mi distancia pt. II

desde ahora se las escusas que despues usare como razones por las que cortamos

en una situacion asi

es la razon o el sentimiento que precede?

quizas sea un pobre idiota que no sabe lo que tiene

y aun teme perderlo

mi distancia pt. I

si algun dia llegariamos a cortar

no lo sentiria

seria simplemente

un giro diferente

de un movimiento ya constante

como un cometa que llego a orbitar tu mundo

nadamas para volver a lanzarse

nunca aterrize

if all actions have meaning then i would like to create the meaning in all my actions but i would probably never know the meaning of that action

1.

yes i realize what you said

wow youre smart

what'd you say

i don't know who said that i said it

o

2.

no its not really like that

its not how they said i thought it was

its more strange but also more simple

and you have to look it up in a book

but if you look it up in a book youre fucked

o

3.

the time changed the other day

it was okay

i didn't really notice but it was pleasant

the clocks had to be changed manually

but the computers changed themselves

4.

what if we all ate a burger at the same time

it would have to be a big burger

jesus would probably have to do something to help out

you probably wouldnt believe it

i might not believe it

depends on his technique

5.

what is the point of numbers

just to count, really

counting is useful

6.

why do cigarette prices keeep going up

think you know why

i can tell you if you dont

but i might have to look it up

7.

yeah i am tired of the repetition too like you thought i might be

no im not implying that your life is repetitive

8.

angry dogs are barking outside

police sirens just drove by

unrelated

9,

but its interesting how we never die

until we realize that we will

10.

focus on something specific

unfocus

focus

unfocus

o

11.

the leaves changed the other day

i could tell that a certain hue of dark green had definitely become a certain hue of dark orange

secondary colors in tragic motion or something

12.

lifted up my boxers the other day

scratched my balls

looked at my ballls

nodded to myself

13.

does anyone know what lebron james' new number is?

i dont want to look it up and i can never tell when i see game clips

14.

ending on an even number would be good

it would create balance

15.

i stepped on every crack i could today

16.

i think i am uncomfortable making connections

17.

it feels better to wake up early

but it is okay to stay up all night

18.

bananas are red if you are weirdly color blind

of course, i don't know anyone that is colorblind

over half of all females are color blind i heard

of course, 79 percent of statistics are made up

or something like that

19.

everything was fine until i realized i was floating on ice

and i didn't know how to skate

i held onto a railing on the side of the rink and skated

20.

what is a typical day like for someone else

21.

what is the end of a day like for someone else

22.

it is interesting how the word "like" has become so common

people must be getting very poetic

or at least conjunctive

23.

i can't find a fitting way to end this

there are no perfect or happy endings

except in all those books or movies that almost made me cry

24.

but i never cry really, i just laugh

all the food/drink i ingested today in chronological order

1x cup water

1x organic apple

1x thermos coffee

?x sip water

1x banana

?x sip water

1x salad [organic baby spinach, organic carrot, cucumber, organic broccoli, raw sunflower seed]

1x bowl chili [organic quinoa, organic black bean, tomato, green pepper, corn, chili powder]

?x sip water

.5x piece watermelon-flavored gum

?x sip water

3x welch's brand tropical-flavored fruit snack

2x cup water

2x bowl lasagna [organic tofu, lasagna noodle, organic baby spinach, zucchini, marinara sauce]

2x piece wheat bread with organic earth balance brand butter

5x pita chip with hummus

1x cup organic echinacea tea

2x cup water

1x pear

1x banana

.3x gt's brand gingerade-flavored kombucha

1x bowl cereal [organic flax cereal, organic 365 brand cosmic coco's, organic rice milk]

1x cup water

smoking cigarettes

to get me past the blues

is probably

the quickest route to death

(or cancer, at the least)

inhale exhale have another

in madrid

you can smoke

anywhere

outside

inside

bars/your room/your bed

not the metro

not the hair salon or the bank

but still.

