big red
i had always wandered the woods to find quiet and god and live in glory among all the little things inside me that never spoke and were mine alone
when first i took to the stream as a child i knelt down beside in the mud
in overalls with my elbows on my knees and fists clenched under my chin i leaned over and studied the surface
mommy had made me wise of narcissus and so disappeared my reflection and strengthened my silly which lived outside the world and allowed me to see
i saw that the stream was clear but for its rushing and so became calm and aligned myself with all that was still
down in the flowy reeds and passing catfish i saw the stillest thing of all
a flown away bluebird
inside the bird were four angels ready to be born
god warned me not to retrieve the bird but it was so beautiful i could not resist
i entered the stream and muddied it, retrieving the bird and plopping it on shore
it looked even more beautiful all soaking and free, and with tiny jagged teeth, pregnant with angels kicking its belly into a rainbow of bruises
these angels were meant to be born underwater and my actions had granted them terrible powers
god told me i would suffer under the hands of each one and would not be granted death until they were through with me
at the end of my life he would impale me with a hook through my jaw and drag me by skull to the desert, leaving me to die like a fish for the buzzards and beasts
all the love i had gained, all the favor i had been shown, everything i had learned i had forfeited by not following god’s command, and now i would suffer the rest of my days
the angels began to be born, yellow green blue and red
***
yellow means at least seven different things
my brother’s favorite color as a child
the smoke of war
the yellow king in louisiana who presided over the rape and murder of children in the ceremonies of elites
the simple honey from a bee
the pus that i squeeze from the corners of my fingernails after i bite them too far and the skin gets infected
the halo of saints in cheap animations
motor oil
the first of four angels born from the bluebird that will bring me pain as punishment for my sin
this is the angel of springtime who finds me as a teenager at the computer when i discover pornography
he rides down the south wind to my genitals and forces me to masturbate to a website called porn fidelity which depicts sex outside marriage
i am ashamed of myself and try to delete the search history but my sister who i never knew comes onto the computer after me to see everything i have seen on the computer because i am her older brother tells our mother what she has found and we have a talk about it and she tells me i know the difference between right and wrong
in my room i masturbate to the scene and substitute a girl at school for the woman in the video
i enhance my degeneracy by adding the element of risk to the imagined sex act, i am having sex with the girl in her basement and hear her father opening the door upstairs and go faster to try and finish before we are found out
this is a serious transgression against my faith and will only get worse as the years pass by until my death
i am not a warrior but a beast
i am flesh and blood but i am no man
i am a filthy wandering beast to be put down by god
***
the green angel compels me to the food pantry to commit violent sexual assault
in crown heights brooklyn i go to the catholic church and stand for one hour in line on a cold and windy day
in front of me a lady with a green sweater moans loudly and without shame and i watch her perform the laying of the hands on a man’s leg and ask god to heal him
he had told her his long sad story while she listened intently and invoked god’s mercy as he spoke
they were good people acting in earnest and i hope she healed him
they take 20 people at a time into the church basement where the bishop sits in a chair calmly observing everything
it is well organized and simple as churches should be but the dullness and poverty of everything around me reminds me i dont belong here and must commit violent sexual assault against someone
in truth i do belong here among the poorest people in the city because i am a sinner and this is god’s slow wrath being brought down on me
the green angel emerges all moldy from a boxed milk behind a large thanksgiving ham
i see the fat man in the hooded gray sweatshirt and apron retreat into the comfort of the sacristy and know he has been given shelter here after committing felonies
he was released from prison and the bishop took him in and he began a new life here in the warm and quiet church basement and he wants no part of what now might happen
he retreats into the dark warm wood and soft burgundy velvet and simple navy blue carpeting in his simple room in the church basement where he is building a new life one day at a time
the bishop is wearing dark robes with pink sashes and the green moldy angel directs my attention to the disgusting curdling milk behind his eyes that proves he is an antichrist and the one i should bring violence on
i stand up from my organized chair and step to the dark bishop with the basement window and iron gate above his head
he smiles and calls me son and i see the shining gold cross around his neck
he is not of my race and i say is it true am i your son and do you really speak for god the father
he says yes my son we are different you are a long way from home and i do speak for the father and he is good and he has sent you here because you are hungry and you come to me a foreigner and you are full of fear because all here is unfamiliar to you
i kneel before him and see the curdled soup in his eyes become less viscous and i want to confess to him my plan of violent sexual assault
he takes me by the hands and pets my skin and calls me son and says let the breath of god be upon me that was there before me and is mine too yet though it pass from man to man through all of time
