09-26-2021, 10:31 PM
Long poem ahead. I would be pleased to have any comments. Due to its length, I'm mainly curious if it is readable to the end. It's unfinished (!) so it does just stop suddenly.
The Cell I Was In
Stars held me in my place.
So imagine my surprise when One
bright as the Ones that bruised my wrists
stood before me.
In a cloudless sky, everyone's eyes
followed His Shadow across Heaven.
The sun was as a leper next to Him
Light was only Light.
The cataract of his voice
thundered in my ears until I blacked out.
He pulled me up by the nape of my sackcloth
and jingled a pair of keys in my face.
"Hell and Death," was all he said.
Through a Door in the Sky
I thought I heard an elephant scream.
Blue sky turned into asylum night,
but there were no stars.
Then light came shining at the edges of a door
set in the darkness where Heaven used to be.
A wind of demons came out of the ground
and carried me, crying and terrified, through the door.
What I Saw There
Enthroned on a sea of glass,
a man made of two-toned quartz:
bile turned into luminous stone,
opaque channels of meteoric blood
traced beneath skin of chalcedon and brass.
Lightning chased its tail and thunder groaned
within and without his carven thighs.
A quartet of sleepless totems held the throne,
lion-face, ox-eyed, eagle-tongued, almost human,
each with eyes in the back of its head.
"I have in my hand a book," said the quartzite man, "Sealed with seven locks."
Like demonic carneys hustling a circus crowd in Hell,
the totems echoed: . "Who will break the seven locks?"
The Lamb
On the plaza in Taos,
there used to be an outpost of the Apocalypse,
the Governor Bent Museum.
The Future's victims, the tourists,
wandered dark aisles,
gazing upon devil-fish, muskets, Indian skulls, Penitente whips,
and a two-headed lamb in a glass case.
Mr. Ed's Revenge
In terror I saw
the lamb begin to gnaw at the locks
that sealed up the fiery pages of the book.
I tried to warn the quartzite man,
but as in a dream I could not speak.
The locks were severed.
Glowing pages drifted free and burst into light
like the silken mantles of a lantern.
One of the totems whispered in my ear
as I stood blinded by the pages of the book,
"Come and see."
And I saw
deep in air-conditioned bunkers
replicate horsemen letting loose riderless horrors
replacing roughshod hoofbeats
with disembowelling hunger
(Hitler's pale horse, perfected at Peenemunde).
And the totems sang,
"A village destroyed for a penny,
a city demolished for a dime,
but spare the women and children,
if practical."
Sometimes We Forget How Well It Works
The sun put on its hairshirt,
and the moon was red with blood
stars fell like molten figs,
blistering the paint off cars.
Heaven became like an abandoned drive-in,
its vacant screen torn and soiled,
weeds clustering among regiments of metal posts,
where low budget oracles once were sought.
And CEOs from every Multinational,
and their lawyers and their accountants and their politicians
fled to the ghettos and slums of the cities,
crying out, "Hide us from the quartzite man
and his two-headed lamb!"
Divertissement
And there was silence for the space of a sit-com.
I watched the plumes from the rockets
fade into a cloudless blue sky.
A marching angelic band, obscured by clouds of incense,
entertained the quartzite man with a medley:
The National Anthem, the theme from Patton, the Star Spangled Banner.
Then came the solos:
a first wave of ICBMs came down
like icicles in July, returning to the sky
in a cloudy hail of shrapnelled light.
In one breath cities became pits of cooling slag.
a second wave was blown awry
by the electromagnetic backwash of the first
and flung randomly into the seas.
The last wave fused into a falling star
named Wormwood, penetrating into the Ur- spring of Eden,
raping the waters with its bitter seed.
Weathermen mapped the casualties.
Hunchbacked light miscreated day and night.
Abaddon's Lambs
Deep in forgotten bomb shelters
locusts gathered, devouring stale crackers
and instant milk. Radiation seeped into the gloom,
mankind's plague was their milk and honey.
Meekly they supped on the missiles' manna,
mutating while above them in the half-world
Death took in his early harvest.
Locust eyes brightened in the man-made grottoes
remembering generations crushed under heel and toes,
legs torn off to entertain stumbling children,
fishing hooks drawn through locust bodies
for the fish to devour.
A messiah arose among them, name Abaddon.
He sang the history of their torments, then brought out a mirror.
"See how you have changed, my brothers!"
They looked and saw in the dim reflection:
shining exoskeletal armor sheathing huge bodies,
Homeric, flowing manes, and a glint of fangs.
Scorpion tails arched over their backs.
Abaddon leading, they poured from their pits,
a stinging horde caring only to hurt men.
For a long summer season, their torment ruled.
Carnival on the Euphrates
It was a carousel from Hell,
brainchild of four paroled Angels
resurrected from a watery prison
in the river Euphrates.
Its robotic riders were made of sapphire.
