Questions For A Sunday Afternoon

There is a simple choice
one of gray, with fingers of red and black.

There is a simple choice
which I ponder, which I let roll over my tongue like goo and
the delicate noise of percussive vocalization.

There is a simple choice,
but it is no choice
simply because I cannot understand the alternatives
not with the parts of me that wander out windows
and stare at the bright lights of coming trains.

What can a choice be
when I do not see it laid before me
on a platter of shiny silver edged in delicate floral patterns?

Here there are vultures.
Here there are laws where the civilized go to worship
where the chant echoes hollow on stone walls
where books are torn and stomped under an army of bare feet outlined in black ash.

Worship comes in all forms
All contortions.
I have thought it is for the faint of thought
for the weak of body
for the stubborn of mind.
I am no longer sure of it
as I sit on the edge of a plump bed,
words dripping off the edge of my tongue,
the sticky semen of civilization.

Thought is not without consequence.
This we have known for far too long.
There are places with cages,
rooms without windows and touch,
procedures with complicated names
that kill the part of flesh still seeking
the colored fractals of knowledge.

There are the rooms in which I have hidden.
Rivers crossed which cannot be undone.
I have made the choice,
There is only one.

Stars are out there
deep in the black of beyond,
I can feel them through the walls,
can sense their death long before I came to be here.
The moon pushes parts of me onward,
how can I say no?
Such a pretty light cannot be ignored,
not by one as romantic as I.
I will follow the waves,
waters need no words,
each crash is a sentence,
a communication beyond symbols and fixed meaning.
It is sometimes sex,
a thunderous pounding.
It is sometimes red
And soft like petals.
Sometimes roaring or delicate in its nuanced fragrance.
We can never tell,
and I do not try and understand.

Can it happen here?
In this place
under this lamp
in
this
book

In this collection of clutter and mass breathing?

For now, the questions await unanswered, wavering in the darkness like flags forgotten.
What can words communicate more than a slippery tongue?
I will take my chances on the pile of stones.

I have arrived at the place for mindless wandering,
I have come often.
Naked, alone, scared beyond comprehension.
I return.

There is but one simple choice,
though I laugh, sitting here on this plump end of a bed.
Laugh, knowing it is not without its temptations.

This is for all of the moons that have passed
in this country of falsities,
of missed turns and rounded corners
the devil hides among the faithful
the heathens rarely bury their young.

Judgement

They stand with their arms open, their bodies springing from freshly unearthed graves. At their feet is the earth, once their womb, but something has changed. They are dirty with soot and trails of fallen dew. They stand, the small group of men and women; beside them, three young children. All are pale, as though their time in the ground had been long, so long without sun and air. Now they stand, open, their chests exposed to the sky, their arms open as much as their bodies will allow.

They welcome it. “Judge me,” they say with their hands.

“Judge me,” they call to the heavens, their heads bent back, letting the Real wash over them.

Rolling clouds bubble overhead. The grass beside the open graves quivers.

And what is Judgement? That look, a bit of opinion as I shower you with a stare.
What is Judgement? That bit of presumed knowledge of morality in the symbolic order?
To throw words upon your shrouded body, covering you with a set of expectations I have known almost since birth.

I look at them and see the world through the narrow lens I have chosen to understand it. I watch everything through this porthole. Afloat on a sea of dark mystery, I watch it, a tiny point without reference.

“Bad people are people who do bad things.” I look at that tiny pale body sitting in the car next to me. A little boy so convinced of himself. He is the eye of judgement, a tiny being, clueless, yet so sure of his place.

“Judge me,” the white bodies call.

The angel comes, bringing with it the Real. It is death. The void has no symbolic order, for it is nothing. It is without words, without definable shapes and morality. Step into it like a bath, for the real has come. Open you arms if you can, throw your head back and relish the ecstasy of a new set of eyes. They are doorways, not merely windows. Step up, step inside.

Though their eyes are closed, they see the angel and his red cross. North, south, east, west. The sound comes from the horn at his lips. And it is music, shape without context. Sound without attachment. It has all fallen like a cleansing rain and they welcome him, opening their bodies to a new type of noise.

How many do I judge? I see all of them through the lens of my language. I either assume an understanding, or cross their names from my book, calling them evil and rich. They find a home within the boxes of my aesthetic or I call them ugly and laugh at their pants. I laugh with them if we share the same language, or I squint my eyes and stare, waiting for the sentence to end.

Judgement comes with my language and I throw it out like dice on a filthy street.

Their bodies rise from the earth, covered in soil.
“Judge me,” they say.
No words are necessary. They bask in the void, holding themselves open for a new page to turn.