He held the shiny glass object

in his 13 year old hands and raised it
into the sultry air.
A spectrum of multicolored light
emanated from it,
astonishing one and all.
Many voices expressed delight;
others looked at the miracle
with thinly veiled fear, as if
a darkly magical force
were at work
in the world of the everyday.
However they reacted, all knew
that a door had been suddenly
pushed open
into the Divine Mystery.
They knelt before the boy
and raised their arms to him
in tribute to his command of
unseen powers.
The boy-man was at once imbued
with sacred nobility, and he
knew that the turning point of
his no-longer humble life had now
been reached.
He would show them The Way
and reveal the Nature of Him
who sent the glassy messenger
of prophecy
to his hands,
hands that had been destined
to receive it
since the creation of time
itself.

She haunts the old office,

kicking up the dust and laughing
at the ones who sneeze.
She glides like Ginger Rogers
through walls
and twirl dances on the
desks of the infamous.
She looks at all the "secrets"
and stifles a yawn
before flying into the
Van Gogh night
to stand staring through
the picture window
that used to define
the sodden limits
of her world,
before her real birthday
finally arrived
to liberate her.
Smiling, she vanishes
like rainwater drawn down
by sun cracked ground
into the memories
of those who think
they knew her.

It takes me into its arms

and erases every desolate Monday morning.
It converts the memory of knife-cutting
Siberian wind into confetti.
It urges me to walk out of
the dessicated lake bed
of my stale anger.
It quietly gets me to turn off the
endless reruns of scenes that
cannot change however many times
I stab myself with them.
In its ever changing light
it reveals eternal verities,
and in its genetic Mardi Gras
it dares me to hope
of what might be.

The damning indictment

intensified into tornadic fury.
"He once used the word anthropology!",
the Prosecutor cried out.
Involuntary gasps issued forth
from the confused spectators,
who sensed the presence of sin.
"He knows the days of the week in order!"
"Bastard", a frustrated voice shouted
from the rear
as the judge gaveled
for calm.
"He once ate with a fork!"
Several women in the room
spontaneously turned into
pillars of salt.
And the final thunderbolt was
now hurled.
"He knows who's buried in
Grant's Tomb!"
And with that, the judge
rose from his seat,
walked sternly over to
the filthy miscreant,
shoved him down
on his knees,
pulled out a .357,
and converted
the wretch's head into
a Rorschach test
right on the courtroom floor.
Deafening cheers erupted,
and when they subsided
the smiling jurist announced
his upcoming campaign
for Governor,
the gun smoking merrily
in his hand.

It jumps and whirls

from tree to tree,
riding an electrochemical wave
like a crazed surfer on a big board,
zapping a whole forest
into a cerebral firestorm,
blasting open a bank vault
of shuddering introverts, and
ripping off the top of a circus tent,
exposing its weird, energetic denizens
to the shockingly bright sunlight.
Groups link up and shake hands
at a hundred summit meetings,
and suddenly the place looks
livelier than Reno on a hot night.
And with that, she leaps out of bed
and writes them an ending
that'll have 'em
begging for more

The pile glittered

in from of him,
its dimensions a rival
to the death house of Khufu,
and its appearance
no less breathtaking
in its exquisite obscenity.
Its construction
had drained
the mitochondrial fever
of every cell of which
he had ever been composed.
And now, it lay before him
on the windswept plateau,
the reason for his being,
and the consolation
of his solitary
contemplation.

His name was on everyone's lips

and from them praise that would
embarrass Caligula
flowed in a quacking river of
obsequious syllables.
He was "Great Leader and
Teacher",
"Our Inspiration",
"Towering Genius",
"Glorious Father",
"The Greatest Figure
in History", and
"The Pinnacle of Humanity".
His face adorned every bent-backed office,
every frozen classroom,
every starving farm,
every grimly hustling factory,
and every obedient home.
His statues graced every empty public park
and every darkened village square.
His words were heard everywhere,
pounded into the heads of the people
in endless hammerblows.
Delegations of fearful peasants
in colorful garb
crawled to him, clutching
declarations of fealty
in their decimated mouths.
Robotic parades, shellac-smile festivals,
coldly synchronized athletic displays,
and deafening rallies proceeded each
other in a continuous orgy of
groveling worship.
He Who Smiles Upon Us
had the power to show his love
for The People
in a dozen polar labor colonies
and a thousand torture chambers,
and a multitude of eyes and ears
and three million submachine guns
were ready to do his bidding.
And still he stood trembling
before the bedroom mirror,
fearfully suspecting that the
withered old man
that stared back at him
was ready to betray him
at any moment,
the one treacherously disloyal
traitor
he had never been able
to purge.