deepundergroundpoetry.com
ALL WILL BE HOLY WHEN THE ROOSTERS LAY DOWN TO DIE
. . . Not knowing what piss-stained deathbed came before this Midwest nightmare--insufferable milquetoast town of steel fences that rattle in alleyways, of their own volition--heavenly rain on aluminum trashcans dripping and drowning the earth, wet leaves on cellar doors, rush hour traffic stopped at the cattle crossing . . . Only knowing that the sky is a sheet of white light like we're trapped in a flash photograph, the same moment/memento photocopied and lasting through infinity. And somewhere beyond the rusted rivets of swing sets and City Hall stands a room with my name written clear across the door--muddy footprints tracked along prim white walls--rainjacket lying on a neatly made bed--who will hold a ceremony for all the dead moths that zigzagged fanning the holy air and died inside light fixtures immortalized? And the maid, fair spirit draped in her immaculate black apron, who dusts our fingerprints from lampshades--Lady Death, screaming my name as the windows shatter, birds depart their nests, carrying their rhapsodies along clear Winter skies down south forever.
. . . Not knowing what came before the streetpunks in gray-hooded sweatshirts who kick soda cans around the cracked sidewalk where vines and wilted flowers push through cement, drooping, took one look at this sorrowful world of streets named after popstars, fathers living in taxicabs, and died at the root, as we're all bound to do. And those poor children with their hands in their pockets, heads bent to the Earth--the yeehaw Omaha Walk of Fame where their feet leave no footprints and the grass grows so high you can't see the moon--anthills imitate skyscrapers--who are our mothers and where are our fathers? I set foot on the blood-stained curb, teeth lie in the gutter, chattering all by their lonesome. I wave hello, realizing how all we want is for the world to know we're still breathing. even if the air is toxic, lungs quiver, God can't stand the sight of his own shit-eating grin and if we stand up too suddenly we go blind.
Still, the schoolboys kick their soda cans across the artificial Earth while their fathers fix cars in 1950s garages, angels hover above their shoulders, coughing, asleep . . . Knowing by sheer instinct that these are the sort of boys who stand in storefronts, aching for trouble--the sort of boys who beat the hell out of skeletal queer-boys in back alleys, till their hands bleed someone else's blood, till the victim chokes on concrete, no tears left to weep--I stop in the storefront, staring into their eyes, as in past lives I've been the type who takes trouble lying down, slams doors and deadbolts the world behind him. But in this life, as the cowbell clangs above the shop entrance, as the pebbles rattle inside dented Pepsi cans, not a single set of eyes eats its way through the air in my direction--the dirt-caked faces of hoodlums pixelate in a deep-seated guilt that meets the surface--flood waters rise--bated breath remembering the childhood they never had.
Realizing we're all ashamed of ourselves in a roundabout way, I worm my way into the shophouse, met with the sound of a million clocks ticking syncopated, as I leave behind a path of mud that follows me throughout the aisles--soon enough my footprints accelerate and outrun my feet, carving my future into the floorboards, showing orgasms and marriages I'll never know, the father I never met asleep in his coffin on a warm September afternoon--can you hear the church bell singing its God-song above this city at high noon? My footprints are a book of inky over-exposed photographs--rollercoasters stopped mid-motion on the Jersey shore, three sisters standing before the Statue of Liberty in black and white, miserable, as all our ancestors seem in pictures--Grandma, you were never a little girl--born gray and old and bitter, gray and old and bitter. I see it now--I will meet the end of my road and all will be holy when the roosters lay down to die. I pass through the aisles shedding my godless essence into the stale amnesic air--the breeze never remembers where its been, it does not weep reminiscing the first day of Earth--it has never known love, only Little Boy atom bomb's radioactive kiss, Truman's face emblazoned on the sky over Hiroshima, reading passages from the Bible.