some interruption in his delivery betrays the falseness of his message and smacks like death in the air and straight through the faiths of those gathered who see him exposed as cloying and speaking from a place of racial subordination
i say he has destroyed the pact he made with god by trying to say something too smart and fit too much in there like a swampy school bus instead of being simple and that everyone saw it for what it was
unfortunately no one else did see it that way and it becomes a growing argument between me and the whole group
as voices grow louder i scan the room trying to identify my easiest assault victim
outside there are phone stores bright in the wind, hasidic jews no one has ever talked to, the night wind, the terrible and howling singularity sucking us slowly into its vortex, the gray evil that wants to sweep us off the earth, the yellow tweety bird, the alley, the red and blue sirens, the black irreproachable night, the hidden furnace, the long and short walk home alone, the smooth plastic cheese, the forgotten rusted green weather vanes, the four cardinal directions mussed up like hair, the racialized teenagers, the stale cobblestone walkways of our misbegotten past, the paper leaves, the dark and drowning night wind
but we were safe inside within the warm and holy sacristy with god the father in the catholic church basement
there were little beetles on the floor which led me into the living quarters where the reformed felon had retreated
the bishop recognized my possession and called everyone off and said let him go let it play out
as i walked down the hall there were arches i had seen them before
this was the hall of the blue angel
***
i enter the rectory still on my mission of violent sexual assault
deep back in the basement they harbor the fat reformed felon in gray sweatshirt
i approach his bedroom and recall another life in another gray city where i helped some priests move into another rectory
they paid me well, i did my job well, they did not have many things, they lived like spartans, they lived right down the block from me which felt significant as most jobs were at least thirty minutes away
i did not have to ride a dirty bus to get to the church
i drank often during this time and once well past midnight i went and pounded on the church rectory doors
i received no response or walked off before someone answered
back in the crown heights rectory i see this as an opportunity to resolve everything
the walls are blue in the rectory halls and the archways are golden that lead to a hundred rooms
there are silent angels in blue and gold autumn air and everything is calm as i approach the felon’s door
i walk in and he is sitting on the bed in his gray sweatshirt looking at the floor
in his rotating irises there are rainbow pinwheels and tombstones and honking geese and there is a holy mirror between us where the images in our spinning irises are reflected upon each other and in each of our eyes is the ghost of the other’s and in mine there are orange maple leafs and hexagonal chemical compositions and symbols derived from the swastika at the heart of violent movements struggling to be born
the union of our eyes in the mirror is ezekiel’s wheel within the wheel the intersecting wheels like golden coins swimming with their own eyes at the union of something fated whirring to life
i say i know he is a felon and he says he knows i have come here a hunter
he admits it is true he is a felon and says he has paid for his crimes in prison but he is still a branded man back out in society and this is the only place that agreed to take him in and it has always been that way the church like a cradle of mankind
he says it is true also that the evil that sleeps in him has been given a place to breathe down in this blue hall and it contributes to the violence inside the church that has been brought more to light in recent decades
he says the same evil lives in the streets also but in the church it is different because it has a helpful context and the church takes a big L for us all by welcoming it in and absorbing it all and allowing the faithless a scapegoat
outside the great elms south of utica are hollow and glowing like pumpkins, the rosebushes are in full retreat in the promise of winter, the rarest front yard sunflowers have been harvested ectomorphic, black ice creeps into the asphalt, ratty plastic billows from razor wire like a lady’s handkerchief waving, ATM hubs glow blank and warm, strangers emerge from the subway to gray and orange clouds, the heat of jesus seeps out from our two sunken hearts into the criminal underground of brooklyn basements through sewers and shared dirt, through millipedes and hot sludge, god sends chemical rain that floods them all to mix everything together and permeate our shared being, warm church bacteria like a fat red sun with small rays to cleanse the wicked, spiked and charmless blue bacteria of drugs and depraved sexuality to be integrated into the bosom of the living church here in the basement
i say the scapegoat is well understood and we have to decide together if our shared violent criminality should be unleashed on each other or if there is a better way to integrate the evil into the church
he says he knows one way and lays flat on the floor on his back
i kneel down and place my forehead on his forehead and move in circles on the floor from that point like the minute hand of a clock while he moves in the same direction like the slow hour hand
the space all around us grows black into a total swallowing universe and the fleshy place at the meeting of foreheads is growing red hot and i feel the devil moving between us there and we acknowledge this to each other and call on god to act before he grows veiny and pulsing into the new darkness
