Who will guide us through these gaping doors?
Ask Tim. Maybe Tim.
Who will show us the way in?
Tim. Ask him.
The people need your kind of heroism. The people need a leader.
The people need a Daniel Boone too, my friend. Somebody to blaze the trail, bronze ax swinging, way up ahead, clearing the path, stumbling down the false-starts, finding the way.
But who will lead us through the new-found doors?
I don't know. Maybe Tim, maybe someone else like him.
But you're one of the heroes, and it's a beautiful thing. But now the fear and the paranoia, the waiting for the knock at the door. . . .I don't know whether you understand. . . .I don't know whether you grok the level of repression. . . .the hunger for a leader. . . .the need is now. The knock at the door. . . .the people are waiting. The people are needful. They hunger. They fear.
. . . .
When I was out in the desert I saw. . . .many things. When I was out in the desert I saw many things you may never know or understand. Well, this is true of any man's path, but. . . .When I was in the desert one night, a blazing lightning storm descended, and there was no place to escape to. Braving the sound and the fury, fearful myself, I beheld the Heavens torn asunder and the exploding skies ablaze, you dig? And all the bruise-blued boiling thunderheads and the lightning bolts licking the desert floor all around me, and the black volcanic cones, and the hellish cries of the coyotes pinned down in distant creosote caves. When I was out there in the desert I took on a second skin of lightning, and I became electric, man. We all: you, me, everyone, everyone, all of us, we, all, we must be superhumans upon the earth; it's the only way, the only choice finally, because it's what we were born to be; it's what we are, underneath these thin sheaths of skin and muddling straight minds. Down deep inside we're all out in the desert; we're all electric already, and my task, my only task, is to go on, on, not to wait, not to tarry at the door, but to blaze on, to blaze away, to hack the notches that others may follow, and if not today, then sometime, some way, some better day when there's less dread of the knock at the door, the repression, the paranoia and the fear.
But what shall I tell the people--
Tell the people what the people must always be told. . . .reminded. Tell them to have faith! For the time of release is coming. It may not be in my lifetime, or in yours, but it is coming, and we will go further. Further! Have hope! Patience! Faith! Bear the burden, for the rewards are sweet, and these temporal distractions are Maya, they are illusions. And that bread seems to afford little nutrition, I know, but the human soul suffices on less than that. Faith. Tell them to be faithful. For it is not a blind faith that is required. The people have at least peeked through the door this time. The people know. They know.
20090720
Gautama and Goldhill Sparing in a Pie Warehouse for a Glimpse of the New World
Copyright © 2009 Ernest Bloom.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Holy Christ. I don't even know what to say. Clearly, this poem profoundly affected me if I'm resorting to profanity to express my thoughts. I mean everything from 'bear the burden' to 'they know' to 'maybe someone else like him' just blew me away. I'm going to go read this again just for fun. :D
ReplyDeletematthew, mark, luke and john put their own spin on a story once upon a time. i understand that electric kool-aid is finally being made into a movie. we'll just have to wait and see how it goes. . . .i know you guys can't tell, but 'new kaleidoscope medicine' marks a break. NKM henceforth. . . .
ReplyDeleteI see you elaborate on the themes of the previous poems, the heroism, the bravery. I was particularly moved by this. The style felt down to Earth, easy to process and at the same time somehow beautiful. Perhaps it's what you said, the content, not the form, that made such impression this time, anyways- in effect- it was sublime. It built a sort of tense atmosphere and I felt almost like that guy on the desert with the lighting and coyote howling afar.
ReplyDeletei think any appeal stems from it being structured as a religious tract, both in content and in form. this is some kind of musical structure the human inner ear is trained to recognize and respond to, like the temptation in the wilderness, all those yes buts, and so forth. all that's really different here is the call for an informed faith, or a long-term patience which has seldom been popular or sustainable among human beings.
ReplyDeleteThis makes a good story. Less poetry, but more story-telling, and that's neat.
ReplyDelete--Shiro