Apocalypse
I. Apocrypha
I heard God's voices
canticles of fear
sung by broken zombies
who waited too long
The World
Moves On
"The mice
have eaten all the corn"
seven sopranos sang
Lean, dark-eyed saints
waltzing in the grain
They fell beneath
Fate's harvester
Sing a mournful song
The World
Moves On
Only the spiders, roaches, rats
had worn their weapons well
Their jaws were loath to tell
secrets (I stopped to ask)
But I instead heard
God's voices curse and swear
the secrets are somewhere
beyond
The World
Moves On
II. The Station
A lovely blonde
with no business there
among those creatures of the night
They bought she sold
The air grew stale and old
Those large men
with drunk, red eyes
and feeble women
pretending to be strong,
they all knew--Someday
The World
Moves On
Resting grew exhausting
waiting took too long
Metros kept moving
They could not get on
Sitting gargoyles
craving midnights
that never come
So they bury their fathers
take husbands, wives
Large men speak
of motors and gears
Women wish
for magic in tears
The World
Moves On
III. A Game of Poker
Harold dealt the cards
five to a hand
"Joker's Wild"
"No one cut the deck"
Todd balked
"It doesn't matter"
I said
holding three aces
"You'd have drawn the same.
Fate doesn't cheat,
she's just a cruel bitch."
"I saw a blonde yesterday"
Harold said
"headed to L.A.
Thinks she'll be a star"
I thought of the woman
at the station
in the night
"I was there"
Todd said
"looked like a whore
if you ask me"
I tossed two cards
Todd also
Harold tossed three
Todd said
"If fate don't cheat
let me draw first."
I nodded
He drew
I drew both Jokers
"The next Monroe"
I said
IV. The House of Dreams
(Rat Infested Hellhole)
I saw
Melies' dream
Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford
Gene Kelly, Julie Andrews
I saw
Cary Grant, Orson Welles
Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall
Shot down
by Edward G. Robinson
I saw
John Wayne
Harrison Ford
Billy Bob Thornton
crooked heroes
with hearts of gold
And I saw
the rage
of old war battles
the terror of aliens
bloody axes
chainsaws
knives
(on video)
The World
Moves On
V. Death by Convenience
The River chokes
on empty bottles
sandwich wrappers
cardboard boxes
cigarette butts and
styrofoam cups
Jack, the cherub,
and I sit in his truck
on the bank
during lunch
We discuss the weather
and whether
it is hotter this year than last
and hotter last than in the past
Are the winters colder,
or Old Man Winter merely older?
Is the world to burn?
The earth to freeze?
Both perhaps?
Holocaust, and nuclear night
All in all
who'll be left to say who's right?
"If these," Jack queries,
"are our dying days,
what's worth saving that we should save?"
I crush a soda can
and fling it into the cluttered woods
"All" I say
Jack's gentle hand
grasps my knee
"Better you go on than me."
I love him now
his sacrifice
and if these are our dying days
why should that be so hard to say?
Because silence is convenient
and convenience--
convenience is a thing to die for
Jack turns the key
His truck coughs on gas
"Times up," he says
and roars away
VI. The Rainstorm
God said to take my umbrella
Harold laughed
I took it anyway
Sun cooked the flesh
moving along the streets
tucked away in three-piece suits
shorts, shirts, tennis shoes
Heat baked
girls on skates
and ugly children--
bastards of the night
who can no longer
melt into the shadows
Stragglers sweat and shiver
in alleys which smell
of urine and alcohol
Psychotic vets harping
"If you haven't got a ha'penny
God Fuck You!"
I whacked 'em left and right
with my umbrella
And then the rains fell
Drops of fire from heaven
scorching the earth clean
But things went too far
and the only survivors--
Me with my umbrella
and the spiders
who spun their own
Even now
The World
Moves On
VII. Apocalypse
I feast on sand and spider webs
listen to rat-souls speak
of how they meant to sacrifice
the frightened and the weak
to slay the past--paschal lamb--
upon the altar of unsure fate
My teeth have grown sharp
my face gone furry
I killed my brother
a thousand times each day
now it's spiders
that I slay
I have seen in long, dark dreams
a silo full of souls
where every man born to die
cries in litanies of accusation
"Why why why?"
The earth but mud
beneath my feet
while God chants in voices
the names of the dead
and the lies they told
God clothes me
in his loneliness
confesses all his sins
of poker, movies, plastic bags
of cornfields, mice, and men
God and I
have said and done
everything we can
leave this world to spider webs
infinities of sand
posted by B. Vincent Hernandez @ 11:50 PM
1 Comments:
Some commentary is probably necessary with this.