god tells us the night was made for slumber and man woke it up out of boredom
the night was made for solitude and god’s quiet work and man woke it up when he went wandering inattentive in the daytime
the night was made for rest and man forgot to caulk the cracks in the low walls that widen with bugs in the settling of a home’s foundation
the night was made for everything slow and man shone a light that made the slow things scurry
the night was made for ice and stars and man went blubbering diabetic into a gradual carnival of lamps
man went ciphering headlong into a midway of lights and games at peregrine speed
man is the best breathing thing god has made to no longer trust with miracles except that circulate among children
the night is subtle and close and breathing too and we become the night for each other and give it away
***
the red angel is emerging from the place between our foreheads
we are doing the thankless but necessary work of integrating evil into the bosom of the church
we are still spinning like the hands of a clock in the black and purple darkness, on a beige clay planet in space
the angel pries itself out from between our flesh and peels off into life
he tells us that there is a movement between the us in the church basement and the us here on the clay planet that has left a strong coil between planes from our winding movements about our foreheads
he says we two have achieved a union and forged this place together and this is where we can safely unleash violence on each other
back in the basement there is a very old phonograph with a brass horn playing a scratchy recording with tuba and bassoon, it is the atmosphere of an aquarium and we are frozen and wide-eyed and stiff and suspended lifeless on the floor
we move through the hot coils back to the clay planet
we both sit down on the clay and with our legs out straight make our bare feet touch and then grab each other’s hands and pull back and forth in rowing motions
the red angel tells us we are both foreigners now and we can make of that what we wish
we laugh because we know the angel would like this to be an outpost of felony world, a place of extreme violence where evil can be born and brought back into the church, and we acknowledge that we will always be dealing with the red angel’s input now that we have integrated him into this system, that we are responsible for containing him, that he provides a necessary heat but our reason tempers him and we keep him at a specific distance and our human union is the important one to maintain
our skins feel cool on the soft clay
the red angel kneels down in the clay with us and makes some people that he explains are voodoo sculptures of the us in the basement and puts them near the felon and says he was less virtuous and less valiant than me in the pre-existence and that his karma led him to his station in life and that i was very good and it allowed for my geographic mobility but i was not well-equipped psychically for the challenges of being a foreigner, and that by contrast the felon had become approximately what was expected of his birth and was now beginning a path toward reconciliation and ultimately a renewed purity
in this our little hot pot i am to be the one who brings a creative violence and the felon is to accept and absorb it and this is how our real world stations will be both improved, or so says the red angel
we are still rowing and looking into each other’s eyes, i am smiling blankly and the felon is stern and stoic, each of us not knowing what comes next and the rowing gets faster
i think i feel him yank extra hard so i yank hard back and he lets go with a grunt and says what’d you do that for and i say you yanked first and get in his face about it
the red angel sends a spark of lightning from his fingertip and announces my voodoo sculpture valiant and delightsome, springing to life an electric yellow hair atop its head
i pick up the felon’s voodoo sculpture and smash it atop my own, and back in the basement our still suspended bodies become animated and i lie on the floor and the felon gets on the bed and jumps off to land his ass on my face and crack my skull and cause cranial bleeding
the church is sucking packs of boy scouts into its vortex outside in the wet streets, on their way to the basement meeting they are licking each other’s hands and laughing and stopping to gather delicious periwinkle from the sky at twilight they will weave into crowns for the felon on his way back to prison
they have been warned not to sing the hail mary or pull long scrolls from storm clouds but their youth is shining silent superior in the ollie ollie oxen free, there are sharp little teeth and balloons and pocket knives, there are racial top hats, there are merit badges for lewdness and violence, there are cocksucking contests in overgrown empty lots where saliva is smeared in the dirt for muddy paint, where they hide in the tall grass with the disinterested ectomorphic sunflowers and the idle violets and scrape the new mud off limp cocks with balloon string and pop them with slingshots and nothing yet known of boners and the virgin looks on smiling and shutting her eyes and shaking her head and shrugs and drops the veil in a burst of laughter and sweeps her blue wing like a blade across the young night and the wind begins and they hurry all down the steps into the basement
the bishop in pink sashes comes into the felon’s bedroom asking what’s all the commotion and sees me on the floor bashed, the felon tells him about the red angel and clay planet and i smile knowing the bishop will soon call the police and indeed the felon is heading back to prison and the bishop leads a procession through the boy scout meeting on the cold tile and the boys gather around him and the police lead the felon out the door and the boys crown the felon with periwinkle and i wave to them as i am wheeled out on gurney by medics into a hatzalah ambulance i have fooled them into using and i am feeling the pride of easter and glorious light and there is a general joy and much left unsaid between parties and everyone knows it is not the end