i resist lighting up

while i vid skype with my mother

just because

i don't want her

to worry even more

that her only daughter

far away

isn't only sad

she's also making

terrible choices

why do we do the things we do when we know we shouldn't?

this poem is terrible

smoking is terrible

a terrible poem about terrible smoking

i want more.

a poem to start a story to end a beginning

and i will take

your thumb

with me on my travels

and

keep it on a necklace

or in a glass jar by my bed

and

tell it everything important

and

when i give it back

upon my return

it will be

just like

you

were

there

beside

me

the whole time.

i never left

you never felt me leave

i'm never gone

zero-sum game is a fable saved for parasites.

do not fool
your american self we are
all subject to a still
monarch assembled
of beating chest
monopoly watch close
pull your necks upward look
upon the heaving chest of our
national morning, smell the arbitrage
eat foreign bound paper wipe your
face with crisp welfare
fucking indolent underbelly
awash with wasted expected
returns. pity

to cling dearly such
moth eaten puritan
toughness work on
you predestined body
you accounted soul

do not fool
your indentured self we are
all subject push a still
wheel perceived turn but
progress is our heels dug
deeper impervious human
capital, however has never paraded
so well dapper trademarks free
speech cellular the buzz among bees
never bothers the queen hears only boom and
bust opportunity cost you optimum drone
you, here's a heavy hand fleecing
autonomy accept the grip of slave wages is
death. spent

nerves from before

you are
a
tall glass
of
milk

i drink you
up

greedily

and always
ask
for more
than
i can take

but

i will
drink you
by
the gallon
even
if
i
understand

the consequences

of such
rushed and raged
desire

desire (you)
to consume (you)
to eat to drink
to own to be
to grasp (you)
to hold
inside
of me
as much
of you
as i can fit


even if i get
that when
the glass
breaks
you will be
the wetness
on the floor

the shards
that slice
the skin

the knife
that cuts

i need to sleep
meaning i need to wake up soon
tomorrow i will begin on all of my goals
or if i feel lazy then i will begin the day thereafter

the lawn needs mowed
i mow it
straight lines and precision in the front yard
a more wavey and creative approach in the back yard

i am the infant of summer
born in boiling water
grown in a pot of millions of noodles
eaten with no sauce

jobs jobs jobs
talk talk talk
blah blah blah

tangled

slick and slender
sipping sour juices
from sourer fruits,
the storm inside the house,
the bee in the jar.

sterile squeeze
sturdy stammer
sticky stealthy stupor
surrender silence
squall swell swine
siempre tuyo
siempre mio
suckle slit seduce.

hammer the heat
hiss, hold, holy.
beneath the
crook of your elbow
lies the dawn of your pleasure.

hip hum host
hasten hither
here, how, hero.

resume, become.
resent, restore.
ruins, rocks, ribs.
rim, rum, run.

lust long luster
languid, loose, limb
(her eyelids pale,
wild orchids in a dark cave).

lucid, lake, loquacious, liquor,
lick her limestone crevice.

lush
rush
hush
(a round stone in the palm of your hand).

hunt
haunt
feather.

lisp,
luck,
lock,
leather.

floor fuck.
grapes, pluck.

plum

plume

pleasure.

poem from 'think tank for human beings in general'

weak

i have come close to sucking my own dick

but have inevitably failed

every time

one gets so close, and then the pain sets in

it is like a kind of sharp spoon or something

digging into your back

trying to scoop out something that is not there to be found

"if only my dick were an inch longer," i have thought

but it is of no use

i have practiced stretching and i have read fiction books

about people who have allegedly done it,

but a book is not what is or was

a book is just a story

and so now i try to persuade other people to suck my dick

or give me a kiss

or sit with me

or talk with me

or walk with me

or something

and i do this while knowing that

all relationships are, to some degree, a power struggle

and that the power gets moved around from time to time

is what keeps things going.

an example of this would be how tonight

i wanted to see you so badly

but you had other plans with other people

or something.

i have tried thrusting my penis into the dirty cunt of power

and tearing it to shreds

but my penis was not large enough.

i have tried giving a piece of my penis to everyone,

so as not to be discriminatory or

hierarchical or

something

but my penis was not strong enough.

