They hide out of sight

in the mud-slicked hollows of

corrugated slums,

snatching from the

fattened, possessive world 

whatever

can be clutched in hands 

grown old by six.

They gather in the sewers

of night, clinging to

dank walls

while above them

the adult world rolls

through the city

like a blind

armored division,

scattering fearful leavings

in its tracks but

oblivious to the scurrying

little gullets

that pinch unnoticed pieces

from it

and hoard them in the

unseen vaults

of stillborn

days to come.

It soars up

to the very foot of the

Awful and Glorious Throne

and turns away from

the sunbright Presence

to fly to Andromeda and inspect

the nether regions of its

innermost spiral, dancing

through fields of shattered

potsherds that were once

iron-bottomed worlds.

It descends into the maelstrom

of bare-nerved bloodlust,

cringing at the sight of

trembling innocents 

crushed under the

banal weight of grinning

barbarism.

Shivering with dread, it

curls up in airy dreamlands

of mercy, cradling itself

in the arms of warm-breathed

mammals, until it jumps

into the breathless

depths of desire and

lovefierce touch,

careening along the way

to a (distant?) scene

of watching the garden one last

moment, eyes brimming

with the end of a thousand

unwritten stories.

It builds

into a silent crescendo

at the end of all beginnings,

gathering all the chains

into its ethereal hands,

pushing at the boundary

of straining, protesting possibility

until all has been swept

into its savagely beautiful

singular embrace.

It will abolish every why,

evaporate every how,

and break down the last

barriers between here

and not-here,

now and

not-now,

and I and Not-I.

The final Amen will ring out,

and it will vanish into itself,

waiting for the next

careless fluctuation

to let it roar out of the

Jack-in-the Box

once again.

I struggle to pull myself

into that tiny little world

where delirious points of nothing

gleefully appear 

in two places at once.

They spin maniacally

as I try to grab them,

and slip through

my hands

with mocking randomness,

daring me to follow them

as they roar silently

and bounce motionlessly

off the daynight

zig zagged valley walls

of their inside-out

little universe.

"OK, kid, it's like this",

the grizzled veteran said to the

bright-eyed neophyte

sitting in soft expectation

before him.

"You gotta dish it out hard and mean,

'cause if you don't,

they're gonna kick you where

it counts,

and you gotta get your foot in there

first.

They're gonna cut ya, see?

They're gonna try and take

your goddam head off and 

laugh about it.

They don't give a rat's ass

what happens to you, so

you gotta cave their faces in

you gotta be strong

and not look back

and not think there was

any other way

you coulda dealt with

the sonsuvbitches."

With that, the young one

rose, went over

to the battle-scarred

warrior,

kissed him softly on the forehead,

and slashed the old guy's throat

from ear to ear.

And he could have sworn,

as he turned and walked out,

that he heard a strangled voice say,

"good boy".

There were so many of them

the line stretched out

for uncounted blocks,

its members holding 

themselves

in various postures

of 

gut-shot betrayal,

vein-bulging anger,

curious bewilderment,

heart-lacerated sorrow,

or 

drowned resignation.

He tried to look

each one in the face

(if it was still visible)

and haltingly offered

his croaking, useless regrets,

sometimes cringing

in the embarrassment

of a knifebladed moment,

at others dropping his head

along with theirs, letting

the tears flow in 

twisted remembrance,

begging their pardon,

and reaching his 

well-worn hand

around their misty 

shoulders,

grabbing only air

and speaking only

in a 

monologue.

He keeps his words

dressed up in their Sunday Best,

and sends them out to proselytize 

the natives,

and yet they seem to come back

dressed in ragamuffin style,

running their happy fingers

under his chin, guffawing

rudely, and holding up

a rhinestone-edged mirror

to his noble madness.

He felt the barely discernible

sensation of reptilian skin

being sloughed off

in sheets no longer vile

but now simply pitiable, and

a new portrait appeared to be

spreading over the palimpsest

that had seen so many 

exhausted and hesitant

previous incarnations.

Was it sunlight

creasing the indifferent

horizon to his right,

or was it an odd luminescence 

being generated from within

a self liberated at last

from childish things?