The Ascension

[Delta40]

The Ascension blares through timber slats
and hits me, kapow between the eyes.
Bruised swellings of what I was going to be
expose themselves unnoticed.
The Mayan calendar promises me
(yes it did remember?)
that the world is going to end.
It has to because my existence is a one thousand sheet roll of unbleached toilet paper.
Recycled and single ply but I keep going on and on.
That's what he tells me over and over.
Every Friday night, he snorts thoughts
through pasta bake and I think,
here we go again.
Don't you realise I just want this motion to pass?
Let the Earth's volcanoes erupt!
I won't flee from the molten flow.
Not when I shape and model the battered face of conflict.
The fractured pins of my feet sink into the orange shagpile.
That Tull ring tone vibrates against my breast.
Laughter in my ear about the absurdity of May 21st.
Perhaps others share my ascension sunset at six o'clock
but with crutches.

[deryk]

I really like how you frame Ascension as this invisible force like a white noise of sorts, and then delve the speaker's thoughts into the realm of the self-conflicted and perhaps schizophrenic. The speaker has the intensity and insanity of an alien abduction "survivor". All the speaker is missing is strange body marks they "forgot" about self-inflicting! Wait, you've sort of included those as well!
Genial.

[PrinceMyshkin]

The traumatic body marks Deryk mentioned seem to me to be there in one graphic image after the other. The closing 1 1/2 lines are devastating.

[Delta40]

Thanks for your comments Deryk and Prince. I know my writing has become a little obscure of late.

[AuntShecky]

Well, Delta, I sort of knew the world wasn't going to end yesterday because I hadn't won the Lottery on Friday night!

I also suspected that the self-styled preacher who'd been promoting this particular apocalypse wasn't actually a real prophet. More of a "profit"-- with a net worth of some 80 mill. The Bible says we can only choose one master--God or Mammon. Guess which side that doomsayer was on.

All kidding aside (insofar that my inherent sheckiness will let me) expressions of anxiety (or even "hurry up and get here" urgings) about the End of the World are less religious statements as a reaction to the Here and Now.

One minor point, which may have something to do with what specific teachings a person has grown up with. In all the years spent in religious instruction in my youth, I never heard one word about "The Rapture." Evidently nobody at all ever heard of it before the 1830s. The whole notion is not strictly canonical but an invention of a 19th century preacher named John Nelson Darby (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nelson_Darby).


Similarly, the tradition in which I grew up held that there was only one Ascension (with a capital "A.") Well, maybe two, if you believe His Mother experienced it as well.

I'll stop now because I'm starting to sound like Cliff Claven of Cheers!

But it does go to show you how thought provoking your
posting is.

[YesNo]

I liked the last two lines, Delta40.

Thanks for the information about Darby, AuntShecky. So the "rapture" is a recent idea!

[Delta40]

I know the rapture is a recent thing. My best friend became a J Ho and her beliefs are absolutely unshakeable.