The Conversation
The Pope is insightfully penetrating her mind.Gloria and the Pope are in hallucinogenic conversation
not unlike hypnotic rapture. Jesus can be yours,
all yours, the French-kiss of God. The dark wizard
who is an anthropologist by trade watches on.
Only good things can come of this, from the Pope.
Gloria rules her long voracious hair, which she talks through,
which she eyes the Pope through. The dark wizard
butts in and says God this and God that. Only the Pope
and Gloria know it is his anthropological nature trying.
The Pope likes this fact and tells him so. It is a makeshift
tent they all sit in, a blaze is outside, engines
zoom in the distance. They cannot, however, hear
the birds night has kept awake squawking, so much
do their voices lilt and trill and deepen, embolden.
There are no Wiccan rites for the Pope and no holy
water for the dark wizard or Gloria. They reflect on this
silently for a minute. What spirits can come?
What but ethereal intellect? Vows on all sides,
vows and laws of churches and torches are being broken.
Yet it is good, because ordinary man is being brought
to them on a wooden plate in a dream. All the tangents
and stones and highs lead to ordinary man, unmagic man,
contemporary man. Gloria points him out, using
mythological metaphor and the TV as witness.
The Pope won't believe her, but secretly in his mammalian
brain knows she is right. The anthropology proves it,
says the dark wizard. The Pope is still lost. He cannot
reconcile invisible vibration, Jesus, and personal sphere.
Gloria laughs. To her, his conundrum is ludicrous.
Bullshit, dark wizard retorts to her laughter.
Like you know it all, Gloria, emphasizing her name.
Gloria slowly, knowingly, whips her hair around.
I do have a vagina, you know.
So.
So I know that ordinary man is nothing without me.
That explanation leaves the Pope even more lost.
This is when the wind blows and even Gloria
loses her train of thought. Oh you men and your heaven!
She wants to masturbate then and there, but refrains.
And no one in the tent notices her desire.
It's in the earth, not Jesus, as if that is her point,
but she forgets her point. She repeats it.
The Pope forgives her for her blasphemy,
knowing she knows not what she says.
The dark wizard stands up to stretch. Don't leave.
He is necessary in their eyes. So ordinary man
cannot live without you, you say. His lips contort
like a fish. That's in his dream. Admit it.
You carry him away only to return him.
He does the very same. We do it like ourselves.
The Pope gets a little uncomfortable with this statement,
but interjects that Jesus was married and only
God carried him away. Nice abstract thought, Pope,
you construct that yourself. Gloria is offended
and moves to walk. But the wind blows through her
hair and she knows she has won, quiets, satisfied.
Dark wizard is glad he can bluff the wind like that,
it keeps everyone happily on edge.
Where to take them, where can I leave them?
But the Pope has concluded his presence
by observing the wizard's staff, timing of the wind,
and the way he switches between anthropologic logic
to deep-seated angst and revulsion. He still is necessary
though, according to the Pope, but the Pope keeps
his secrets not just to himself, but with God, trust
in God. God will justify. They can each tell their time
together is nearing its end, because they are hungry.
Why don't I get some oysters? No. We still have yet
to a solution. Gloria believes in her solution and no one counters.
Dark wizard had finally shut her out for good.
Only the Pope, toad-like, says it is in Jesus.
Gloria says it is woman. The anthropologist splits in two
and concludes that it is over. Nothing was learned,
which is exactly the Thing-In-Itself, minds the dark wizard.
They leave, put out the fire, and, on the ground,
around the tent, are bones from dinosaurs and shards
of a TV screen.
Poetry by Vincent Caruso
Read 551 times
Written on 2009-04-03 at 16:53
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