making the bed during the apocalypse
making the bed during the apocalypse
The book of Exodus
was written for an audience,
an antagonist
who became
whatever we needed him to be,
Pharaoh and a heart that was unyielding,
seven plagues were enough
for Moses to speak up,
but the Lord said, “No.”
A question
atop a man
before his eyes
wake to the morning,
to see the future
is to forecast
an economic overcast,
“I don’t know anyone
who could pull $2500
for a one bedroom.”
But three months ago
they demolished a tribute to the past
making room for Babel
and a tower containing one-hundred more.
What’s the use for a bookstore
when video streams inside your head,
imagination outsourced to history
as memory
serves only our part of the story.
A 400 year term
and an attempted pardon
by the four types of sentences:
Let my people go.
Let my people go.
Let my people go?
Let my people go!
But for the seventh time
Pharaoh’s heart was hardened
and he said, “No.”
That’s the thing about reading,
you can live multiple lives besides your own.
Want to know what it’s like
to have an imagination out to sea?
Moby Dick.
Like to travel down the racist past
on a wooden raft
with a man of a different color
while breathing in the fresh air of the Mississippi?
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
How about
learning the fact that
the difference between good and evil
lies in the ability to define both
and still choose the right ending?
East of Eden.
That leaves us
with the current stasis
we’re contained in,
eventually
even the most novice of writers learn
if nothing happens
then you have no story;
the difference
between reading and writing
is that one
is like falling asleep,
while the other
is akin to controlling your dreams.
Moses said, “No.”
But the Lord replied, “Go.”
“Please send someone else.”
And the Lord's anger burned,
“Ok then,” He said. “What about poetry?”
“You shall write,
putting words into stanzas
as I teach you what to do.”
And the man sat up to his day,
looking out the window
at the disaster the world had become
and began to make his bed,
knowing that it was all going to be ok.