'is my penis inadequate'

'who will nurture an inadequate penis like mine'

__________________________________________

this poem has been posted for promotional purposes in regards to the release of the second edition of the poetry chapbook think tank for human beings in general.

more information about the chapbook this poem appears HERE

jordan's blog post about the second pressing of think tank HERE

richard's blog post about the second pressing of think tank HERE

Poem from "think tank for human beings in general"

excuse me

when i was younger i would say things like

'i wish everybody had a video camera filming them

so they could see how stupid they are'

'stupid' meaning

we are hurting each other

and it is difficult to see it

but if we need cameras

to feel the weight of ourselves

we will only feel

less 'real'

like untagging your name

from facebook pictures

or getting 'obliterated' every night,

waking up with chunks missing

from your pillow

we should sit in a room

and not say anything

we should sit in a room

and let pieces of the ceiling

fall onto us, unflinchingly,

as our faces strip off

layers of themselves.

maybe,

but if you want

to go buy cigarettes

i will probably make

the walk with you.

excuse me

for all things

i think i want

___________________________________________________ 

This poem posted for promotional purposes in regards to the release of the second edition of the poetry chapbook think tank for human beings in general.

More information about the chapbook this poem appears HERE

Jordan's blog post about the second pressing of think tank HERE

Richard's blog post about the second pressing of think tank HERE

10 poems from 'i am like october when i am dead'

climbing onto this church

thank god

carrying a giant rake with me to scare walking individuals


*


good fucking lord we enjoy the wheat season in michigan


*


reading marx on a bench in september in michigan you are gone

for lunch i had peanuts

i dont talk much

the clouds


*


i am eating a slice of white cake

a bird sings by my window

the son of a bitch


*


i recorded a video for jack horkheimer on new years eve in my dads driveway and i forgot to email it to him

damn, i still havent emailed this video to jack horkheimer


*


god help me im throwing my neighbor off a building


*


i am like october when i am dead

a wheelbarrow dispensing chalk lines, that is how silent i am

there is my hand

i am like the killers of people


*


oh     you have a smock on  


*


the hymnal at my grandmothers funeral says ‘wives be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the lord’

five months ago i saw a video of a dog being thrown into a garbage compactor


*


mother fucker, i rented a movie and recorded over it with two hours of myself          

on the video i am shouting compliments at my family

i burn my car on purpose

its january

i greet myself at the beginning of a great career

A Syphilius Now

stepping closer to the middle of nowhere
no ravine or cliff in sight
angry that my only option is to drift
until I sight a ravine or cliff

I fear growing old and dying
I long to grow old and die

I can feel my brain shriveling into a raisin

I can mumble but I can't breathe

two knots

the sick sauce of the sunlight

on the mustard of the ocean

was tempered by the twilight

of their heavy hanging minds

"deny the feeling

in your sockets

and the lightness

in your pockets

don't forget

to drink the water

with the wine.

don't deny

the looping juices

of her nectar

don't destroy

the secret chamber

in her breast

please give in

to her entreaties

and take her to the

smallest cities...

but never ever ever

deny her any treasure

for your pleasure

is forever her's to test."

***

two knots knotted

sat facing the horizon.

foam licked

the edges of their fingertips

while birds,

so white & grey,

flew overhead.

