A Good Respirator Seal
To resist evil I must make myself more ugly
We weren’t made to be tactical agents.
Our DNA was spun to holler with our buddies from the hill of intelligent apes
to the bumbling idiot apes on the dum-dum hill, hardly a hill, really --
who’s to say what’s true, I mean really? -- towards a congress of shattered ids
offered up by superego to the faceless heavenly host of rotating masks and watchful eyes,
daring in a no I mean really sort of unrepentant bugle-rally to rival even the car horns and the megaphones and the revolution radio --
Light a candle and test the respirator out. Clap your hands to the vents and try to breathe.
In the slow-motion replay you can clearly see the catcher place his cleats back on home plate before the slide.
In the slow-motion replay you can clearly see the ball leave the glove without being caught.
I am evidence sufficient to overturn the ruling.
I am the bad send that secures the final out.
I spread across a largely even surface and fill the gaps with capillary action.
I am the lab rat that claps back in tactical black.
If this doesn’t matter nothing matters.
I am self-absorbed. I am callow and cruel.
I gather small slights in a drawstring bag and plant them elsewhere as grudges.
A to b and b to a. Swinging from tree to secondary tree.
In the slow-motion replay you can clearly see the bat was corked.
In the greatest pop song ever written Phil Collins tells us the bubble’s just about to burst.
In the slow-motion replay you can clearly see the ball was aimed with intention at the batter’s head.
In order to resist evil I must let myself out of the bag.
Think how much the play of children prepares us for the endgame dodge-ball of war.
Returning to the ape-like state of grace well-known at age five, imagine your life as a series of connected images. You can flash-freeze and slice them millimeter by millimeter. Drop a few by accident and see which genes change.
In the slow-motion replay you can clearly see the ball curve back over the corner of the base at the last possible moment.
I will stand behind home plate and assert control through calculated ejection.
The signals of my hand will emerge from the arm of natural law.
Yet despite all temptation I will be a kind and merciful god. I will impose exile in order to keep my children safe. I will extrude a religion of peace through my vice-like fingers:
I will let the scout into the kingdom of god for he is earnest and just and always finds a way;
and I will let the dancer into the kingdom of god for she has already conquered all there is to conquer.
I will let the Xxcha into the kingdom of god for they are spiritual in worldly matters;
and I will also let my heart into the kingdom of god for she will mother a child to survive the world that is to come;
and I will also let the historian into the kingdom of god for he feels what the rest of us cannot or will not;
and I will also let my best friend into the kingdom of god for life is hardly worth it without him;
and I will let my family into the kingdom of god for they are full of goodness;
and also I will let my teachers and my students into the kingdom of god for they will continue my mission once I drive myself insane with the glory;
and I will let every single dog into heaven, even the killers, for none of them deserve inner darkness.
The rest I will review on a case-by-case basis.
In the age of glory the diurnal night brought halos from halogens above
Mmhm Yes Lord his sword of fire splitting in two the tapestry of night
Syncopathic ley-lines their origins and endings blent and taken all-or-nothing like stew
In the slow-motion replay you can clearly see Alex made no attempt to access his weapon.
I know
the fish I crushed with a rock after my hook lodged deep in its throat
I know
what Ted Hughes did and got a tattoo of the ballsack crow drawings anyway
but I also know
The tender touch at half-past midnight, the luxurious uncurl of the slow weekend morning, the warmth of hot chocolate prepared with milk, those European biscuit cookies with dark chocolate stamped on top, an earnest Eurovision song from the early 90s, soup kitchens with the good shit, hot tub beers, a moment of stochastic kindness in ARC Raiders, a room made with pietra serena, the words of Kahlil Gibran, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Daniel Berrigan, sparrows (or were they starlings?) swooping in great numbers against the sunset chimney, the words cellar door as they escape my lips like the start of a clear spring, Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies, a well-painted model robot, and crying with my friends on Zoom.
I know enough of heaven to say with confidence it is already among us.
In the slow-motion replay you can clearly see the agent of our government say “fucking bitch” after leaning over the hood to overkill with his phone out in a shot that would make the cast of Nightcrawler (2014) squirm.
Here in the kingdom we believe in tachyons and all they imply. You can know a thing before it happens. You can act on it and change it before it happens. You can peel the old face to make fresh the sharpened new.
Sun streams through embracing trees to strike the walled garden in which three cardinals huddle with their plans for the future. There is dust in their robes and a hollow gleam in their eyes. In three hours they will be arrested in their flight from the city by armed guards on horseback. Now, though, there is only smokeless fire burning with cruel intent over hills.
In the greatest sculpture put to rigid form, the Roman mother is preserved by volcanic ash in the symbolic performance of the guardian.
In anticipation of slow thick air that lingers.
Alex we are with you in Rockland. While you are not safe we are not safe.
We will never be safe again.
In the slow-motion replay you can clearly see the bat flip consider leaving the stadium entirely before settling back with earth.
Wheeze and shuffle like a penguin to ward away the late-night leg-lock.
The rush of decay waiting patiently in its dormancy, the errant mustard seed planted barely out of time. Bright flowers known to erupt from inorganic pressure.
I am Joseph the interpreter of dreams.
I am not a good man. I am not a tolerant man.
To resist evil I must make myself more ugly.
Before donning armor
I must take my armor off;
savagely at first, then softer, with intention
so as not to cut myself where the seal sits.
Flash of silver fish unfolded from black linens and nets
I will
find in testimony and witness a silver set of eyes
flashing silver and gold with a luminous body in the bright green haze
flushing eyes to see the glory of righteousness
past the limit of human comprehension
The existential query-howl floated on the air unanswered. This is where the ape overpowers the wolf: our parents taught us to act on what is unconfirmed. Trust, they named it among other tricks to overcome our enemies. In building you may begin.
It is anticipation of the kingdom that keeps these fingers together. The chalice so long as it holds is evidence of eternal life.
These resolutions amended: existence is in essence self-defense. Senescent senses engender eternal youth: of course you do not care about the evil beyond this room. Infants are incapable of object permanence.
The kingdom repels bad actors with prejudice. It expands with a chemical torque that even rock is finding unfathomable. You? it asks, push me??
In the greatest painting ever brought to canvas Bruegel threw a young man into darkness so that the foreground of nothing would have purpose.
Let us ride out ridiculous far into the deep night. We will remain in contact through unintelligible cryptography. We shall know each other by our works. We shall descend from our mountain caves and be apes together and tell those who came later we were good.