The Shadows of Their Heads

Reality is a very sinister version of Gilliam's Brazil (and that is just political reality without the spillage of apocalyptic consequences. I remember a school when I was a kid where they got busted for locking the unruly in a coffin like box in the basement. It seemed like a reasonable idea to someone. One really has to wonder about the real purpose of the Justice Depatment. The relationship between Hasan and al Awlaki and the second shooter at Ft. Hood would be a turnkey event. Hasan is paralyzed from the waist down. Odd how he has been kept alive, and it will be odder still when we discover what his true function will be. And ours.

Childhood has never been safe. We all walk along a raging sea wondering if that moment has arrived when nature finally understands us, and we rush out into the spume, arms stretched out, the wave threatening to take us back out to the deep, as we scream our life to life. Behind us it is all glass for a moment, before the next wave comes accompanied by indelible recollection. They start by telling you it's your fault, you made this happen. The moon whispers herself to the waves, the light of dreams makes soft the great rocks. What is it they wanted anyway, what power shines inside innocence that can be harvested by highly intelligent agency? Oh what sway cannot by had by guilt as they breed fresh monsters in you. Invisible scars never heal beneath official dispensation. Oh what a happy accident for those who escaped. Who wonder still, did I, really? Or did they just let me? There is a thunder that comes from below and you can feel it without any shoes. The voice of the earth to breach echo in your bones. And yes, it is a bright shinning asylum that gleams like no other structure made by man. That we know of. If there were any others, they would have been blotted out. We lived forever once. But only once. And pain was not something you caused any other being, but rather the pulling away of everything from everything inside of you and all you could see or imagine....or remember. Like when you asked the FBI agent if you could hold his Tommy Gun. Like when you asked the priest if he felt sad without a girlfriend. You all saw your mothers at one time or another, on their knees, trying to make sense of some fledgling garden she had to put together, like a wounded bird singing as it falls. Your brother, you sister, your best friend were illuminations of pure, unbound soul. But you saw it coming. You saw the dark hand and the iron rose for you knew that word they used damned back the deepest of darkest blood: sacrifice.

The shadows of their heads dance across the feet of the statued saints. The incense and wax, the walls and organ timbres stained by endless petition and repetition for mercy, dear god, mercy. The other shadows that dance on the rose window above the tabernacle are from the branches of the ash trees reaching out toward the setting sun that glows up past the gulleys of the dead volcano. You saw every living thing as spirit and every object as a jewel, and each and all with it's own fascinating joy and best kept secreted sublimated horror. You wanted to but you knew you never could, you dreamed of it, but you never did, really, join in. Everyone disappeared inside these spellbound bodies.

Everyone became a slave and there was no where to hide. You don't want power. You don't want beauty. You don't even want love. There is nothing that survives the wanting of it. So you remember, singing in the choir. You remember letting out your voice like a valve opening up to unsteam your heart and your remember the beauty of a world that disappears as you behold her and vanish into her dust.