Dr. Moreau might have fabricated the horses:
lion-heads, horse-bodies, serpent tails.
monsters that spewed fire and smoke and sulphur
as it spun across the night skies
incinerating mesmerized spectators.
But two-thirds of what was left of mankind
were safe inside watching TV.
The Seven Thunders
Next thing I knew
a skyscraper angel named Thumper stepped out of Heaven,
an atmospheric Frankenstein,
constructed out of fire and rain and refracted light.
It stood straddling the surf, a little scroll in one hand
and summoned the seven thunders.
And the thunder said, (text lost)
"Time's up," roared Thumper.
A voice said, "Go and get that scroll."
So I approached the towering seraph.
"Take it," said Thumper, Father of All Bullies, "and eat it."
I didn't argue.
I took it in one bite.
It was candy in my mouth,
but turned my stomach like peyote.
Then my skull came unscrewed and Thumper poured in more visions.
The Crucivision Broadcasting Network
For three and one-half years
Jimbo Sphinx wept,
and his television consort, Babelina (nee Pudendarella)
wept beside him,
and the light in their tears
gave life to a video collection plate,
passed from hand to hand by satellite,
called the Crucivision Broadcasting Network.
Their PO box was submerged daily in a donative flood,
resurfaced fructified
by a golden silt of checks and cash.
Husks of envelopes and their non-negotiable contents
(pleas for health and salvation)
found eternity in a dumpster in the alley behind the studio.
And Jimbo sings:
"We must defend this righteous land.
We must cancel the assignment that Satan holds upon America!
It's time for us to penetrate Her with power and invasion
in the name of the Lord!
Our weapons are not carnal! We must possess Her!
When Her enemies appear, the Lord will raise up His Standard
and sweep them away in a flood."
These are Jimbo's weapons:
nightmare caricatures of the globe
swallowed by a Red Spectre,
lectures on the Satanic origin of the French Enlightenment,
and the humanistic threat!
"The Bible is our Constitution!"
But it was too much
for the Monster from the Bottomless Pit
when Crucivision usurped the transmission
of Hercules vs the Moonmen,
Channel 8's feature presentation
on Swords and Sandals Showcase.
It bellowed out a surge that backtracked
to the satellites’ trail,
and fell like an avalanche of lightning
down on their righteous heads.
For three and one-half days they lay
dead on live TV.
Their followers prayed and the prayers
coagulated into a reverse surge,
and, halleluia, the bodies of Jimbo and Babs,
braindead but otherwise unmarred, rose up,
performed their farewell broadcast,
and were syndicated, forever,
Amen.
The Cell I Was In
Stars held me in my place.
So imagine my surprise when One
bright as the Ones that bruised my wrists
stood before me.
In a cloudless sky, everyone's eyes
followed His Shadow across Heaven.
The sun was as a leper next to Him
Light was only Light.
The cataract of his voice
thundered in my ears until I blacked out.
He pulled me up by the nape of my sackcloth
and jingled a pair of keys in my face.
"Hell and Death," was all he said.
Through a Door in the Sky
I thought I heard an elephant scream.
Blue sky turned into asylum night,
but there were no stars.
Then light came shining at the edges of a door
set in the darkness where Heaven used to be.
A wind of demons came out of the ground
and carried me, crying and terrified, through the door.
What I Saw There
Enthroned on a sea of glass,
a man made of two-toned quartz:
bile turned into luminous stone,
opaque channels of meteoric blood
traced beneath skin of chalcedon and brass.
Lightning chased its tail and thunder groaned
within and without his carven thighs.
A quartet of sleepless totems held the throne,
lion-face, ox-eyed, eagle-tongued, almost human,
each with eyes in the back of its head.
"I have in my hand a book," said the quartzite man, "Sealed with seven locks."
Like demonic carneys hustling a circus crowd in Hell,
the totems echoed: . "Who will break the seven locks?"
The Lamb
On the plaza in Taos,
there used to be an outpost of the Apocalypse,
the Governor Bent Museum.
The Future's victims, the tourists,
wandered dark aisles,
gazing upon devil-fish, muskets, Indian skulls, Penitente whips,
and a two-headed lamb in a glass case.
Mr. Ed's Revenge
In terror I saw
the lamb begin to gnaw at the locks
that sealed up the fiery pages of the book.
I tried to warn the quartzite man,
but as in a dream I could not speak.
The locks were severed.
Glowing pages drifted free and burst into light
like the silken mantles of a lantern.
One of the totems whispered in my ear
as I stood blinded by the pages of the book,
"Come and see."
And I saw
deep in air-conditioned bunkers
replicate horsemen letting loose riderless horrors
replacing roughshod hoofbeats
with disembowelling hunger
(Hitler's pale horse, perfected at Peenemunde).
And the totems sang,
"A village destroyed for a penny,
a city demolished for a dime,
but spare the women and children,
if practical."
