When Worlds Collide
For Jeff Loftus
Old story, world’s end.
Twice told narratives conflict.
Ashes to ashes…
Blood music corkscrews
downstream, upshots run riot
as scientists scoff.
Collision certain…
crazies dance round the maypole
singing dust to dust.
When worlds collide inside my head
I close my eyes and speak with Janice,
she who befriended me as I followed
Chris Cornell in heaven
(but that’s another story).
There is comfort to be had
as she rests her face upon my shoulder,
her breath soft as baby skin,
smoothing my erratic screeching heart.
God is indeed gracious.
Daylight comes and I yearn for home.
Still, I rise.
My choices are limited.
Do this or do that.
Eeenie, meenie, miney, mo…
…if he hollers pay no mind.
Turn that fucking camera off!
I will arrest you!
I warned you!
Turn around!
Three-pronged pitchfork on my neck
riot-red blood trickles from my ear.
The Lord giveth and the Lord
taketh away.
Say amen, somebody.
I am a gleeful anarchist whose hero
died instantly when he crashed his motorcycle
against the White House Gates.
Upon arriving at the Pearly Gates, he quipped,
“been down so long it looks like up to me.”
Janice told me that story one night
as we held hands
listening to Chris Cornell play
God’s perfect piano in
an intimate moss-covered amphitheater
deep in some green woods.
Sometimes my mind wanders and
sometimes my mind wonders
and sometimes I wonder
what’s the difference
between the two.
Our worlds are colliding and
not for the first time,
for it is written in
The Gingerbread Man that…
… he was flying through the air up, up, up then… down, down, down he fell and waited to splash into the cold water of the river.
But the splash didn’t come. Instead he felt 5 fingers around his tummy and before long he was looking into the eyes of the old woman.
“Don’t eat me. Don’t eat me!” the gingerbread man cried, as he got closer and closer to the old woman’s mouth.
The old woman closed her mouth and put her lips together and gave the gingerbread man a kiss on his forehead, moi.
You see the pigs, the chickens, the horses, the police officer, the office worker and especially the fox all wanted to eat the gingerbread man but little old lady didn’t.
“No, no, no” she said. “I don’t want to eat you. I made you because I wanted a baby. I wanted a fast and strong baby boy like you” and she kissed him again.
None of that is truly told for,
in fact,
the fox did catch and eat the gingerbread man.
There’s a moral to this story.
The moral of the story is that you should not trust anyone without consideration. This story makes lying seem quite compelling, seeing as with a simple bit of trickery, the fox was able to reap the rewards of eating the supple gingerbread man. This can seem quite appealing to children, as they see these initial benefits from lying, but fail to see the big picture. If everyone were to lie, it would become quite the untruthful and deceiving world to live in.
Strange things happen when worlds collide.
God is indeed gracious.
Dance on, Jeff. Dance on.
