to purple mountains ominous, a choragus of cacti wave a goodbye.  An out-of-tune piano plays campy ragtime and he’s a cowboy pushing through grace and space.

 

——————

 

Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue.
(Unknown) 

 

————————

 

 

                                                           Winslow Homer – Crab Fishing

 

——————

 

Our Friend the Atom

 

Here’s proton: positive, you surmise

Full of spunk, empty of wise.

 

There sulks neutron, a nonplussed sort

Dead weight to the total, ballast for tort.

 

Fling away you electrons; you’re hurting my eyes

Tango around like quick why’s and lies.

 

Dancing elephants and falling buildings

You’re all the same thing, just tiny dots

Spinning.

 

Two nights ago, I had the pleasure of bumping into Atom, quite an event. 

Turns out he isn’t just one but three, an invisible trinity.

 

Heaven is when

They split. 

 

The atom came ready, carrying his head high

Soap to stand on and dreams to confide.

 

——————–

 

     

     

Matt11:28

Last night, visited the Islamic Center of Southern California where a number of prominent scholars and community representatives shared thoughts on the political prospects of the Arab World and Post-War Iraq.  One panelist just heard from his family from the outskirts of Baghdad and they’re holding out for word from his brothers (jailed as dissidents 25 years ago).  They were all thoughtful and at times, passionate. 

They talked of the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Islam’s supposed obstacles to popular government (the dangers of becoming a theocracy).  I liked one man’s definition:  Democracy is the expression of the majority with the protection of the minority.

<EDIT>  Nix.

——————-

Read this instead:

Flight of the Fluttering Swallows – NY Times Magazine

Click to read.  by Michael Paterniti

Well-written but more than that, it should move you to somewhere different.

———-

If not the Kings, the Ducks.  Good games.

Matt11:28

Living a Johnny Cash Song (King Kong Meet Godzilla)

 

Pickup trucks are a sign of automotive masculinity.  This 3^rd generation truck was no different – large and boxy, front bumper pimpled and dented, blue paint chipped like sailor tattoos, fat tires offering the freeway a mean Eastwood look.  It hauls logs, it lugs bricks, it gets all the honky-tonk ladies and it tows lesser cars – of which there are many.  Juxtaposition was its charm – painted navy Windsor knotted like sweet country royalty.   At forty miles an hour, a battered truck cruising through Big City streets.  But the car wasn’t built for flying.

 

The image is castanets – tiny little instruments that dance at the rhythm of sultry fingertips.  Clack-clack against a Mercedes, tires popping, axles snapping.  Clear the stage, it’s the dance of giants.  Leathery black hands create clenched fists and now it’s temporary midnight.  Shake-shake and little inhabitants bounce like beads against fake leather upholstery and plexiglass windows.  Someone’s head hits the steering wheel and now the car is honking intermittently.  Crash, crash, honk, honk, crash.  A strange little rhythm.

 

Now it’s a game of American football.  Loud grunts and monkey sounds translate to Go Long.  Cock your arm back and use the broken windows for grip.  With rotation fit for any All-American, a blue tin can spins smooth and fluid – one block, two.  Hail Mary is right.  Hail Mary, Mother of God, save me from this monster madness.

 

So let’s say it’s pinball now.  First off the forty-story bank building, through the soda billboard and then, ricochet into a curvy architectural wonder.  Pei is up in flames.

 

Now, it’s just gravity.  But screaming blue lizard breath floats you upward, tires melting.  In the silvery mirror sheen of downtown buildings, there’s a passing reverse reflection of a buckled, scorched pickup truck launching skyward, end-over-end.  Somewhere past the 30^th floor, both bumpers break off, look out below.

 

The big monkey pulls a loud Pacino rant.  The giant lizard flashes a jagged DeNiro smile.

 

The metro rail swings like an Indiana whip and cracks against simian skull matter.  In turn, Simian hands tear a radio tower off one cracking rooftop and take a swing, hitting some pickup baseball.  More end-over-end and the car is now well on its way toward shiny black lizard eyes.

 

Two passengers are screaming; the other is asleep.  But why not laugh?

