I drive down Pelayo to Aragon to El Camino Real
to get away from my life.
But the dirt of the street
sticks to my aging skin.
Windows rolled all the way down.
Wind (pneuma) cleanses from within.
A rock cracks my windshield.
Can’t I escape my life?
Splintering glass reminds me—
rocks and randomness
are people’s proclivity to strife.
I pick up two hitchhikers,
two queer prophets
(then again, to be fair,
all prophets are a bit queer)—
the king of Babylon and the king of Egypt,
smelling of pomegranates
with flowers in their beards.
Sitting in the backseat,
they argue about their favorite satire
on the Babylonian Bee
and whose biblical dreams
spoiled their REM sleep.
Anachronistic kings,
thousands of years displaced.
Dynasties left behind
in the rearview mirror.
Gods among mortals.
Wisdom cuts like a knife
through filet mignon steak.
“You’re better off,”
says Nebuchadnezzar,
referring to the rock
that fractured my ‘perfect’ life.
“When I was ambitiously young,
looking to grow my Nebu brand
and my Chaldean kingdom,
prophecy struck:
“an invisible hand hewed a rock
from the Mountain
that struck the base of the fountain
that raised to life a statue
with metal alloys and clay parts.
“It came crashing down
and so did the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
the silver framed Mede and Persian art,
the Greek gods of Olympus,
Nero’s persecution of Christians
at the crooked Colosseum,
and modern Europe’s secularization
of a sacred nation.
“This story, my young sir,
must be retold and properly understood:
“the rock hewn from the Mountain—
the only Kingdom left—
was itself foretold to shatter
into thousands of pebbles
the second the Spirit (pneuma) swept
through palace courts,
Romans roads,
the burbs and the hood.
“Only the predestined
are woken out of their daze
by a pebble that breaks their crave
of driving away from the path and pain
that is their life.”
Pharaoh laughs.
“Seven fat cows swallowed
by seven lean cows.
That is the prophecy every Nietzschean
takes to his grave,
an embalming spice preserved to make,
no matter the number of mummified bandages
used for his escape.”
“This is as far as we go,” sighed Nebu.
“The sage Deity will only hear
the ancient wisdom
of the one whose depths
have led him to walk out on his pride,
on all fours,
eating grass and shrubs
like it was on a banquet table,
living the bovine life for seven years.”
Pharaoh tips me with one last aphorism:
“Seven years of fasting.
Seven years of feasting.
“The former lies as you see it
in the middle of the glass
of your own prison,
a ‘random’ crack.
“The latter waits for you
with anticipation,
praying for you to turn back.”