Eternity
Remember how, Michael
when we were seventeen
in the kitchen peeling green
pears, the sun mirroring off the knife-
slicing its reflection amid our tender
eyes, sedately, as we talked
of eternity, the thought of being
and the fatal syntax of it. The
blind whiteness stare of a pure state.
We hugged each other in realization
that it was a forever process,
that eternity is in the now.
When we let go, our friendship
went on also, where most young hearts
go, with ambitions to get in the way.
I ran into you, fifteen years later.
Downtown, by the War Memorial
you were walking in the eye
of the street screaming at the world
from a crazy distant, as I drove closer
you were giving anyone, everyone
your middle finger.
When I approached, not knowing you
and then I did, the instant you told
me to go fuck off, with a fist tight
in a ball of rage and your finger
pointing up toward God, telling me
where to go. I said your name, and
it’s me. Your face loosened, dropped
and you shook my hand oddly.
I never asked of why your rage.
I asked of your travels, where
you been and your goings-
we ended up in a bar with
two drinks down talking
of your failing marriage
and how she has been seeing
another woman. And how a
divorce would just wreck
your little Michael, being six.
I apologized for not being there.
I dropped you off back to the street,
asked if you wished to stay the night
seeing the rain was heavily falling,
but you turned down the offer
exited and waved a fallible goodbye.
You returned to shouting at cars
and a raised finger in headlights
approaching you cautiously.
Lightning struck the sky silently
as a hummingbird strikes a flower.
I saw your face on the news
ten years after in another state,
a father of two they described you,
who butchered his wife with a hammer
while she laid asleep in bed, with a
pillow you covered her face and
hammered, hammered with a foul
stench of whiskey on your breath.
They found her covered in feathers
and blood.
At the trial your lawyer pleaded insanity
and you won the case insane, the judge
ordered you forever institutionalized-
they put you in a room pure of white
no windows, no metal objects, or hangings
of any kind, no shadows that may linger.
They gave you walks when needed
and then locked you back in eternity.
And I recalled our infinite thoughts,
moving from flesh to faultlessness
in the flash of a moment,
how everything could change
in the flash of a moment.
the gathering
they congregated, and paused
then preyed it die casting lots
and prayed the lost and paused some
they screeched and hissed showing
no signs of abandon and search,
rather making sixes, eights and zeros
in the skin of the razored sky
looking up, without a sound
in a trance, their hands held high
the three saw three trace,
circling the circus of their killing
listening with a silent prompt
the drum solo of a heartbeat
the quick wheezing in fear
the sun sinking in the earth-
disrobed from the darkest pitch of robes
balancing the dagger in a most holistic
manner, the sacrifice is made pouring
the gore on their nakedness and ground
it will soon be their turn to brood,
and retract their wings of three,
tear the tender feast of flesh and core,
warmth rawhide of a ripe ritual
[END]
© 2005 Anthony Liccione - Contributor's
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