Poems Written on Adderall - 5/21/10

feels like i should just do what i used to do because i was smarter then

*

really want to write some poetry

just keep thinking of rap songs that don't exist yet

*

the armpit of my brain is sweaty

hairs needs trimming

visible deodorant becoming hard

and falling off

*

the hard cock of my brain is

ready for

the virginal vagina of life

*

the bi polar old clown of my brain

is quitting it's job at the circus

after thirty-six years -

sixty-eight years of life,

and starting over again

it's never too late to start over again

*

we are perpetually 'starting over' and

perpetually ignorant

*

never felt as good as

i feel now

or maybe i have but can't remember

*

sophomore male in pokemon shirt is not as ironic as he thinks, i guess

*

i'm the best rapper alive

i just haven't harnessed it yet

*

thought/wrote 'harnessed' in the previous poem

maybe meaning 'harvest'

or 'harvested'

keep thinking of a band maybe called 'blue moon' or like, 'october sky' and they had a song that was played on the radio maybe four years ago

not 'i hate everything about you'

but another song kind of similar that was just at a slower tempo i guess

*

gonna keep writing

gonna endure the study hall of life...

*

i got the lean connect

*

going to go help my mom set up for after prom

love my mom

---

video of me reading one of the above poems after drinking promethazine with 7up, ice, and a blue raspberry flavored jolly rancher

each day's work and activities brings a renewed sense of accomplishment
but nothing was really accomplished
and i become lazy
and i am discontent with the contentment i feel

One lousy soap poem on the mirror

is all he never wrote,

and me,

look at his face through the hyperventilation,

documentary of his suicide slowly blooming,

how they made their applause!

How the they’s encourage the booze and the pain

to medicate their hypocritical contempt,

to numb for moments the lack of feeling in their lives.

Fuck off, seriously, fuck off.

I will toil the fields of language for you until my hands are blistered

And the puss fills my brain.

Seriously, fuck off.

You don’t want any of this,

you can applause from your velvet balconies and return to your homes

and fuck your lovers and use the emotion we paid for in teeth.

The early mornings are the worst, when the black of the night

sticks around until the afternoon, sometimes for days,

and the raccoon mask I wear is not some left over disguise from an orgy.

The only orgy I have ever attended involved me weeping and puking

and shaking the life out of me into my hands holding premature stars.

You ever been there?

I didn’t think so

These words, like all my words, will become your thoughts, for free.

And I give them to you.

And I hate you for it.

And I thank you.

And I weep for you.

And I pray for you.

Pray for me.

Seriously, fuck off. 

bad day in february

today his car died, forever
so i emailed him sexy pictures
i hope he gets home from work
looks at me grinning,
jumping topless in bed
and thinks "she really cares about me."

Into Nova

Into Nova

remember

there are the sneaks left at the door

of the wingless

                                    aero planes

            fleets of college kids

collecting pennies in dirty delight

American steampunk promises

captured

roar in the legs of boredom

grown into clothes too small

stuffed in the bells

of the great stone fries

silencing our steps

into nova

one future to lose

just wanting to be that someone

who

can eat the dandelions

like butterscotch bottle caps who

thinks back and

cries

because the tree rings

                        in our limbs

don’t show how starved we are

by the dominion

of compliance

Neon, Fish Tank Rocks

I’ve seen the men, alike, ragged breasts on a beautiful rib cage

I’ve seen the women, like broken camel knees

I’ve seen these bent backs of these creatures

shave sheets of grass from the city parks

and wear the worms as their veins,

the sheets as their skin

These creatures cross their arms and hold bouquets

of bottles with aluminum can tabs over their eyes,

some with parched tongues still

prairie dogging for milk from the sky

I don’t know death the way these lives know

the dirty hell of this heaven—

not a child’s mind where all the chutes

and ladders end when we are done

If, and these creatures know, heaven is the

return to a child’s mind, (head nod)

then I’ll join the ranks of them

wearing the filthy earth like hell

I’ll dig all of their graves when

I’m tired of talk about death,

wombs in the soil and blankets of flesh,

every hole I’ll fill with the neon fish tank rocks

because their coals in this heaven

are hot as fuck. 

I don't want to write of the stars no more

i don't want to write of the stars no more
they don't crave the stars
the howls are tied to lead

i've made too many cry in the night

Machine Gun Moments

He said over a few beers:

‘My name is Malakai Vacey

I have never been myself

for more than four minutes.’

‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘he feared

his self out of Easter dress

Out of relationships with dying women

Out of books and the boots of

Bukowski’s Eliot’s Ellison’s

Characters. Out of the faces

and skins of those who died

and left their drabby suits

under the Christmas trees

Out of the living moments

Out of the slow rides in

autos full of white niggers

chinks fags and spicks

across the states and frontiers

and hills that whistle right up under the clouds.’

‘Out of innocence too much like a cherry

Out of a pruned boy only at 22,’

when he did say he could be his self,

‘A dick, with a liver full of spit—

ungrateful pair of eyes hyper juiced

on dull spirits and soiled lungs,

sucking pollen from the lips of angels.’

‘A lip, plugged with black tobacco slugs—

a smile that makes heroes kneel in

cracked dirt and cry;

an ugly dick, so full of distorted love

the only way to live is to burn and fight.’

the tugboat

guilt
the cargo weighing down the boat

hate
hawks flying in circles above, lurking, waiting to eat their prey

hope
the crack in wood, water seeking in

fear
land is far away

desolation
the oars cannot defeat the waves

anxiety
sinking ship, fish jumping in the boat

suffering
the fish weighing down the boat (along with the cargo)

despair
the boat is sinking

opportunity
letting go of the cargo and learning how to swim

Moments of Salt

Here we go:

What will they accept when the mail is dead?

How will my fingerless hands communicate to them?

Why will I continue to eat?

If I am three quarters full of shit

that means I at one point had three quarters worth

of fine wine, food, and swallowed time.

There is no depression that tastes like

t. will’s ice cream

all the girls I meet talk much of ice cream

they talk of their travels and the small parlors

that served them and told them how cute they looked

and added to the baby fat around the bone of the hip

which fingers

melt like ice cream on the nyc july sidewalk

leaves the hands sticky and sweet

I wonder why they don’t crave corn on the cob instead

By the winter fires when their hips deflate

When im at their side wishing I was naked

a puddle of colored milk spreading in front

of the fireplace like it was july

smell the buttered corn trying to understand

and think of ice cream

so the girls think when their confidence falls

the worry creeps and the desire for ice cream

the small parlors and memories in past suns

line up behind the eyes

flutter, dip their chins and hide their faces in hands

mouths circled in superman blue

moose tracks, mint chocolate chip

sheepish little girls with full breasts

hips at a V

thinking a good fuck will cure the flask

of gender kept distilled and away

come that dip in strength when memories

of ice cream take the place of sons and lovers

taste tests and sugar fantasies

The most fashionable lesbian couple of Gramercy Park

They started off as roommates, and one said,
“Oh yeah my girlfriend is really like, weird,”
A police car sped vrooming down the block,
“I wanted to talk to her but I got fucked up.”
Brain so up and down, options like windows,
The scarf looked like baby, or animal.
I wanted to say, “C’mon, petite abeille,
feel confident and confidential,” you do not
have to give your name, but rattle your chains.
Say, “oh-kay, this is, over.” Sirens grow
closer. “This moment is washed, blowdryed,
but as long as I can take it I’ll survive.”

Meanwhile: Eat your vegetables, do your work.
Respect women, respect men, rock & roll.

Just a lonely summer slowly dying...

or naturally me

doctor i want to feel the angry bee

            scared and frantic in my summer dress

can i feel again and touch the new with my mind

            wax coat or oven with the finished apple pie?

may i be me and recognize my leg’s fleshy bulbous machine

            so i can stop writing like the woman with the water breasts

            who passed me on the sidewalk and washed her eyes over me

i’m afloat in my own skin and wish the chemical tablets i take at night

            would make me grow gills and fins and be caught      drown a body

                                                                                            or

of human delight

What I heard at the bar last night

“I’ll shoot that woman if I see him with her,” the short Puerto Rican said. 