Abandoning all dreams of past and future, I move through the shophouse, examining the contents of each wooden shelf--innumerable antique clocks tick-tock their Circadian rhythms for many a moon, thiterto, same old bleak song of the seasons as Man does his do-si-do into the grave. I lift my head above the shelves, into the radius of dim golden light, while in the distance idiot policeman work as storeclerks, grunting and grinding their teeth, each tapping the palm of his hand with the tip of a bloody baton like he's ready to bash someone's skull into bits of fiberglass. Pixelated faces hover between aisles, laughter coming and going quicker than love, as old men in lifejackets drape at the waist and shuffle barefoot across fragments of crystalline glass, shopping for their fate. It dawns on me while gliding along the oaken floor, hands in my pockets, the timepieces that tick men into senility have no hands; if not for the illusion of nanoseconds between night and day, I could be a young man forever, watch the earth crumble from the peak of a broken ferris wheel, while I spit blood on this city and those who broke bread with crooked politicians at spaghetti dinners, and all the whimpering children will die with cotton candy crusted around their lips, and stuffed animals in their hands. And don't worry, I've got my lover in the front seat of the doomsday machine, ripe and ready for the nuclear winter, while the number twelve flashes with a diabolical red glow, illuminating our eyes. Moths hover around lightbulbs, leaving their silhouettes burnt in stillframes along the walls--each ancient flutter a hieroglyphic for future boys to decipher on their quests for angelic vision, sending smoke signals to the stars--another feather for the headdress while they rewrite history--deja-vu all over again.
Now I've made my round through the shop, and to the front, where sick men shiver and cling to their ballerina daughters. And behind the head policeman who acts as shopkeeper, the wall leads into heaven, holding its shelves of white mannequin heads--plaster casts of all the people I've ever known--alcoholic grandfathers who died in rocking chairs, clutching the same can of beer for fifty years--science teachers who loved the weather, died in the flood, cursing Jupiter, Roman goddess of the sky. The police have gathered in a far aisle, forming a circle and downcasting their shadows across an old confused man, who suffers from glaucoma, who has found his fate, grips the cuckoo clock between brittle fingers, as the police proceed to beat him for possession of marijuana, still swinging their batons long after his breathing has stopped.
I stand in line--neon red sign that reads EXIT hangs above my head--elegant golden clock in hand, as the number twelve flashes, illuminating my eyes, and I notice ahead in line a man who looks identical to my father, wearing a 1970s baseball uniform, with shoulder length hair, shoes caked with mud as I imagine he has finished his final inning. He towers over me, as we never outgrow our fathers, even in death. "Would you mind if I stared for a while?" I ask the man, admiring. "You remind me of my father." The man glares at me through the corner of his eye, cold, and turns his back--number twelve, always the best at keeping secrets. He exits the shop, and I soon follow, hoping to catch up with him, leaving the past behind me in footprints, as it seems the future has ended.
Out in the warm radiance of the shop's blinking sign which reads ALL WILL BE HOLY WHEN THE ROOSTERS LAY DOWN TO DIE--luminous moon with shredded edges superimposed on the sky, nightfall chipping away at itself ever-so-slowly--I stand with the tips of my toes off the curb, just another imitation tower in the meaningless empire of timelapsed architecture, gazing both ways down the desolate Midwest street where, just as was in Jersey, my father is a ghost, sight unseen. And the schoolboys in gray-hooded sweatshirts have gone to the grave. All that is left of the storefront is an old man who sits against the shop, sips wine from a brown paper bag and drapes his head between his knees. I step down from my manmade pedestal, the blood-concrete, where the teeth have stopped their chatter, and I wave goodbye. "Turn right," I tell myself, standing in the middle of the street, as though I've followed this process in a past life . . . Not knowing what piss-stained deathbed came before this Midwest nightmare where it's always raining, or on the verge of rain--faded metropolis of steel fences that rattle in alleyways, heavenly rain on aluminum trashcans dripping and drowning the earth, herds of swine dead at the cattle crossing--as the local priest kneels in the intersection, praying, headlights draw near.
I march down Battery St. under flickering streetlamps which drop sparks from heaven. Trees bend inward from both sides of the avenue, their arms interlocking, dropping bittersweet leaves among the sparks. As the branches burn, all is radiant. Children bury their heads in rosebeds, while televisions glow behind soft white curtains. As the skeletons of trees burn, as the leaves burn golden along the chill pavement, all is radiant. All is radiant, as a man in a long jacket stands on the sidewalk before a funeral home, as the houses on Battery St. begin their collapse like accordions, pieces from a broken pop-up book. All is radiant, as I stare into the distance, down past Battery St.--hear the locomotive howl, as it accelerates full throttle across an unfinished bridge, all those sad passengers dreaming of Paris. Oh, maybe in a future life, we will be on the inside of the looking glass. Conductors hang from traincar balconies by their stopwatches. All is radiant as I grip the clock between my fingers, the number twelve glistening, as I gaze down burnt Battery St. into the visage of a red hearse, with a white cat seated on the roof, its eyes locked on mine, as if to say, "Hush-hush, inferno slumber--all will be holy when the roosters lay down to die."
