there’s sustenance here in this huddled company wrenched from forgotten ancient rituals
Dionysus bends and molds and shapes the flames around scarred and seared heads
Apollo lends his cool gaze, sifting through the distress to offer small respite
the gods look down in terrible spite and power and in gazes that would rend oceans asunder
In light it seems peaceful and among us there are oases of the divine
Where the air is pure and we can breathe
Among us there are those who breathe and breathe regardless of them and us
Among us among us amongus a mon gus am ongu s
I stepped in the church, it was immense and it was no longer holy
But it was still immense and it was a testament to quiet and solitude and beauty
And also fear and superstition and waste and darkness and vanity
The old medici’s had their names in there, the old Duomo
The who’s who of Italian renaissance families
Outfighting and outcommissioning each other and outscouting each other
for geniuses to outinvent and outpaint and outsculpt the other families' geniuses
and one of them wrote their name on a big fuck off marble slab
and he said "I SO AND SO MEDICI ADDED SHIT HERE AND ADDED SHIT THERE, SO YOU KNOW, I'M PRETTY IMPRESSIVE..."
but tourists don't care anymore, they just look at it and go "ooooOOOOooh I've heard of the Medicis... there was a wonderful TV series, have you seen it Sheryl?"
"OOoooOOOh I don't think I have Ethel, dear me, this is soooOOOooo beautiful"
and the tour guide comes and says "Thisa escupltura datesa froma di seventeentha century, ifa youa looka closely you cana seea..."
and the children they run around the old Duomo, they laugh and play and their steps echo, and mothers say "SHHHHH!" and dads say "Tyler no!" or "Tanner no!" and there's a general mumbling and shuffling about and people walking around in comfortable white tshirts (it can get so hot in May) with funny things written on them, fanning themselves with maps of Milan full of ads and coupons for mediocre restaurants and jewelers, and their cameras are flashing POP POP POP "Scusi Madame you cannota takea di photo witha flasha" and "Oh Excuse Me, I didn't Know!" and they look up at the stained glass windows in between polite chit chats with fellow vacationers they just met on the tour "There's a great little restaurant there, Gary and I went last summer, if you ever go to Florence you have to go there" and everything is beautiful, everything really is beautiful, everything is wonderful and beautiful and Ooooh so beautiful... the stained glass windows and the mosaics and the marble, the great big gory horror christs staring down at you and the tomb below with some long dead pope or cardinal or what have you in it... everything is just "Ooooh this is beautiful!" and "Ooooh isn't this divine!" Divine! but metaphorically divine, not really divine anymore, not that these people are atheists or anything, it's just that the connection's gone, see... they are no longer tied to these, these no longer speak for and through them, they are no longer intrinsically entwined with god and all his glory, they are separated, isolated, bussed together, shipped out, fed, transported, queued up, tickets paid, led in, shepherded around, then led back out, packed back in, bussed, fed, stored in a hotel, and shipped back out and the whole thing catalogued in photo albums, emailed to those who couldn't be there, and all of it, everything, labeled "wonderful" and "beautiful" and "amazing"... aesthetics has killed the gods
but...
there is a lonely little alcove there, and although the Duomo was full, jammed, packed, crammed, this alcove had just two small rows of pews and there were four old Italians there paying no heed to the circus around them, hearing nothing, it seemed, of the noisy distracted mass around them... there were no beautiful mosaics and tiles and sculptures and marbles and stained glass windows there, there was nothing to see there, it was dark, stark, depressing, quiet, there was nothing there NOTHING! there was no razzle dazzle there... just four old Italians, and they sat silent and still, patient and alone... each very very alone... and a jesus gazed down on them, but he was a different kind of jesus, it seemed... his brows were the brows of a god crucified, a real GOD a real crucified GOD and he gazed down not with a look of turnest thou thy other cheek and meek shall inherit and give unto caesar and all that, he was GOD and a god above your dionysuses and apollos, he was an Olympian on a par with Zeus, though more ancient, more primordial, more barbarous, more terrible, pre-Zeus, pre-Jupiter, pre-Olympian, he was a titan, he was a Cronos, he was a Saturn and he wanted to devour his children, he wanted to reach those crucified arms out, rip them out of that wooden abomination torture inflicted by men, and reach out and grab every single one of those little old Italians and he wanted to gnaw on their heads... he was a GOD damn it a GOD... and all he had were these four little old Italians, they were his only... they were not a flock... they were his only WITNESSES... they SAW the GOD and they SAW the terror and they felt it within them, they felt the deathly holy miracle terror in that moment among the fat hordes with their guide books and socks in sandals and pasty white legs... a holy miracle terror was unfolding there...
and then another came in and sat and he started to tremble, really trembled, and he shook, in sickness, he was sick, he was most definitely sick, and he held his shaking hands with arthritic deformed knuckles together and he closed his eyes and he knelt before this terrible primordial pre-historic titanic saturnine terror of christ and he started low under his breath "you are my savior" and he chanted rhythmically low under his breath "you are my savior" and the other little old Italians never budged and they never even turned to look, they were all with their terrible lord, and his chanting became stronger, his trembling became more intense, he rocked back and forth now as one possessed and his chant was louder and louder "you are my savior you are my savior You Are My Savior You Are My Savior Christ You Are My Savior Christ You Are My Savior Jesus Christ You Are My Savior Jesus Christ You Are MY SAVIOR JESU CHRISTU YOU ARE MY SAVIOR YOU ARE MY SAVIOR" and his hands, his monstrous hands, lifted up to his lord, lifted up to his savior, and the chanting grew intense... and nobody saw, nobody turned to look, nobody was even aware that in that house of gods long fled, in that hollow shell where all that was left was beauty and aesthetics and the memorabilia of glory... in that house of gods that no longer lived among men, in that magnificent house built to fates and gods long fled.. there were those who still felt the awful terror and the suffering, the fear and the trembling of a world where mighty and terrible Gods once reigned... those five orphans, those five poor lonely crippled dying old orphans... those poor beautiful orphans... those poor dear lovely orphaned children...
they have all been abandoned.
