a story for Oakland

Sharp teeth of ships afloat in the harbor. We are long-legged gods come to earth, to pile Ossa upon Pelion, to dispose as we have always done. A spider’s thread above a fire. Jeremiah, speak close, and listen: in the wailing of our joints, hear the owls crying still for Edom.

Long our bones and mighty. We are content to stand and watch, but one day we shall stir ourselves to graceful swaying life. Ezekiel weeps in the dust, sores running down his side, choked on heavy bread; we shall lift our heads and behold. Widows and orphans.

And thus skyward: all of heaven captured and held in our towers. Our hairs strung between buildings, our capillaries threaded through the roofed-over earth. In the tunnels the ocean wash of our unsettled blood. Osiris, pent in his coffins, member sunk deep in the sea. Amphitryon’s second son.

Kings of pigeons, queens of gulls, duchies of rats. An empire of busy decay. We do not sit in state in our brother court, but respect his plenipotent might. Three lots were cast, for sea, for sky, for earth, and we have all come to earth. Sharp the teeth afloat in the harbor, and cracked the skull of the sky; we are long-legged and mighty. Know our works, and despair of our glory.

In the streets of Los Angeles, underneath the dead embers of the sky, life goes on. In the bottoms they fry onions, cook noodles, drink cheap beer, screw. They die young, lungs black as tar, skin blotched and spotted with neoplasia, not necessarily unhappy. Music blares from every window, and from the tenebrous pits of bars. They smoke like chimneys; why not? Life is cheap, meaningless and cheap as discarded plastic, but not unpleasant.

Advertisers promise riches, youth and beauty, rejuvenation under a new sun. So much empty noise. They can imagine no other life — why would they want to? Everything is here. They fight with knives and fists and chains, men and women brawling out into the streets, guns long ago sold and melted down and shipped off-world. They burn out on drugs and conspiracy theories polished to a high gloss.

Revolution makes normal the unthinkable. Folly reigns; darkness is upon the face of society. Over this confusion the spirit of god moves like marshlight, like a bird all wings.

They are trying the old rulers in the cathedrals of the underpasses. They sit on bollards, on broken dividers, perch on stanchions, shoulders pressed together in the dovecote of the beams. The spirit of god comes to them all at once and separately and whispers in their ears. They speak prophecy, and the dissolution of barriers, of fierce egalitarianism. Language dissolves, continually reforms, tongue of Babel. Nouns lose their gender or change it; words may mean anything but what they do.

From beyond their borders, the stable world watches, in anger and in fear, Lucifer raging against the new creation.

Garbage in the streets, and an all-volunteer army sweeping them clean again. They break into empty buildings and create bedrooms, living rooms, water closets. No plans are on file with the city. They grow like coral, in all directions, waiting for the tide to change.

They are so fragile, so little able to bear our weight. We have had to be reclusive. Once, we were met in the dust of the road or the heat of an evening. Once, they found us beautiful. How mighty our children! How mighty the deeds they encompassed! A golden age, truly; once, we were a friendly hand in the night, and homely, but no longer.

Now, though: now we no longer delight. How they scream! How they bleed! Fickle mirrors give us back in youth and beauty, but mirrors will lie for us. What they see, we cannot know. Rivers of tears and melting flesh. We cloak ourselves in mystery, in ritual–high are the walls we build around our gardens, but even then… In the darkness, the white firm flesh of an apple. Incense, cardamom. Sound of rushing feet, and a voice crying out our Name, our unspeakable Name!

The veil drops, briefly, and those who survive are few and forever scarred.

There was a time when we loved, and were loved, but no more. No more.