. . . Not knowing what came before the streetpunks in gray-hooded sweatshirts who kick soda cans around the cracked sidewalk where vines and wilted flowers push through cement, drooping, took one look at this sorrowful world of streets named after popstars, fathers living in taxicabs, and died at the root, as we're all bound to do. And those poor children with their hands in their pockets, heads bent to the Earth--the yeehaw Omaha Walk of Fame where their feet leave no footprints and the grass grows so high you can't see the moon--anthills imitate skyscrapers--who are our mothers and where are our fathers? I set foot on the blood-stained curb, teeth lie in the gutter, chattering all by their lonesome. I wave hello, realizing how all we want is for the world to know we're still breathing. even if the air is toxic, lungs quiver, God can't stand the sight of his own shit-eating grin and if we stand up too suddenly we go blind.
Still, the schoolboys kick their soda cans across the artificial Earth while their fathers fix cars in 1950s garages, angels hover above their shoulders, coughing, asleep . . . Knowing by sheer instinct that these are the sort of boys who stand in storefronts, aching for trouble--the sort of boys who beat the hell out of skeletal queer-boys in back alleys, till their hands bleed someone else's blood, till the victim chokes on concrete, no tears left to weep--I stop in the storefront, staring into their eyes, as in past lives I've been the type who takes trouble lying down, slams doors and deadbolts the world behind him. But in this life, as the cowbell clangs above the shop entrance, as the pebbles rattle inside dented Pepsi cans, not a single set of eyes eats its way through the air in my direction--the dirt-caked faces of hoodlums pixelate in a deep-seated guilt that meets the surface--flood waters rise--bated breath remembering the childhood they never had.
Realizing we're all ashamed of ourselves in a roundabout way, I worm my way into the shophouse, met with the sound of a million clocks ticking syncopated, as I leave behind a path of mud that follows me throughout the aisles--soon enough my footprints accelerate and outrun my feet, carving my future into the floorboards, showing orgasms and marriages I'll never know, the father I never met asleep in his coffin on a warm September afternoon--can you hear the church bell singing its God-song above this city at high noon? My footprints are a book of inky over-exposed photographs--rollercoasters stopped mid-motion on the Jersey shore, three sisters standing before the Statue of Liberty in black and white, miserable, as all our ancestors seem in pictures--Grandma, you were never a little girl--born gray and old and bitter, gray and old and bitter. I see it now--I will meet the end of my road and all will be holy when the roosters lay down to die. I pass through the aisles shedding my godless essence into the stale amnesic air--the breeze never remembers where its been, it does not weep reminiscing the first day of Earth--it has never known love, only Little Boy atom bomb's radioactive kiss, Truman's face emblazoned on the sky over Hiroshima, reading passages from the Bible.
Abandoning all dreams of past and future, I move through the shophouse, examining the contents of each wooden shelf--innumerable antique clocks tick-tock their Circadian rhythms for many a moon, thiterto, same old bleak song of the seasons as Man does his do-si-do into the grave. I lift my head above the shelves, into the radius of dim golden light, while in the distance idiot policeman work as storeclerks, grunting and grinding their teeth, each tapping the palm of his hand with the tip of a bloody baton like he's ready to bash someone's skull into bits of fiberglass. Pixelated faces hover between aisles, laughter coming and going quicker than love, as old men in lifejackets drape at the waist and shuffle barefoot across fragments of crystalline glass, shopping for their fate. It dawns on me while gliding along the oaken floor, hands in my pockets, the timepieces that tick men into senility have no hands; if not for the illusion of nanoseconds between night and day, I could be a young man forever, watch the earth crumble from the peak of a broken ferris wheel, while I spit blood on this city and those who broke bread with crooked politicians at spaghetti dinners, and all the whimpering children will die with cotton candy crusted around their lips, and stuffed animals in their hands. And don't worry, I've got my lover in the front seat of the doomsday machine, ripe and ready for the nuclear winter, while the number twelve flashes with a diabolical red glow, illuminating our eyes. Moths hover around lightbulbs, leaving their silhouettes burnt in stillframes along the walls--each ancient flutter a hieroglyphic for future boys to decipher on their quests for angelic vision, sending smoke signals to the stars--another feather for the headdress while they rewrite history--deja-vu all over again.