Sometimes We Forget How Well It Works
The sun put on its hairshirt,
and the moon was red with blood
stars fell like molten figs,
blistering the paint off cars.
Heaven became like an abandoned drive-in,
its vacant screen torn and soiled,
weeds clustering among regiments of metal posts,
where low budget oracles once were sought.
And CEOs from every Multinational,
and their lawyers and their accountants and their politicians
fled to the ghettos and slums of the cities,
crying out, "Hide us from the quartzite man
and his two-headed lamb!"
Divertissement
And there was silence for the space of a sit-com.
I watched the plumes from the rockets
fade into a cloudless blue sky.
A marching angelic band, obscured by clouds of incense,
entertained the quartzite man with a medley:
The National Anthem, the theme from Patton, the Star Spangled Banner.
Then came the solos:
a first wave of ICBMs came down
like icicles in July, returning to the sky
in a cloudy hail of shrapnelled light.
In one breath cities became pits of cooling slag.
a second wave was blown awry
by the electromagnetic backwash of the first
and flung randomly into the seas.
The last wave fused into a falling star
named Wormwood, penetrating into the Ur- spring of Eden,
raping the waters with its bitter seed.
Weathermen mapped the casualties.
Hunchbacked light miscreated day and night.
Abaddon's Lambs
Deep in forgotten bomb shelters
locusts gathered, devouring stale crackers
and instant milk. Radiation seeped into the gloom,
mankind's plague was their milk and honey.
Meekly they supped on the missiles' manna,
mutating while above them in the half-world
Death took in his early harvest.
Locust eyes brightened in the man-made grottoes
remembering generations crushed under heel and toes,
legs torn off to entertain stumbling children,
fishing hooks drawn through locust bodies
for the fish to devour.
A messiah arose among them, name Abaddon.
He sang the history of their torments, then brought out a mirror.
"See how you have changed, my brothers!"
They looked and saw in the dim reflection:
shining exoskeletal armor sheathing huge bodies,
Homeric, flowing manes, and a glint of fangs.
Scorpion tails arched over their backs.
Abaddon leading, they poured from their pits,
a stinging horde caring only to hurt men.
For a long summer season, their torment ruled.
Carnival on the Euphrates
It was a carousel from Hell,
brainchild of four paroled Angels
resurrected from a watery prison
in the river Euphrates.
Its robotic riders were made of sapphire.
Dr. Moreau might have fabricated the horses:
lion-heads, horse-bodies, serpent tails.
monsters that spewed fire and smoke and sulphur
as it spun across the night skies
incinerating mesmerized spectators.
But two-thirds of what was left of mankind
were safe inside watching TV.
The Seven Thunders
Next thing I knew
a skyscraper angel named Thumper stepped out of Heaven,
an atmospheric Frankenstein,
constructed out of fire and rain and refracted light.
It stood straddling the surf, a little scroll in one hand
and summoned the seven thunders.
And the thunder said, (text lost)
"Time's up," roared Thumper.
A voice said, "Go and get that scroll."
So I approached the towering seraph.
"Take it," said Thumper, Father of All Bullies, "and eat it."
I didn't argue.
I took it in one bite.
It was candy in my mouth,
but turned my stomach like peyote.
Then my skull came unscrewed and Thumper poured in more visions.
The Crucivision Broadcasting Network
For three and one-half years
Jimbo Sphinx wept,
and his television consort, Babelina (nee Pudendarella)
wept beside him,
and the light in their tears
gave life to a video collection plate,
passed from hand to hand by satellite,
called the Crucivision Broadcasting Network.
Their PO box was submerged daily in a donative flood,
resurfaced fructified
by a golden silt of checks and cash.
Husks of envelopes and their non-negotiable contents
(pleas for health and salvation)
found eternity in a dumpster in the alley behind the studio.
And Jimbo sings:
"We must defend this righteous land.
We must cancel the assignment that Satan holds upon America!
It's time for us to penetrate Her with power and invasion
in the name of the Lord!
Our weapons are not carnal! We must possess Her!
When Her enemies appear, the Lord will raise up His Standard
and sweep them away in a flood."
These are Jimbo's weapons:
nightmare caricatures of the globe
swallowed by a Red Spectre,
lectures on the Satanic origin of the French Enlightenment,
and the humanistic threat!
"The Bible is our Constitution!"
But it was too much
for the Monster from the Bottomless Pit
when Crucivision usurped the transmission
of Hercules vs the Moonmen,
Channel 8's feature presentation
on Swords and Sandals Showcase.
It bellowed out a surge that backtracked
to the satellites’ trail,
and fell like an avalanche of lightning
down on their righteous heads.
For three and one-half days they lay
dead on live TV.
Their followers prayed and the prayers
coagulated into a reverse surge,
and, halleluia, the bodies of Jimbo and Babs,
braindead but otherwise unmarred, rose up,
performed their farewell broadcast,
and were syndicated, forever,
Amen.