“Si or no?” the drunk girl they brought said. They noticed how drunk she was and took sips of their own drinks. 

“Are you going to answer my question?” she asked.  No one answered and the barman walked away.

Consider April from My Balcony

I

The seagulls sound like

Doors opening over the sea

When I paint my chest

Like the Easter egg designed

In womb  I felt the pulse

Of church bells echo           

            In the sewers and bones

Of the city

II

My balcony overlooks

Jesuit house defaced walls

And lonely golden window

Lamps  I saw portals of priests

And sisters using tea with their

            Hands bleached and

Free from callous

I checked my sense of the

Order   the march   the pace 

The quantity of ants

            Filing into the sea—

The catalyst suicides of childish

Novas the depth of storage for

Indifferent ill memories

III

            I sketched for the tea party

The public sex I’ve seen in streets

The beards burned in fires of

Money and condoms the small

Mountains of pleasure and success

The carcasses of flattened gulls

            Fallen from the heavens

  

            My friends sleep inside,

A warm rat king of

College exhaustion dissolving at

Last  and I on the balcony

            listen to the church bells

ring and turn

The remaining gulls with keys—

Consider April from my balcony

IV

This evening I use the Bible as the

Instruction booklet of the chords

Of giants gritting teeth beats the

Booms of St. Ignatius kicking

His boot against empty air

            Tried to build this door—

This door I cursive for frame

I take the wind three sheets

Covering lovers drawn out on

Haight and Ashbury to you

Allen to you and the salt from

Your eyes that turned your beard

From brunette to blonde when you

Dreamed of hot air balloons

Deflating above

            Greenwich night skies

V

            Every nail and board

Into this door

Made with the bread of pain

And the codes behind my eyes

Coursing from my blueprint of

            Veins and bones these

Fingers drawing the sketches

Of a gate for all to walk naked

Thru

At the foot will scurry

white pelts of rabbits against

The bare balls of the ankles

I am unsure if they will think of

Allen Hardy Jesus or me

            If they think of me

The way of the cypress tree

Let one thousand fields of lilac

And poppy candy

            In which the mystics are buried

Spread like acid on film

The mystics in their sleep

Will hear my footsteps

They will smell my sweat

And they will feel the pressure

Of my word like the finger

Clenched

VI

The door

            To building the door

That will open to all—

            The pallid angels with cigarettes

Hanging from their lips and a

Cancer spreading their wings.

            The annals of children waiting

Awake for the toothfairy who is

Left hung on the cypress tree

In the field of infinity

I keep building this door

For all to pass under

To see the sunlight behind

To see ahead

the moon

            dropped

In the great star like an Irish car bomb

           

            The howls of the sinking

moon will be mistaken for the final

hissing of dying time

The dogs of romanticism chained

To fashionable pegs

Lurch and froth and choke

Trying to reach me before

I finish this door

VII

My death is not inscribed in the

Book of Instruction

So if I shall die

If I shall fall before this door is made—

            I take the wood from the cypress

            I make the nails from icicles of our blood

            I find the glass in the delicate filaments of poetry

            I read the blueprints found in the body

           

            I build in the wall of saving grace

Finish the door

If I can not

Finish the door

So all may walk

So all may use the key given at life

Head held high to the portal of ecstasy

Before the flesh deteriorates and

The hinges are taken away

Exponential Decay

I am fitting into the crowd.
(or maybe i always was)
becoming more boring, more bourgeois.
every new possession only leads me
onto a child-like hunger
for another.

What can be done?
My pants are ripping and it makes me want to rip out my skull.
My computer is dying and it makes me want to take a pill and sleep for days.

Who is this person I am
now?
I couldn't name a favorite color
or a favorite song,
but I could name a favorite soda to buy at the vending machine
or station to turn to on the television.

I've lost my desire to write or think.
I just want to go to bed.

(sleep for four hours)

shower
breakfast
smoke cigarette
car

Driving towards the same thing everyday.
Driving towards nothing.