Now I've made my round through the shop, and to the front, where sick men shiver and cling to their ballerina daughters. And behind the head policeman who acts as shopkeeper, the wall leads into heaven, holding its shelves of white mannequin heads--plaster casts of all the people I've ever known--alcoholic grandfathers who died in rocking chairs, clutching the same can of beer for fifty years--science teachers who loved the weather, died in the flood, cursing Jupiter, Roman goddess of the sky. The police have gathered in a far aisle, forming a circle and downcasting their shadows across an old confused man, who suffers from glaucoma, who has found his fate, grips the cuckoo clock between brittle fingers, as the police proceed to beat him for possession of marijuana, still swinging their batons long after his breathing has stopped.
I stand in line--neon red sign that reads EXIT hangs above my head--elegant golden clock in hand, as the number twelve flashes, illuminating my eyes, and I notice ahead in line a man who looks identical to my father, wearing a 1970s baseball uniform, with shoulder length hair, shoes caked with mud as I imagine he has finished his final inning. He towers over me, as we never outgrow our fathers, even in death. "Would you mind if I stared for a while?" I ask the man, admiring. "You remind me of my father." The man glares at me through the corner of his eye, cold, and turns his back--number twelve, always the best at keeping secrets. He exits the shop, and I soon follow, hoping to catch up with him, leaving the past behind me in footprints, as it seems the future has ended.
Out in the warm radiance of the shop's blinking sign which reads ALL WILL BE HOLY WHEN THE ROOSTERS LAY DOWN TO DIE--luminous moon with shredded edges superimposed on the sky, nightfall chipping away at itself ever-so-slowly--I stand with the tips of my toes off the curb, just another imitation tower in the meaningless empire of timelapsed architecture, gazing both ways down the desolate Midwest street where, just as was in Jersey, my father is a ghost, sight unseen. And the schoolboys in gray-hooded sweatshirts have gone to the grave. All that is left of the storefront is an old man who sits against the shop, sips wine from a brown paper bag and drapes his head between his knees. I step down from my manmade pedestal, the blood-concrete, where the teeth have stopped their chatter, and I wave goodbye. "Turn right," I tell myself, standing in the middle of the street, as though I've followed this process in a past life . . . Not knowing what piss-stained deathbed came before this Midwest nightmare where it's always raining, or on the verge of rain--faded metropolis of steel fences that rattle in alleyways, heavenly rain on aluminum trashcans dripping and drowning the earth, herds of swine dead at the cattle crossing--as the local priest kneels in the intersection, praying, headlights draw near.
I march down Battery St. under flickering streetlamps which drop sparks from heaven. Trees bend inward from both sides of the avenue, their arms interlocking, dropping bittersweet leaves among the sparks. As the branches burn, all is radiant. Children bury their heads in rosebeds, while televisions glow behind soft white curtains. As the skeletons of trees burn, as the leaves burn golden along the chill pavement, all is radiant. All is radiant, as a man in a long jacket stands on the sidewalk before a funeral home, as the houses on Battery St. begin their collapse like accordions, pieces from a broken pop-up book. All is radiant, as I stare into the distance, down past Battery St.--hear the locomotive howl, as it accelerates full throttle across an unfinished bridge, all those sad passengers dreaming of Paris. Oh, maybe in a future life, we will be on the inside of the looking glass. Conductors hang from traincar balconies by their stopwatches. All is radiant as I grip the clock between my fingers, the number twelve glistening, as I gaze down burnt Battery St. into the visage of a red hearse, with a white cat seated on the roof, its eyes locked on mine, as if to say, "Hush-hush, inferno slumber--all will be holy when the roosters lay down to die."
Published 2nd Dec 2009
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
likes 1
reading list entries 1
comments 1
reads 333
Commenting Preference:
The author has chosen not to accept new comments at this time.
i put this on my reading list and it gives me tingles every time I read it. absolutely stunning. thanks for sharing
