echo around me
there is supersonic war-talk
under the oceans
scrambling the brains of whales and sharks and seals
the air is thin in this room
barely sustains my breath
there is an absence of gravity
a sensation like I am floating away
prickles of panic at the chaos of the coming wave of fate
We give our unconscious beasts faces
our hunger/panics/fears
projected onto otherwise blank slates
the news is vomit inducing
our cruelities compounded
by our fascination with blood
our inability to turn away
a sacred sickness unto itself
scarred
by wrinkles of mild despair
on our foreheads
angels wander stunned and bloodied
through a landscape of the dead and dying
Their gray wings open wide behind them
their outstretched hands spewing lightening
into a legion of demons
humans hiding in the shadows
trying to stay out of the way
refugees from a war in the heavens
the dream is of a justice that is accepted universally
for all people
everywhere
all the time
The angels are relentless
a purely mechanized destruction of everything in thier fated path
a wounded man crawls along between the bodies
he never wonders who won the battle
the carnage seems endless/forever/all he has ever known
WE ARE
choosing our sides
with every word we speak
every article we read
every hand we take
every gun we aim
we pledge alleigence
to somebody
something
maybe sometimes just ourselves
in a cattle car
on the way to a gas camp
I yell through the slats at my Nazi guards
leave me out of your wars
yell until my voice is a hoarse whisper
trying to come across some way to use language that will make them understand
Another whispered voice in the unintelligible muddled roar of conversation
They know something I want to hide
There is no way to leave the battlefield
Warring Angels
led into battle
in the last turbulent years of Christ
they have always won before
will always win
the contest is one of will and patience
the carnage is no less horrifying
to the gentle choir of God
they understand
the human ache for death
for the release
of one existence
for another
the poem is about transformation, the dynamic spiritual warring that goes on, and it's a story or narrative too-- this is my fourth reading
ReplyDeletebob
Sorry I put you on the spot with this one. I am grateful for the close reading. I wish I could tell you that I set out to write about a set of ideas and here they are... or how the rythmn under the poem is based on some greek classic. Alas, I pull the poems out of my ass...
ReplyDeletei SHOULD respond seriously to this comment. The narrative inside of it, and the chant like qualities of the lines I have been writing,is meant to be somewhat hypnotic. I want to talk to the unconscious mind of my readers, as well as the silliness of their pea sized conscious mind.
ReplyDelete