 

The fat lizard would live to fight another day; today was just a primer.  Still, it was the knockout punch of the month – a crumpled, country bumpkin’s pickup truck smashed heartily into the sightlines of a scaly face.  Icing an ungodly shiner in the Arctic cool, he vaguely recalled the sound of yokels having the funniest, scariest time of their lives.

 

———————————-

 

                                                                   Winslow Homer – Kissing Moon

 

                          ———————————–

 

                          O to grace how great a debtor
                          Daily I’m constrained to be!
                          Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
                          Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
                          Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
                          Prone to leave the God I love;
                          Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
                          Seal it for Thy courts above.

 

                          ————————————-

 

 

Run the race!  Matt11:28

 

Icarus Enjoys the View

 

Auden had an eye for those things.  Brueghel’s painting was the focal point so let’s see.

 

The ploughman pushes onward, yelling to mule, go go.  The farmer is looking upward, thinking it looks like rain.  To the rear, the sun sets pretty, casting a warm shimmering glow across the sea.  Galleons, menacing, full of treasure, dropping anchor, ready to settle with stew and accordion songs for night.  In the background, painted in an ephemeral haze, two sloops sailing.  In harbor rests an island fort, a small cave mouth dug into prudential rock, hewn with two lopsided towers.

 

The town is portside and waits lazily for fishermen and farmers and sailors to come home where fat wives, small wives, pretty wives, bickering wives all wait for husbands and future husbands to chow down on plates of gruel and meaty bones.

 

Flies tickle the horse, her tail swishing.  Outside the tavern, she’ll scratch her rump on a wooden post.  Inside, men will tell exaggerated stories of women won and lost and dangerous places they’ve been, each born with big dreams of secret maps and adventure.

 

There in the corner, you’ll almost miss it, two pale legs sticking awkwardly out of the water, white splashes offering a cue.  A handsome man with broken wings, hitting the water, hard as a wall.

 

It’s always a morality tale, the dangers of freedom and arrogance.  But let’s go back, just five minutes prior.  Caged in a tower, a boy wonders about life and love.  His father gives him waxen wings and they escape.  Can you imagine the feeling.  Eyes wide with wonder and joy, swooping and looping and yes, climbing towards cirrostratus.  The sun beads sweat and runs strings of wax as feathers pop off slowly at first, all at once later.  Perhaps it’s not as tragic as we think because the boy tasted more freedom than we’re used to. 

 

Maybe it’s more tragic if we wouldn’t do the same.  The farmer hears a splash and breaks from the mind-numbing stupor of pushing a cow the length of a field – times ten.  But stuck in the tower or off wooing a girl with embellished stories of flight, the guy would’ve ploughed no wiser. 

 

————-

 

 

Chinatown

 

Haven’t been getting much sleep and I’m feeling it now. 

 

Been reading James McBride’s Miracle at St. Anna and it’s pulled me right in.  Heard a great interview with him a few months ago and even heard him read some.  Seems like another book that isn’t easily categorized – so far, so good.

 

On December 12, 1944, Sam Train became invisible for the first time.  He remembered it exactly.

He was standing on the bank of the Cinquale Canal, just north of Forte dei Marmi, in Italy.  It was dawn… 

 

Didn’t mention that I drove out through the Lancaster area and had a great time.  Beautiful views and real gusty wind.  Bought me a cheap Spiderman kite but it snapped like a twig come a funky breeze. 

 

Good night then!

 

Matt11:28 

Adam Smith and the Wineskins

 

Take one down and pass it around

Here’s an economy for everyone:

 

    Life is a dream, a cup spilling over

    Foaming like everyone’s lager

      You drink it for mirth

      You slurp it for worth

      You order a round for good measure.

 

    Send me a barrel

    I’ll roll down the aisle

    Wed to your sorrows of morrow;

    Roll me a ciggie

    I’ll puff til I’m dizzy

    Your gods and your pleasures to borrow.

 

    So pass it around and don’t be so greedy,

    The economy of life is so bullish!

    Push ever onward

    To climb ever higher

    There’s Icarus caught in the moment.

 

Perhaps I’m a beggar, Saunder Simpcoxe

Sporting a sign ever ready,

Ignoring the Maker

Digging for Change

Looking for hope to recycle.

I sign.

Will work for a miracle

Bum a roam to Siloam.

