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Angels Fighting With Us
sirens wail over the
city as soon as our radar reveals that the death planes are approaching
& we immediately scramble to take refuge in our bomb shelters
knowing that the enemy has already destroyed all the missiles that had been
designed to protect us, knowing that our bomb shelters have already been so
battered they will not withstand the latest assault & so we are likely
to die in the ruins. . .still, we run to the bomb shelters entertaining the
vain hope that they will remain intact enough to keep us safe when the
death planes arrive figuring that at the very least our retreat will allow
us to cling to a few more moments of terrified existence before we are
swallowed by oblivion. . .just before we swing the doors of the bomb
shelters shut, we hear the death planes roaring in the sky above us &
we hold our breath waiting for them to unleash a rain of bombs down upon
the concrete roofs that we do not expect will hold, the concrete roofs that
had once been underground but that now have been exposed to the naked eyes
of those enemy pilots, the protective earth blasted away by previous
bombing runs. . .
the first strike proves
to be enough to break the roof of the bomb shelter I am in wide open, a
disaster that knocks me unconscious soon as I realize it has happened
because a chunk of falling concrete hits me in my head & when I wake
up, the town is silent, the noise of the death planes & their exploding
bombs gone. . .I crawl out of the
wreckage that surrounds me on all sides moving cautiously just in
case enemy infantry has come to occupy the town refusing to trust that the
silence means there is no enemy presence, but at last I realize that the
danger has passed over me & left me alive, so I move thru the town more
freely inspecting the damage that has been done. . .as I conduct my
inspection, I discover that the bombs destroyed the entire town & broke
all the bomb shelters open killing all the citizens who had been inside
them other than me spared by some perverse mercy to be the only survivor
& to inhabit the town alone. . .
because the town had
been so thoroughly decimated, its territory lacked any immediate value to
the invaders who had rapidly conquered our nation, a conquest I find out
about from the refugees who come to join me fleeing enemy domination once
our government has been toppled, refugees who help me to establish our own
invisible nation, an establishment that allows us to live in freedom &
peace even though we are surrounded by our conquerors since they ignore our
existence. . . we labor together using the ruins as the raw material
necessary to construct a new town, a town that rewards us for our labor
with the knowledge that we have cultivated home from the disaster that had
befallen our country, & we live happy until the enemy notices our
cultivation & mounts an assault against us unsatisfied by the territory
that had already been conquered determined to control everything there is.
. .the population of our community numbers 100 because only 99 fugitives
managed to escape the net cast by the invaders when they conquered our
nation & we anticipated that our enemy would eventually decide to
attack us, so we built a wall around the town to help us defend it, a wall
that provides us with sanctuary when the inevitable assault comes. . .
when the enemy lays
siege to the walls of our town, they bend but do not break & thus, the
battle for our survival becomes a stalemate, a stalemate that I expect will
be broken when the death planes return, an expectation I do not mention to
my fellow citizens because I do not wish to shadow their last hours, an
expectation that is never realized I would guess because our enemy decided
there was no need to waste bombs upon us when we soon would use up all our
provisions & then could be starved out. . . even when we have eaten all
our food, we will not open the gate & surrender as our enemy no doubt
assumes that we will preferring instead to die of deprivation stubbornly
refusing to fall into the hands of the army that surrounds our walls, a
determination that we will not yield even when the enemy communicates to us
by radio promising that we will not be harmed if we allow them to take the
town & besides, we will be fed. . . hopeless as our situation seems to
be, no bribe will convince us to put our faith in the enemy outside our
walls when we can pray to the god of liberation who answers us by sending
food raining down from heaven & once we have eaten enough to renew our
strength, we sit down to plot the strategy we will use to set our nation
free from the conqueror that has enslaved it, a strategy we know will
succeed when we open up our gate & come bursting thru it to find that
we have angels fighting with us right by our side. . .
I Keep On Pushing
so restless that I
cannot sleep, I abandon my bed & my house to wander the dark streets at
night looking for something unknown trusting that I will be able to
recognize it when I find it & that it will bring me the endless joy I
crave. . .the world I walk thru seems empty to me, a bleak void that does
not promise to yield the mystery treasure I seek, but I nevertheless refuse
to give up my odyssey determined to press on despite the possibility of
failure, determined to press on until my desire has been satisfied. . .I
keep on pushing against despair even though I circle the world 7 times
& continue to suffer a blank before my eyes that tempts me to stop dead
in my tracks & to confess that my quest has been a failure, a
temptation that I resist until the miracle erupts in radiance before me. .
.
the radiance initially
blinds me so that I cannot see what waits for me inside it, but I
nevertheless begin to feel a surge of ecstasy sensing that I am about to
discover the unknown, a discovery that will provide me the knowledge I
desire as soon as my eyes adjust to the light. . .when I am able to see
once more, I find that the radiance has given sudden birth to all I once
knew & then lost, all that had been haunting me fugitive at the edges
of my void dreams, all that had disturbed my sleep & sent me out
restless to circle the world 7 times & I rush towards the beloved souls
that have at last been restored to me fast as my legs will carry me. . .as
soon as I reach them, the celebration of our reunion erupts as we join
together ecstatic in the marriage of visible & invisible worlds meeting
in a territory that exists in the middle, a territory that frees us to
dance back & forth between the two, a dance that ignites me intimate
with the radiance that had once blinded me. . .
Tonight I Storm The Gates Of Death
tonight I storm the
gates of death even though I know the effort will prove futile, even though
I know those gates will hold firm against me & frustrate my desire to
penetrate them. . .tonight I storm the gates of death because I am driven
by the engine of love & so I will not rest content with the end that
seems to have come mounting an assault against the gates of death hoping
that some miracle will cause them to break wide open before me wanting to
recover you & to embrace you once more. . .tonight I storm the gates of
death & leap in surprised ecstasy as they crumble to dust clearing the
way liberating me to run towards the encounter I so long wanted to know,
the encounter that would renew our tender connection cultivating it able to
endure forever. . .tonight I storm the gates of death & move beyond them
as they die forgetting all about them as if they had never existed, my
whole consciousness obsessed with the eternal house of ecstasy I inhabit
with you, a house resonant with love abundant enough to satisfy our hunger
forever. . .
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