It’s Good Friday. I’m beat from the smallest bit of manual labor. A friend (and reader here) passed today. I’m sad, but okay. Her neighbor and good buddy let me know, and that lady is reeling. I talked to some social workers the other day about…about…man, you can’t take me anywhere…about the latent evil that must be confronted in our hearts. Nobody likes to hear that. It makes ‘em nervous, and THEN they realize I’m not kidding.
And again, it’s Good Friday. Who am I to talk about sacrifice and big stuff.
In these moments, the rigid articulation of prose seems jarring as the glare of a phone screen after an evening stargazing.
Here’s a poem instead. I’ve never had a dream about Jesus, until a few nights ago. It wasn’t comfortable, but it sure was illuminating. The point applies to the religious and atheist alike. It’s written for my fellow humans, about me, and my fellow humans (I suspect, although there’s something in my eye).
Don’t Say TGIF Right Before Easter (Or Should You?)
Martin tells his dreams
But I usually avoid it
Who am I to air the millings of the subconscious
Deposited in a heap each morning by the slippers, and socks I meant to put away
Whenever I remember to sift through the mounds of those lessons in dreams
Sometimes I’ll find a nugget, or an old chair that I might sit on, useful
Call me Mr. Carl Jung Boffin, the golden sandman
The other night the dream brought me to a waiting room
With a Roman official
And Jesus with his white bathrobe
We sat, me nervous
While the paper pusher couldn’t look anyone in the eye, couldn’t speak the words, drained the blood from the air till it condensed, black and white, onto the page
said “of course”
C.
“Crucifixion?” I guessed the code
Properly
Because wouldn’t that be how it happens
Cowardly
Following orders
Doing a job
Reduced to paperwork
To weak to even spell it out
Crucifixion
I had guessed the code of the Machine of ruin
That which seek the end of God once we set our gears a-whirl
That which would do the inevitable end of any engine that we could build
That which hums through the night without sleeping
That which you can hear in the echo of an old tire you’ll find down by the docks
If you hold it to your ear, as it drips the staining oil
You can hear
the End
Back awake and sifting through the sand, my shovel hit something
With a clang, the way a bell could damn or save
I hadn’t guessed the code
I knew it.
Don’t you?
So what will we do about it?