The world is filled with suffering
and such is my existence in it.

Do you hear me?

I would rather look at a picture of a cat
than understand a math equation.

The Redemptionist

The church was large and modern so there wasn’t much wood besides the pews.  All of the windows were right under the roof’s edge, at the base of it’s massive pyramid shape, and a large cross, made of yards of white cloth, ribbons, really, when you considered their height, hung under the peak.  Locals of the town who did not attend service called it the Jesus Mall and visitors craned their necks in admiration when they drove by.  The church was non-denominational and larger than most college basketball arenas.

Once a year, two thousand people filled the church to see the Redemptionist, an event the AM station 1300 The Bread advertised as the day of the year to witness miracles that renew faith.  Many drove from all over the area to come and the side streets and surrounding neighborhoods filled with lines of parked cars once the lot filled.  You never really saw people walking into the church or gathered in the lobby.  You just imagined the church filled completely otherwise it would not be as big as it was.  The event, with all the cars, would also appear to locals and passerby’s to be the church’s most important day of the year even though nothing stirred outside the massive building.

A crowd filled every pew and folding chair in the aisles and many stood in the back of the church waiting on this day.  A sibilant reverence went about the heads of the people and the rich green walls.  The colors grey, dark green, and maple made up the colors of the interior.  The people wore suits and dresses.  Someone placed a white sheet over the altar table and a single mic stand stood in the center of the altar at the top of the three long steps.  This made the one think the pulpit would not be used at all.

Twelve men in grey and black suits came out first.  They walked in a single file line slowly to the front of the altar.  The short men puffed their chests out and the taller ones hunched their shoulders in their pointy suit jackets.  All of the men with blond hair had short cuts that soaked up the sun coming in from the windows.  The men with brown hair combed the top over into a part.  Everyone in the pews watched them carefully and waited.

A short, plump man came out of a door on the left side of the church.  He wore a pink tie with a matching fluted pocket square.  He also wore a small lilac pinned to his lapel.  The man walked in quick, sturdy steps and swung his arms freely with closed fists as he climbed the steps up to the altar.  He grew taller and taller like he had been crouched and his walk forward straightened his back.  His shoes shown a brilliant black, polished like the finish of a piano, and he continued up the steps.  The first platform step was large and many strides were taken to reach the second.  He kept his chin up and the thick eyebrows matched deep lines in his face, like tributaries running from the pools under his eyes, and the powder make-up made his forward unnaturally diffuse the light filtering in through the windows under the edge of the roof.  His socks showed when he lifted his knees to step.  Each step became shorter in distance.  He was one of the men with dark parted hair but strands of silver could be seen in streaks starting at the widow’s peak.  He took the last step and stood before the mic. He was tall, straight and he scanned what was before him with great admiration.

Many of the people in the audience shook their heads in some kind of agreement, perhaps at his presence, and waited for him to speak.  The swollen church stared at the man and the air grew thin like hot sea air and the walls stretched.

He spread his arms and embraced the scene.

“Amen,” he said.  He scanned.

“Amen, Hallelujah! the audience yelled.  Several whooped at the end.

“Amen!” he yelled again.

“Amen!” yelled back the audience and the whoops coupled with chopped hollers and barks.

“AMEN!” he yelled and arched his back with force and snapped back at the mic.  The church erupted uncontrollably and the people rocketed to their feet yelling and shaking their fists, leaning into the backs of one another over the pews.  The twelve men behind the man speaking clapped and nodded their heads up and down or shook them left to right.  “I come here today,” he said, “to show you, each and every one of you, redemption through the Savior Lord Jesus Christ!”  The audience responded to everything the man said with even more violent seizures and louder cries.  “I come here to you, to you today to show you the divine power of Christ!”

            They cried.

            “You come here to witness the terrifying love of God the Father and His Holy Son, Lord Our Shepard, Jesus Christ!”

