{"id":7219,"date":"2014-08-11T10:16:02","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T14:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=7219"},"modified":"2014-08-18T10:10:32","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T14:10:32","slug":"fire-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/fire-falls\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire Falls"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fire<\/a>
\n<\/a>I<\/p>\n

The Descent begins anew,<\/p>\n

Stumbled a thousand times upon<\/p>\n

The pavement stones and<\/p>\n

Will again a thousand more.<\/p>\n

This Son of Man, in his infinite<\/p>\n

Courtship with disaster.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

He tasted the splinters<\/p>\n

On his mouth.<\/p>\n

His crucified tongue<\/p>\n

Lolled and sagged;<\/p>\n

Sisyphus against the soft tissue,<\/p>\n

A cage for words.<\/p>\n

And the Word was made Man<\/p>\n

And he walked amidst<\/p>\n

Our sacred kin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

III<\/p>\n

Acceptance, repentance,<\/p>\n

We shall not suffer<\/p>\n

The injustice of the damned.<\/p>\n

If Christ were to look away<\/p>\n

Justice would be swift and divine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

IV<\/p>\n

God scratched His barren chin, perplexed.<\/p>\n

He never had promised perfection<\/p>\n

That differed from mankind\u2019s<\/p>\n

Circular contingency. He sought the<\/p>\n

Beauty of a death that<\/p>\n

Could not have been foreseen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

V<\/p>\n

They named Him seven billion names.<\/p>\n

Instead of a cross, or digging His<\/p>\n

Own grave, they made him weave<\/p>\n

The web of the everyday;<\/p>\n

Television, frozen dinner,<\/p>\n

Fast food, no sleep,<\/p>\n

Working-all-day extravaganza.<\/p>\n

It hurt less the first<\/p>\n

Time around.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VI<\/p>\n

A disenchanted R. Frost;<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd of course there<\/p>\n

Must be something wrong<\/p>\n

In wanting to silence any song.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cherubim, in disgust,<\/p>\n

Have turned their heavenly gaze<\/p>\n

Earthward. There is no shame<\/p>\n

In wanting,<\/p>\n

In casting shadows where<\/p>\n

The sun has never set.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VII<\/p>\n

He sat down to eat,<\/p>\n

Synthetic pork on a plastic tray.<\/p>\n

A feast in honor of dying friends.<\/p>\n

The foam on the cups<\/p>\n

Got forever stained<\/p>\n

With the heavy fluids<\/p>\n

Of an ink stained brain.<\/p>\n

He was beginning to love them<\/p>\n

A little less.<\/p>\n

No betrayal, no redemption.<\/p>\n

Not a furtive kiss on the cheek.<\/p>\n

They finished their meal in silence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VIII<\/p>\n

Fire falls.<\/p>\n

Scorched Earth, a tree stands among<\/p>\n

The rendered valley.<\/p>\n

Armageddon is but a place in time in<\/p>\n

A child\u2019s tearful prayer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

IX<\/p>\n

God enjoys a good game of dice;<\/p>\n

Infinity gambled.<\/p>\n

He foresaw his own demise,<\/p>\n

Yet craved the silence that follows:<\/p>\n

The fall and shattering of glass.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

X<\/p>\n

Glory!<\/p>\n

All snakes have learned the word.<\/p>\n

Grown blind, they have, these Men<\/p>\n

And their winged hunters.<\/p>\n

Trees now stand where the<\/p>\n

Stone chapels of worship once were.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

XI<\/p>\n

For six days He did bleed.<\/p>\n

The Holy Red fed the salted ground and<\/p>\n

A blue flower did grow at<\/p>\n

The foot of His neon cross.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

XII<\/p>\n

The new altar for<\/p>\n

The Son of God is<\/p>\n

The absence of Sin<\/p>\n

In this new Dadaist representation of<\/p>\n

Ambulatory humanity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

XIII<\/p>\n

Fever-pitched, the bodies of<\/p>\n

Earth tremble in quakes<\/p>\n

Under the gentle caress of Serpentine forms.<\/p>\n

And thus, Oh! Child of Man<\/p>\n

Pray to the Great Foresaker.<\/p>\n

Brace, oh, the brittle and mortal frames.<\/p>\n

A reign of snakes welcomes<\/p>\n

The New Millennium.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Yamil Maldonado P\u00e8rez 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Descent begins anew,
\nStumbled a thousand times upon
\nThe pavement stones and
\nWill again a thousand more.
\nThis Son of Man, in his infinite
\nCourtship with disaster. <\/p>\n

READ MORE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":7679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,219,199,217],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7219"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7219"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7680,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7219\/revisions\/7680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}