I am the boiling man, come to break the bones of your sin

Look at me boy,

                                 I am pilot error,

I am foetal distress,                                                           

This place hurts worst of all doesn’t it?

                              I am the random chromosome

before the space between us turns to tigers

            Remember how you used to wake up at night and just watch her sleep?

                          Don’t make me come after you Funboy,

                                              I will hurt you.

                                              A lot.

 And slowly.

Remember,

the

 crow

said

 don’t

look

angel, all fire

In the doorway of glory, he finds Death who puts his hand in hers and whispers to him, “Now, come home now”. “Soon”, he says.

I’ve already taken my ride in the big black car.

There is a clock that never strikes.

Remember when you said, “Mine?” and I said, “Forever”. You said, “Only forever?”. It’s forever now.  

[All taken from “The Crow” by James O’Barr.1981]

Smoke and memory.

Dreams and mirrors.

This is the place where it begins, this is the place where it continues, this is the place they return to when it’s over.

They come here, born to the pains of the past, having cried the tears of a lifetime, carrying with them the rage of the ages. This is where fury becomes divinity, hatred wielded as the sword of God. Look over there, across the black sand, the trees, from this distance they seem alive. See how the covered branches continually move even though there’s no breeze,  but look around you, you’re standing at the centre of a million miles of nothing. What could ever live here?? What could ever grow here?? The sun is but a black cloud, the earth is scorched, and no sign of a living soul.

Over there.

On the axis, at the horizon.

He comes. From such a distance, he’s just a black line, moving closer.

It starts to rain.

He comes closer and closer, the rain plastering his short hair to his scalp. Soaking the black shirt, the black trousers, his feet are bare and cut, for what is sand but another form of glass?? He stumbles and falls, as he hits the ground, a scream is wrenched from him, a scream of the thousand that have come this way before him, a scream of unbearable pain, of unspeakable loss, of the basest anger.

He’s face down on the floor and he sobs, and his throat becomes raw, you can almost feel it bleeding. Then he’s still and you’re sure he’s gone.

Oh well, not the first who’s been too weak. Not all can walk with the cold purpose of the dEADboy or the wrath of Draven. 

But then his hands move, the bleeding fingers scraping lines into the sand, he looks up at the trees, the tears mingling with the black sand, tracing black cracks down his face. He looks at the trees and then, something behind the eyes hardens. You feel it, almost a wave of heat that arcs outward from his body, you see the ground shimmer as the wave blasts over it and reaches the trees, the living trees shudder collectively.

The choice is made.

He stands up, his arms reaching skyward, and a blade of wind hits him, whipping the black shirt up and around him, driving nails of rain into his face. He screams again, and this time there’s no fear, this time there is only a rage that would burn stone, he is reaching, perhaps for salvation, for a sign, for the God who’s chosen the path that brought him here. Perhaps remembering what happened before he walked the year it takes to reach here. How he pleaded with them to leave her, to not hurt her, to let them live. He remembered them pinning him down and then making him watch. He wanted to die, not being able to help, not being able to look away, they held his head and he saw.

The fists rained down on her, the lips he had traced his fingers across a million times, split and bleeding, her hair torn from her head, the nail they drove into her right eye, the knife that took off her skin, the gasoline they soaked her with and the flames that burned her alive. She blackened and died screaming his name. He rails abuse at God, you let this happen, you let them crush her, ruin her, you sat there and let me see them do that to her. Why?? She tried to help them, to teach them to read, to appreciate the lives they could be leading, to see that there was more in their world than quick cash, more than selling shit to junkies, more than rolling drunks for their wallets. More than killing for the local gangster of the week. Ok so they had abusive fathers who beat them and their mothers, they grew up in foster homes, in juvie, on the streets. But ultimately, there was no excuse. He knew it, she knew it, they knew it and the living trees knew. 

All those who had walked the plain, a year wide, a lifetime across knew it.

Slowly, he walks towards the trees.

-Stop right there boy-

-I want..-

-What you want is nothing here-

-She..they..-

-Spit it out boy-

-They killed her-

-Yes-

-They killed me-

-Yes-

-Why?-

-I’m not here to give you answers or reasons-

-. . . . -

-What did you come here looking for?-

-...Payment-

-For?-

-Her life-

-The currency?-

-Their lives-

-Vengeance?-

-Yes-

-Forgive? Forget? Being dead, there’s not much you can do-

-Never-

-Why?-

-Because she died for nothing-

-Yes-

-Because God is not watching-

-No-

-..and-

-Yes?-

-And there is no place that takes the ache away-

-One night-

-Yes-

-Then go-

He looks up into the rain and closes his eyes. He walks toward the trees and as he approaches, a black shape takes flight from a branch. Not leaves after all, the trees are not themselves alive. Nor, strictly speaking, are those to whom the trees are home. The Crow circles above his head, each revolution bringing it down toward him. It settles on his left shoulder.

He walks past the trees.

Manish

7^th12^th98  

“We shall never forget and never forgive.

And never fear”.

-James O’Barr-

[The Crow]

I stand arms spread wide waiting to embrace the night 
its shadows hide my face
her chill winds caress my skin
until like my soul it is silent and cold then I am held in blackness
stand still in darkness
and lost forever

And Darkness falls upon our eyes it shields us from the fears that treads its way towards our souls...

Poem By Lynda Lowden Zingalie