 

—————-

look closely at the kid in the middle… best seat in the house!

 

———

 

It was a good Easter weekend.

 

Here’s no Evel Knievel but I’m enjoying the unknown, taking steps of faith, going after all the things I’ve wanted (and BAM! I’m a balding man in his forties).  Soaring over decommissioned school buses and scrapped cars, I just might drag my face over steel, legs tangling painful.  But for now, it looks like I’ll make it across just fine.  Here’s a nervous glance upward.

 

(And a little pleading is a good thing.)  Thank God for grace. 

 

Here’s a hymn you belt:

 

Raise your joys and triumphs hiiiigh!  A~llelujah.

Singing heaven and earth’s replyyy, A~~llelujah.

 

<grin>

 

—-

 

Jonathon Alter is great.  Here’s his latest.

 

Matt11:28

Life Blossoms

 

The sun beat down on

A heart chapped

By wind and cold

Sometimes happy

Already old.

 

    Gloom blooms.

 

Still, wind on

Dunes blew

Nonsensically

Like the tunes

Of a didgeridoo

Singing to you.

 

    (Gloom dooms.)

 

And you rested

In the warm glow

Of snow

From heaven

That tickled your

Soul

And after

Made

Laughter.

 

    (We grope for hope.)

         

We all try to mask it

Beats in a basket.

Moments
Passing

   Crib to casket.

 

———————–

 

Slow.  And.  Steady.  Wins.  The.  Race.  And.  Gets.  Me.  Lunch.  Too.

 

Today, we sat mesmerized in front of a tank, watching turtles chase after minnows.  It was pretty funny.  As many as six turtles chasing after three fish, reactions slow like too many cups of Nyquil.  After five minutes of hapless pursuit, we concluded that it was the turtles’ strategy to tire the fish out.  And running into each other, smashing into the glass walls, each reptile went frantic on Filet-O-Fish Saturday.  Going for the kill, each turtle missed his mark by large inches.  So, in like fashion, kicking their hind legs into glacial gear, they brawled in a pathetic melee for a scanty meal.  Like watching a shoving match between jiggling bowls of Jello, not a lot happened.  

They live in slo-mo, their surroundings in twitchy fast forward.  <raise one eyebrow>

I love breakfast more than any other meal.  Ate at Marston’s, the highest rated morning joint in Southern California.  French Toast covered in Corn Flakes.  Steak sandwiches.  Great Omelettes of Mt. Olympus!  <grin>  Man, it was good.

We hung out in Glendale.  Dale’s doin’ the gangsta chin.  NY better watch it.

We Kerouacked the open road.  Minus the drugs and loose women.

Ramming speed!

Die Masala!  Die! 

A movie about revenge and later Redemption.  The chariot race rivals the car chases from Ronin.

Matt11:28

Up at the crack o’ dawn.  A good Good Friday.  And this morning, I’m regathered, ready for life and the world.  Pushing onward, walking down that James Taylor Road.  Only stoppin’ to rest (when the silver moon is shining high above the trees). 

Good Friday

The signal turned green some

Time ago

So the people started

Their move toward

Dreams of bigger homes

More love and laughter

Than they had at

The moment

We all face when we’re

Dealing with the

Fall.

 

Today

Comes silent -

Hoarse whispers

Of hallelujah

For what’s to come.

 

—-

 

 

A thankful morning. 

 

…

But I needs my cawfee.

Have a good one.

Matt11:28

At the Frontal Lobes Cafe

 

Curtain flutters and you feel a draft.

 

Everything matters to you

But doesn’t matter at all

But you’re scrambling around

As if today is the day

It all happens.

 

But nothing is going to happen

Because that’s

How things work

Even though

Nothing works

So I’ve got a good feeling.

 

 The door was left open

 In came the cold.

 The iceman was frozen

 And he -

        He was old.

 

Curtain flutters and you feel adrift.

