COLD HELL

COLD HELL
The cold elastic tightness squeezes my chest
The lights and noise, the crowds,
The knowing looks, the schedules and machines and screens
And talking heads and throbbing, screeching, tearing
Anger, competition, everything accelerating, hurry,
Hurry, Hurry UP! Faster! More!
I scream desperate blood curdling silence in the dark.

The school bill’s due, they’re gonna shut off the lights
There’s no more detergent, buy more gas, we need more gas!
I can’t do my job and I’m gonna get fired
What’s the matter with You?!
Move your ass – way behind production goals
The freeway crawls with bugs in frantic haste
I can’t take it, I can’t think, I can’t breathe!

The gelid dark of empty space
Waits menacing outside the black windows.
The glass shakes, pelted by bullets of rain while
Nearly palpable serpents of humid coldness
Slither through the air
Bodies tremble at their passing
And cold penetrates deep disquieting the soul.

There was a bombing in Bali......the Nasdaq’s up today...
The WTO announced that......the Braves lost again and....
A Hollywood insider said.....abortion clinics.....doing good work....
the Grand Jury announced....... oil spill in the wilderness....

Wilderness?
Is there still Wilderness?
After you read the Park rules,
After you buy the required Kevlar triple snap mauve boot covers,
Your 300 horsepower goretex mast and fanny pack,
Your fiber carbon hiking shorts and then read the
Rules again,
Then.....then you can enter the wilderness, BUT
No fires, No Garbage, No Overnights, and Don’t touch anything.
No, there’s no wilderness anymore.....
Just more competition and new age rules in a nightmare world.

The cold recedes and I dream another here and now.
I lean on a wooden staff,
The shaft warm and smooth in my hand.
I look out over a wide valley under a darkening sky
To brown hills on a distant horizon.
A warm breeze brushes my bare chest
With the aroma of earth and freedom.
There is no hurry, no one is waiting
No next step, there only Is

Then, Shock Awake in deepest night
Electric jolt to the lower spine
¡Ay! Erect in bed heart pumping, terrified
¿How did I get into this trap? Terror
Squeeze my head – Stop! Stop the noise!
But its silent within the enclosing walls.
Outside the racing machines vomit clamour and filth.

The newest, biggest, fastest, money guzzling
Bullshit spreader that ever bankrupted
Some Poor Slob, trying to compete
Falling farther behind with each step.
Warren Buffet sold another......not a human being...
Wasn’t a live birth....its viability was terminated before....
We are better off now than at any time in history.
Experiments with stem cells show...
Another six months of angst and desperation
In a meaningless world

So, where is God?
Ask the Experts on TV, Experts everywhere
Hipocrites and money changers.
A Purpose Driven way into your pocket
What color Escalade would Jesus pick for the Tabernacle?
Would the Holy Hour network air John the Baptist in his rags?
“If you would follow me give up all your earthly possesions”
He didn’t mean that really, its an allegory
But yes, Biblical Creation is literally true!
“Generation of snakes, how do you expect to escape from Hell?”

But Hell assaults me every night
Impending doom is close on my heel
They’re closing in
My crimes, my sins, my failures, my blasphemies are drawing them
Ever nearer.
They know.
The tax man watches me...
They know I am not of them
They can smell it.

Then I slide back into my refuge, my past.
Sunrise over the mountains
Tang of ponderosa pine in the sharp crystal air.
A tribe of mule deer browse along the ridge line.
Start a fire and sit against a juniper to watch two jays chase an owl.
Peace.... no-one but that owl knows where I am.

Cell phone alarm shrieks in the dark
The grip tightens around my chest
I can’t breathe the cold damp air
I can’t manage another day
My face will collapse and all will see
My terror and my shame
I’ll be discovered
And they’ll know I’m different.
They’ll rip my flesh and gnash my bones.
Heart pounding I pray:
God keep me, keep me one more day.
Help me Lord, keep me sober one more day
Keep me free from cigarrettes
And sick thinking about sex and revenge.
Keep me humble today Lord
Thy will be done today Lord.
Just for today Lord, save me one more time Lord.
I lower my head into the rain and push out into the cold darkness