            They cried louder.

            “I come here,” he yelled, he had begun to sweat, “to make you all witnesses of saving Grace! I come here to show you how God’s saving Grace blesses the good and destroys the wicked!  I come here to show you the sinner saved by a God in tears, by a God with awesome power that strikes the evil dead and sows the seeds of the Good on our scorched earth!”  He shook violently.

            They cried for his words.  He took the mic from the stand.  He walked to the left of the altar with his head down and sharply walked back to the center.  He looked up and said, “Who will be the first to let God cleanse you of the evil that takes over us, the demons that run our lives, the sins we commit and keep in piles around our hearts?  Who will be the first to witness the power of God?”  Hands shot up in the audience.  The man nodded to the line of men in suits. He looked at the ground and scratched his nose with the back of his hand. Three of them left the line and walked directly to a fragile, old black woman in the front row with her hand raised.  She was crying.  Her jaw opened and closed like a fish and the tears ran into her mouth.  She looked like a greasy old bag in a floral dress.  She shook a little when they helped her step away from her chair and she put her hands out in front of her like she was unsure of the footing.  They tugged at her and she made it to the stairs.  She hunched and became more and more hunched as she climbed the steps one raised foot at a time.  The audience behind her cried with praise.

            They placed her before the man with the microphone.  They were both tall now.  He held the mic before her face and she hunched over, as though she fought her purse from pulling her shoulders to the ground.  “What’s your name, child?” he said.

            “Rosemary,” she said with a worn voice softly into the mic.

            “Rosemary, what afflicts you?” he said.  He held the mic to her rheumatic jaw.

            “All my life, I had never seen clear,” she said.  He pulled the mic back to his face. 

            “Rosemary here is afflicted with sins that have caused her eyes to fog!” he yelled.

            They cried.

            “The saving Grace of God will rid her of the sins and out go the demons preventing her from seein’ God’s goodness!” he said. 

            They cried.

            The man handed one of the men in suits the mic.  He turned his back to the crowd and did something with his hands.  He turned back to the woman.  The other two men held Rosemary by the arms and one of them held her head back by the forehead.  Her neck bent violently so that her Adam’s apple stood out further than her chin.  She choked and couldn’t cry.  “Open your eyes, Rosemary, and know God’s Grace!” Another man in a suit, one with blonde hair, used his thumbs to hold her eye lids back.  The man speaking jammed his thumbs into her eyes.  He pressed hard and pressed hard again against the eyeballs.  Rosemary gagged a little and the men let her head free.  She cried and a sincere pain came across her face only for a moment, like a cloud across a slivered moon, but no one saw it.  She blinked rapidly and looked at the man.  “Tell, me Rosemary, what do you see?” said the man and he grabbed her face with his hands.

            “I see your face a' clear!” she said and began crying.

            “I said, tell me what you see!”

            She was choking on her breathes and looked more in pain than in a state of joy.  “I seen God and the clear of His Earth!” she managed and buried her hands in her face.  The man turned to the audience with a red face and said, “I give you God and His Grace!”

            They cried and cried.

            The three men guided the crying woman off the altar to a door to the back left.  Other people in suits stood to receive her.  She was crying uncontrollably.  They closed the door behind her.  Another man opened a door in the room to a small parking lot behind the church.  “Thank you, Rosemary,” said one of them and they shut the door.  The man inside could be heard calling into the mic.

             That night Rosemary went home and counted everything for her family.  She stood ten feet from the fireplace and counted the number of bricks across the mantel.  She counted fifteen peas on her plate at dinner.  At bedtime, she counted the beads of the Rosary without touching them.  She fell asleep and dreamt of many vivid images.  She woke next morning and opened her eyes.  They felt like they had glue in them.  Her eyes were red and when she rubbed them she felt something shift under her eyelids.  The days went on and her eyes hurt more and more.  Eventually the world was as blurred just as bad as it had been before.  No one told her.  She waited for the next year.