Two by Henry 7. Reneau, Jr.
The Lion Pauses
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here
Sunday, February 21—standing at the podium,
The Audubon Ballroom in Harlem--
Preachin’ to the choir & pauses
In a moment between tick & tock, a déjà vu that hovered
A glimpse of repetition,
Epiphany that sowed sorrow in the stillness of his heart;
His blood recounts the iron weight of shackles
& a balmy ocean breeze soothing an equatorial shore,
The sound of whiplash striking flesh & shots ring out
Has happened all before—as in, Pandora’s Box,
When freedom became the dream
& hope, handled with a chain inside a frozen scream
* * *
anamorphosis
in a country they don’t understand, against an enemy they can’t see, for a cause they don’t fully understand, their grasp of reason (an inconceivable goal supplanted by vitriol & bullets) became new front-page awakenings worrying the fabric of collective denial like mug shots that spoke volumes about the photographer, a harried burden by all who bear it, who faltered beneath a dead weight carried each day
(what does it mean to try to paint the force of a scream rather than the horror?)
as every culture has an inventory of imagery its inhabitants habitually use as signs, making it impossible to verify that the mind control program has been discontinued—phases of disquiet not clearly demarcated from areas of conformity—clicking in the fang & claw metal of time, as the blunt instrument of conscience continued to exert brute force through the careful application of persistence, like high explosives, they only heard a great, silent cacophony while dangling fashionable talismans
(the sun is an omnipotent thermonuclear entity!/the Son is not a sun, but a sponge for our sins!) displayed hovering
like holy icons (those rogue systems adapted from myth & agenda giving birth to cages) that rose up to consume, assimilate & dictate the fluidity of culture once the files had been destroyed . . . & a patient earth took back & buried its histories, immeasurable failures like tiny sparks in a big fire
(opportunistic, foreign & fleeting)
like petty combustions held to light, repeating tragic stories of desire gone wrong, the desires of the many overpowering the desires of one (praying for rain, for more light than tunnel
. . . can this also be the story of a crime?) when, at any given moment
there were more options than seemed readily available as gaping-mouthed predators, two by two, congregate on the banks, beyond the shoulda coulda woulda of random or chaotic historical repetition
(as in—you think that flag gonna’ save your ass?!)
underscoring the hypocrisies of human nature beyond all rationalization: living upon its substance & dying when it devours itself—illuminating the chaotic relation-ships between the obvious scene & unseen elements that constitute the dream—illuminating the story of waiting & wishing as vast as anger & ancient as rage, a conflicted meaning: being perfectly understood &
2.
simultaneously not believing, coagulating briefly into grainy legibility like flashes of epiphany on a wind current, fertile spores from decaying minds that turns to glass like sand struck by lightning & our souls fly out of our mouths, laughing, burning up before hitting the ground & taking off as smoke—in allusion to an entropy of Amerikkkan promise that could not support the weight of all our needs, wants & wishes
