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| art
by Jacopo Camagni © |
ex caelo
(what if heaven were all our dark places, we shrouded in light…?)
I was listening to the feast of the augury
on the Greco-roman AM/ A.D. wannabe, sure to get a front seat to the apocalypse, heavy duty part of the radio dial, eating my life's hot mess as a gumbo, reading my tea leaves, sitting low on the
couch, talking to myself about what I could do to die happy as a clam with a head full of clever and passion as the
saints start to come marching in...
our angel of death, was a subtle guest, arrived as
an asteroid carrying, not only fire from above, but also a virulent mutagen,
combining these two culling devices for a super-charged, infective woe-is-me, my
life may not have been good enough for immortality, inevitability…
all anyone saw at first was a distant
flash of the roar to come…the shock-wave followed a few minutes later…and at
once, we creatures of comfort and material security were roused from our near
midnight rituals with a cacophony of broken glass, car alarms and screams amid flickering brownout pulse gasps of the way life used to be…was it a world-wide phenomenon,
circumnavigating its carnage, something our news cycle image whore culture could exploit…IT WAS…
the television said an announcement would be forthcoming though delivery of
said information could not be guaranteed…emergency broadcast measures were
being put in place…communication would be problematic due to sporadic to
widespread electrical outages…ham radio operators were said to have been
alerted to being needed…I remember the last thing I saw broadcast was a visibly
shaken talking head telling me to love who I was with…I was alone…
outside my window, there seemed a growing,
low decibel clamoring, a beginning to simmer, milling about, the neighborhood,
much like all the other neighborhoods, I thought, turning, what the fuck is
happening to us, into some Monty Hall’s joker’s wild survivalist block
party…edge-bloomed velvet and seedy shenanigans with shaved and pimped rapturous
religious overtones and theatrics…
human beings thrown together
suddenly and permanently is a fun potent exchange of life’s hidden shoebox-ed
snapshot things and despite the cause…I thought…fear, is an
especially, giddy intoxicant if enough people share their misery with a
thriving elegance…because, it seems, love in this world might not have ever
abandoned us, had we always been this endangered…and not so ready to believe in
a winning lottery ticket of an afterlife for everyone…
a smell of roasted onions and peppers
mixes in with savory barbecue smoke, cruising its wafts, up and down the block,
filling the air…I watch an accordionist with an umbrella for a hat, waltz down
the street, there is a monkey dressed as a bellhop, pulling a peanut machine,
not very far behind him…the songs he plays makes this night a surreal peeled
sun burn collection of scars in jars, I take them out, open them and take big
whiffs, just to remind myself, I am really into the sordid beauty, underneath everything…all
the caged marrow dreams feed on…be they melodies and bone symphonies twined to
how I currently track time or the words that tag along while losing my way
several times, on purpose, spiting my face, playing carnival seek to hide, when
I am given any chance to show my faith by leaping abyss after abyss…
and even if this is just to say when I
fall I am really flying, warmed by the whip and tear of my soul’s skin burning
with what civilized nations allegiances come before humanity’s algorithm in
beaten path, cyclical ritual nostalgia for wombs and tombs and all that life
can come wrapped and unraveled in…though sometimes, the poems ramble on their
own and arrive covered in simple broad leaves and brown paper and are much more
enticing anticipations than any gaudy foil and fobbed ribbon hoopla…
meanwhile the television never came back on
the internet froze solid, people’s cell phones died
permanent re-connectedness occurred
in simultaneous symbiotic serendipity
of parishioners, parasites and temples
right now, when I write
“Hey money changers,
you can count the money
I’m still selling
lemonade and hot plates
because hell is here, where
you go when you’re hungry
for an explanation”
everyone settles for comfort
along the way toward
what they already
assigned this life to
I rather like the burn
febrile prophetic
profit even
from the ash
the word passed
stay up wind
and last
another day
EJR ©