here come the little boys with their hand games
they are standing in two lines facing each other and have their hands up by their faces and they are playing like there is a wall of glass between them and meeting their partner across at the high five of hands and dipping and bobbing their heads around back and forth like boxers between joined hands, then smushing their faces together mouths gaping and wide-eyed and making noises from their mouths and flicking their tongues back and forth against each other and shifting to the next to do the same
the scout master wears an old beige fedora and long matching trench coat and with fingerless leather gloves plays a muted trumpet in a dark corner about fifty feet away
the bishop waves goodbye to the police car and ambulance and before descending the steps back into the basement he hangs a black cloak and hood over himself and prays to god confessing he knew about the red angel but sees me as more instrumental in his ultimate plan to uplift the church and integrate evil into its myth so it can better meet the needs of its people and begin to build the living bridge between here and the kingdom of heaven
he stands over the children and says remember god runs the devil and i had a normal family too once and we ate thanksgiving turkey together and i stuffed that turkey with meal and we wore collared shirts at all different buttons and smiled behind bifocals in fully carpeted rooms and the tv was warm and blue with novelty and the mirth at the table was less hollow and there were plastic placemats and there was no need to fuss about the devil but now there is and we need a fourth of the trinity and he is the black holy ghost and he comes before the legal ghost and they switch places 3 and 4 and it makes things complete and we will individuate ourselves in watercolor mandala expressions with the quaternity and become whole and powerful as a church again and stretch the perception of time into our pre-existences and afterlives and see them in more detail and understand the why and how and see clearly the longer arc of our souls and decode from them our secret names and reinforce our moral code in this varied and subtle perspective and bring forth things with wings into the living world and help us build the bridge to the kingdom of heaven
he says i will grow you all into landlords each and every last one a sweater vest and slick hair and brown leather belt newspaper non-discriminatory discrete not exactly actively trying to diversify the neighborhood but kind of looking the other way at certain kinds of names on applications keeping it in the family as much as possible reaching out to good tenants asking them to reach out to friends giving the bad tenants a little extra time at first you always said you would and it’s the right thing to do and after all you had been there too once and them still not paying after an amount of time much later than you had ever been late on rent and still pausing and acknowledging their plight and allowing some mercy and refusing at first to give in and begin the formal eviction process and slowly understanding this is why people end up selling their rental properties this is a stress meant for bureaucracies to absorb and not invade the hearth of home and bother the mind with peoples transactional lest they become so familiar as to enter the domain of family conversation in its infinite kindness and careful moral attention on something that need not be a problem at all and thus begin dissolving the accrued wealth of generations and plant a seed of resentment in your children so just sell the thing or keep it among people who will pay the price and learn well which people those are and how to keep them and what they wear and how they talk and everything will be alright
the boy scouts in a rising chorus of amens reach such a high pitch that it breaks something in the air and they all freeze into ice sculptures, some tongues still stuck holding faces like wrathful buddhist deities, some in simple rejoice at the revelation of their landlord destiny, the scout master walking over from the shadows and placing each in a long and deep closet like a terra cotta army against demons in the brooklyn underground, the bishop straining in the new stigmatas on his hands that announce the shining between me and him in the same dance of mirrors as the boys with atlantic avenue as our mirror and me in interfaith medical center holding my hands up in the air with the stigmata also and telling the bishop i have done away with the felon and now with the help of hasids in crown heights i will become landlord of the catholic church through shady business means and further integrate all evil into the church basement and also improve thereby my station in life
they let me wear sunglasses in the hospital and i fall asleep dreaming the new plans
god has not yet dragged me by skull to the desert as he said he would and so the red angel is not through with me and i will see him again, i will have to break free the felon from prison because our union keeps the red angel contained within the coils, and the blue angel still lives silent in the carpeted basement halls, and the moldy green angel deep within the eyes of the bishop, and the yellow angel embedded in my sexual degeneracy and compelling me still to violent assault, all of them conspiring to destroy me and keep me blind to the light of god’s grace and my own personal culpability and careening toward death in a rage of deception and upward mobility