You’ve Already Been Warned

Tomorrow the world will start all over again

There is no certainty here, only hoping and longing

And praying to unseen principalities, angels, immortals,

To God the father of Jesus Christ, same who walked,

And worked with sinners. Who died himself in thieves’ company.

Supplicating for understanding, for forgiveness, for tomorrow

That wipes yesterday’s sins away, and the hurting

And the hating that spews venomlike to kill all that is good,

Destroy all the loving and touching and longing that came before,

And was good and pleasurable and all that, even if only for a while.

But the deities are silent so far, and your entreaties are naught

‘cept the beating of wings in an empty room where no one hears,

Or cares, other than you alone who in addition to all else

Must now face the possibility that your mind is going,  

And you’re just that one step from the street corner,

From a dearly held bottle, cardboard mansions on doorsteps,

At the mercy of coppers, strangers, marauders, sex with strangers

For money, or booze or drugs to keep your mind, or what’s left of it

From remembering that time so far ago, across time and space

And reality of kingdoms promised, reaching for ends that exceeded

The present grasp but still possible for one who of whom it was said –

‘You are the boy king', image of Aten without the oedipal complex,

Edward VI, minus the tuberculosed lungs and cousin sex.

You see, this is how it all begins, first wanting to feel nothing,

Hoping to forget everything, thinking forgetting is how to stay alive

Till one day you’re overwhelmed by a Niagara of reminiscences

Barreling in, overwhelming intoxication and supplication

To a faraway God of doubtful provenance, in an empty room,

Then wondering if conversations with mirrors and walls is evidence

Sufficient of a pickled mind, needing a little deliverance before

The nightmare vision of street corners, cheap booze and buggery

By giant dicked strangers becomes a reality

With which you now must contend, in addition to all else.

If one then must flee this flight to psychosis, it follows thus

That every petition and entreaty to celestial beings for a tomorrow

Disconnected from history must be withdrawn and replaced

Because to run from the memories, you must run only to the abyss

That calls you with the voice of sirens, the promise of sweet relief,

Of catharsis through purgation of the mind. You’ve already been warned.

But how does one unpray a prayer without looking a fool?

You howl! That’s how. You fill yourself with righteous indignation,

Gather your anger to give your tired heart all the courage to stand steady

At the twelve gates of pearls and demand an audience of God himself

Against the certain protestations of Peter, holder of thy kingdom’s keys.

Whatever path you choose my friend the matter at hand remains

How do you get on with living when today’s as hard is this?

And hopes for tomorrow rest on nothing but quicksand and saw dust

And faith is lost to fire for nothing. Don’t look to me to tell you how,

Or elders to form your fate. None of us know how, this too is our first rodeo.

Even the stars will not guide your feet past the immense darkness

Of this unending night. So get on with it and know in your heart

That you are no longer obliged to certainty, or endless penance.

Today’s hard enough for you to grow, but not so hard to break your soul.

So get on with it. That’s all there is to be done.