 

———

 

 

Hands

 

War

For a slow dangerous moment, time stands still and every sense vibrates numb, bereft of feeling.  A thick red-brown rain of dirt and blood patters in falling clods and fine dust.  The deafening noise of the trenches is a slow throbbing rumble, so loud as if to be silent.  The captain is yelling, pulling on slumped collars, offering words of hopeless support, tripping on faces, ash-grey.  Between the sobbing heaves of maxim fire and the audible hiss of smoke, an ear is cupped to the mouth of Hades and out pours blackness.  A shell is lobbed; its whistle descends and he’s skyward, the clouds spinning before him, the heavens opening a way home, his pale, grimy hands clawing then climbing.  His uniform is tattered, fluttering about him and he sees things.

 

Romance

Her shoulders are soft without sharp angles, and his hands hold them lovingly.  And with that comes a kiss, equally soft and tender, expressing hidden meaning.  The small of her back is carved to the shape of his arms and the music plays a waltz, every note a memory.  He touches the hollow arch of her neck’s nacre and swears he’s passed on to another life.  Out of billions, two atoms brought together, whispering romance, wondering at their luck.  Their eyes meet and hold, two simple people offering all their hopes and pain through sincere eyes and calloused fingers.

 

Building

It’s a yellow skeleton, right side rising under the heave-ho of a straining rope.  The home is a dream, rising up in an open field, the mountains a backdrop.  Flannel shirts soak with sweat as hammers pound an unsteady rhythm, some tapping, others pulverizing nails bent in frustration.  The buzzing stir of saws zip-zip along with the strained small talk shared between men intent on grabbing lunch before two.  The thud of pit shovels quickly yields a mound.  Three thousand square feet form a box that sits pretty, pristine and full of promise.

 

Destruction

One, two, three.  It’s the other ageless dance.  Muscles sore and bruised, two men shift around a ring, feet dancing, shoulders bobbing, side-to-side.  Slip the jab and a head snaps back with whiplash.  Feign the jab and bring the hook paired nicely with the cut.  For all the talk prior, there’s no hate here but just respect and a building sense of fear in the red corner.  The haymakers are thrown, looking for good fortune.  The fifth is all grappling, tired swings leading to an angry embrace against the ropes.  The crowd booing disappointment, a taped fist garbed in puffy crimson connects square on the lower jaw, the impact absorbed partly by the padding, the rest dispersed through the metacarpals.  The force flows fluid through teeth, a ripple of pain moving up towards a clenched brain, rattling against skull.  Bulbs flashing, a man is asleep, falling towards canvas.

 

Playing

With giggles and hoots, two children put finger nails to use, digging deep into playground clay.  Next to them stands an Everest of shifting grains of sand and silica.  Nearby, the monkey bars are where every boy’s manhood is tested, from the bold and athletic to the shy and soft-spoken.  It’s enough that a child has tried.  For the daring, movement comes by way of Tarzan swings to every other rung.  With a tired grunt and panic in his eyes, one boy misses his mark and he falls to his imaginative doom, tousled bowlcut shooting wayward with happy sweat.  Children’s hands, marked with the smell of metal, creased sharply at the edge of each phalange.  Every hardened bump of skin a sign that he’s ready to move toward adolescence and in turn, adulthood.

 

Mourning

The sky eerily overcast, thunder booming, a large mallet swings down with a thud.  This is repeated.  Out in the hills, the condemned find themselves strapped and nailed to thick wood.  One is a thief, the other a murderer and with every downward stroke, they grimace and scream, cursing life, the world, their captors and their Maker.  But there’s a man in the middle, the last to be hoisted.  His cries are different.  Like spikes driven thoughtless into rails on the Transcontinental, each nail drives through emaciated flesh, splitting bone to marrow, cracking ulnar and radius.  The pain is dull and throbbing, his heart heaving to pump life.  With each forsaken cry, exploding deep and something sorrowful, the pain of the world is made audible.  Miles away, a heavy curtain is torn, ripping downwards, pulled violently by a new gravity.

 

Grace

The debris of wood and bodies rain downward in a sight surreal - a scene from Dante’s fourth ring.  From above, the picture is beautiful in rawness, still a blip on the cosmic radar.  Ground and sky shake like a heaving whale, spitting out an unwelcome visitor.  Bereft of feeling, the torn Captain lands in an oily puddle, eyes caught by visions in the rainbow sheen, staring to infinity.

 

—-

 

Now Playing:

 

 

It would be tragic if those evil robots win.
I know she can beat them…

 

 

 

 

MC is the place to be.  Matt11:28