First off, this was written in 1990, shortly after Malcolm Forbes death (which was mentioned in an earlier version of part V. Death By Convenience).
I was a Junior in college, and this set was a favorite of Dr. Wevill, whom I studied poetry under for 2 semesters.
On the world stage, The Berlin wall had just come down, Communism in the Soviet Union and Apartheid in South Africa were coming to an end.
But after 4 years of Reaganism, Tipper Gore's campaign against music, "trickle down economics," and a year of George H.W. Bush driving the economy into the ground, things in the good ol' U.S. of A. were looking pretty bleak.
I was calling myself Agnostic at the time. My philosophy was that if God existed, he wasn't doing much to help out individuals; perhaps he only worked on a grand scale, and we were but atoms in his huge machine (thus, the motors and gears referred to in part III. The Station). It also peeved me to no end that God was praised for everything deemed good (ie; the fall of the Berlin Wall), and yet was never asked to carry the blame for anything deemed bad (natural disasters, etc.)
As an agnostic, I was forced to live as an Athiest, for practical purposes...that is to put all responsibility for all things on Man's shoulders.
This is the philosophy that informed this poem. God here is all of society, through all of history.
Avid readers of poetry and fiction may notice the allusions to t.s. elliot and Stephen King. While King was past his prime by then, he had just published the second volume of his great series "The Dark Tower," itself drawing upon Robert Browning's work.
A verse by verse commentary:
I. Apocrypha
The term apocrypha refers to writings that appear biblical in nature, but are not acceptable as cannon.
The "canticles of fear" was of course inspired by the daily alarms being sounded by the religious right against music, homosexuals, television, movies; basically everything except corporate greed which is the main cause of much of our problems in the U.S.
"The World Moves On" is the sole line taken from Stephen King's "The Drawing of the Three," and it pretty much sums up the idea of people caught in a galactic machine.
II. The Station
Originally titled "The Waystation," again from "The Drawing of the Three." I drew upon my experience sitting in greyhound stations in Austin, as well as dealing with the public as a retail salesperson.
On Gargoyles: Legend has it that gargoyles come to life at midnight.
The motors and gears mentioned are intended to have a dual meaning. On the one hand...the men who can only relate to each other by discussing objects; on the other, an acknowledgement that even the "simple man," has a sense of universal workings.
I'm sure I'll probably be considered sexist for speaking of feeble women who wish for magic in tears; but I am talking about feeble women; not all women.
III. A Game Of Poker
The title is a blatant bow to t.s. elliot and "The Wasteland," the greatest poem ever written about society at large.
Harold and Todd are real people whom I knew while living in Hawaii; the characterizations are pretty dead on.
In case there areW readers who are not poker players...three aces and two wild jokers is an unbeatable hand.
IV. The House of Dreams/(Rat Infested Hellhole)
Those are the two ways people viewed movie theaters in their infancy.
While the list of stars doesn't flow chronoligically, I wanted to show the joy and romance movies could bring, followed by the tougher and more tragic images.
V. Death By Convenience.
As mentioned before, Malcolm Forbes had just recently died when this was written. The original version is a completely baseless supposition of how Forbes may have lived his life of luxury, and what effect his habits had on the world at large. More subtly, it was also intended to show how Forbe's denial of his homosexuality was a matter of convenience.
This is the only part of the poem that has been substantially rewritten since the first version. Aside from the fact that my imagining of how Forbes may have lived could have been completely wrong; the poem needed to show some sense of love and affection; even if that love is strained by that convenience of being "in the closet," which I was when I wrote the original version.
The only part I regret losing in the revision is a rather humorous (at least I think) segment on how eating oat bran destroys the environment.
IV. Rainstorm
If God told you to build an ark...would you? What if he told you to take an umbrella out on a sunny day?
This whole scene is pretty much based on my observations while hanging out on the "Drag" at U.T.
VII. Apocalypse
In reality, roaches will probably be the only things left after an apocalypse; but they're less poetic.
The "Silo full of souls" is intended to link man to nature; which he has been battling since the opening verse, as well as to show the individual's insignificance in the universe...he is but a piece of grain. It reminds me of a poem by Stephen Crane:
"A man said to the universe,
'Sir, I exist'
'However,' replied the universe,
'The fact has not created in me
a sense of obligation.'"
When I read this in my poetry class, one guy was absolutely offended that I would suggest that God had sins to confess.
He apparently missed the point of the poem.
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