The Descent begins anew,
Stumbled a thousand times upon
The pavement stones and
Will again a thousand more.
This Son of Man, in his infinite
Courtship with disaster.
II
He tasted the splinters
On his mouth.
His crucified tongue
Lolled and sagged;
Sisyphus against the soft tissue,
A cage for words.
And the Word was made Man
And he walked amidst
Our sacred kin.
III
Acceptance, repentance,
We shall not suffer
The injustice of the damned.
If Christ were to look away
Justice would be swift and divine.
IV
God scratched His barren chin, perplexed.
He never had promised perfection
That differed from mankind’s
Circular contingency. He sought the
Beauty of a death that
Could not have been foreseen.
V
They named Him seven billion names.
Instead of a cross, or digging His
Own grave, they made him weave
The web of the everyday;
Television, frozen dinner,
Fast food, no sleep,
Working-all-day extravaganza.
It hurt less the first
Time around.
VI
A disenchanted R. Frost;
“And of course there
Must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.”
The cherubim, in disgust,
Have turned their heavenly gaze
Earthward. There is no shame
In wanting,
In casting shadows where
The sun has never set.
VII
He sat down to eat,
Synthetic pork on a plastic tray.
A feast in honor of dying friends.
The foam on the cups
Got forever stained
With the heavy fluids
Of an ink stained brain.
He was beginning to love them
A little less.
No betrayal, no redemption.
Not a furtive kiss on the cheek.
They finished their meal in silence.
VIII
Fire falls.
Scorched Earth, a tree stands among
The rendered valley.
Armageddon is but a place in time in
A child’s tearful prayer.
IX
God enjoys a good game of dice;
Infinity gambled.
He foresaw his own demise,
Yet craved the silence that follows:
The fall and shattering of glass.
X
Glory!
All snakes have learned the word.
Grown blind, they have, these Men
And their winged hunters.
Trees now stand where the
Stone chapels of worship once were.
XI
For six days He did bleed.
The Holy Red fed the salted ground and
A blue flower did grow at
The foot of His neon cross.
XII
The new altar for
The Son of God is
The absence of Sin
In this new Dadaist representation of
Ambulatory humanity.
XIII
Fever-pitched, the bodies of
Earth tremble in quakes
Under the gentle caress of Serpentine forms.
And thus, Oh! Child of Man
Pray to the Great Foresaker.
Brace, oh, the brittle and mortal frames.
A reign of snakes welcomes
The New Millennium.
—
Yamil Maldonado Pèrez was born in Puerto Rico, where he currently resides. He studies in the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus where he majors in Philosophy and Comparative Literature. His main interest lies in the processes that underlie the evolution of mythology, Christianity in particular.
