Barbaric Heart
By Chris D'Errico
Today no tanks are advancing, no troops are marching, and new grass fills the fields. Everyone on top is enamored by the modest ones filling in the bottom, all voices counted and heard by the song each sings. No longer do chainsaws butcher pristine forests. Trades-people sculpt glorious temples dedicated to the poetry of open space. Levees are built to withstand any tempest. Philosophers, scientists revel in mutual respect and playful irreverence, offering only constructive criticism, asserting undeniable value. Gurus, gods and goddesses, all banded together, strum their holy chords, uplifting the downtrodden. Doctors enjoy endless holidays, as all clinics and hospitals have closed down for a lack of business. Lawyers are cheerfully beating each other up on public golf courses. Celebrities, politicians, and other pop culture icons are no longer snarling and slobbering for attention, but instead relegated to backyard doghouses where they sit and harmlessly lick themselves. The wicked and vengeful are reduced to mumbling, stuttering, drooling idiots, full of bliss and honey. All those who felt so unfulfilled, who were kicked and ignored, creatures whose mere presence, for some, blotted out the sun, who lost their souls shuffling across the low earth—all the walking dead with stone hearts have exploded, birthing mysterious galaxies, pulsating with bright, rainbow-cores. Darkness plays ball with itself in some irrelevant corner in the League of Abysmal Foul-Ups. Abundant bees collect nectar from oleanders overgrown on sun-drenched steps of
Everywhere. Birds soar over calming seas, warming sands. A runt kitten leaps gracefully from a dumpster, her silver coat shining regally under a cloud-free, salmon-colored sun with a dinner of unblemished meat in her mouth. There are no more zoos, and the animals we have all agreed to let live, run as wild as their nature demands. The animals we have all agreed to eat, get eaten. Housebroken dictators, adopted as difficult pets, are spayed and neutered appropriately. No dogma of hollow gluttony, no ravenous consumption of empty doctrine. We all are following our own benign and absurd agendas. Jezebels, done with hunting feral pleasures, are faithful to their own hearts. Lotharios, all their lives flooded with cheap alibis, come up and breathe in the clear air with no need for remorse. All actors and artists, writers and musicians are no longer needed. They have passed on but are confirmed to be happy, while leaving no trace of imperfection behind, without so much as a whiff of a doubt or despair. Oblivion’s so close you can feel it breathing hot down your neck. Hear it grunting, you can smell its untamed breath.
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Chris D'Errico writes, plays blues harmonica and works as an exterminator in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sometimes he fronts the experimental funk/blues project Sidewalk Beggar.
By Chris D'Errico
Today no tanks are advancing, no troops are marching, and new grass fills the fields. Everyone on top is enamored by the modest ones filling in the bottom, all voices counted and heard by the song each sings. No longer do chainsaws butcher pristine forests. Trades-people sculpt glorious temples dedicated to the poetry of open space. Levees are built to withstand any tempest. Philosophers, scientists revel in mutual respect and playful irreverence, offering only constructive criticism, asserting undeniable value. Gurus, gods and goddesses, all banded together, strum their holy chords, uplifting the downtrodden. Doctors enjoy endless holidays, as all clinics and hospitals have closed down for a lack of business. Lawyers are cheerfully beating each other up on public golf courses. Celebrities, politicians, and other pop culture icons are no longer snarling and slobbering for attention, but instead relegated to backyard doghouses where they sit and harmlessly lick themselves. The wicked and vengeful are reduced to mumbling, stuttering, drooling idiots, full of bliss and honey. All those who felt so unfulfilled, who were kicked and ignored, creatures whose mere presence, for some, blotted out the sun, who lost their souls shuffling across the low earth—all the walking dead with stone hearts have exploded, birthing mysterious galaxies, pulsating with bright, rainbow-cores. Darkness plays ball with itself in some irrelevant corner in the League of Abysmal Foul-Ups. Abundant bees collect nectar from oleanders overgrown on sun-drenched steps of
Everywhere. Birds soar over calming seas, warming sands. A runt kitten leaps gracefully from a dumpster, her silver coat shining regally under a cloud-free, salmon-colored sun with a dinner of unblemished meat in her mouth. There are no more zoos, and the animals we have all agreed to let live, run as wild as their nature demands. The animals we have all agreed to eat, get eaten. Housebroken dictators, adopted as difficult pets, are spayed and neutered appropriately. No dogma of hollow gluttony, no ravenous consumption of empty doctrine. We all are following our own benign and absurd agendas. Jezebels, done with hunting feral pleasures, are faithful to their own hearts. Lotharios, all their lives flooded with cheap alibis, come up and breathe in the clear air with no need for remorse. All actors and artists, writers and musicians are no longer needed. They have passed on but are confirmed to be happy, while leaving no trace of imperfection behind, without so much as a whiff of a doubt or despair. Oblivion’s so close you can feel it breathing hot down your neck. Hear it grunting, you can smell its untamed breath.
- - -
Chris D'Errico writes, plays blues harmonica and works as an exterminator in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sometimes he fronts the experimental funk/blues project Sidewalk Beggar.
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