There once was a man whose last name was the name of an animal
and the animal was a symbol of everything the man believed in
and it just so happened that the animal was also a symbol of
many a man's beliefs

and so it was that the man worked very hard
and became very wealthy so that in his great success
he wanted everyone to know his name
and see it on display

so he commissioned a statue by the finest sculptor in the world
to create a huge sculpture of a particular animal
that had the same name as his last name
a sculpture of crystal with many facets
for which he paid dearly

and when he put it on display in the foyer of his beautiful mansion
where everyone could see it
they loved it
and in so loving the sculpture they were loving the man
and all those that saw the sculpture were bent to covet the sculpture
and wished to be successful like the man who had commissioned it
so they came in droves to see it
and left with fantasies of their own
about creating art resembling their names
but mostly their names were too normal
like Smith or Jones or Sarsaparilla
(and although Sarsaparilla isn't normal
it hardly deserves a sculpture)

then one day an unspeakable horror
put an end to the covetous visitors  
you see it was on that day everything changed
when his children were playing in the foyer
running and laughing like children do
they were happy children
happy because they had it all
and never wanted for anything

when one boy pushed the other and
the sculpture came crashing down upon the smallest boy
sitting on his trike
and crushed the boy to death

and the great man with the name of the important animal
wept        
and cursed the day
that he had wished for more
and had so foolishly believed that more was the answer
because now if he could
he would give it all back

if only he could hold the boy one more time
his tiny son crushed by the commissioned crystal sculpture of the animal
resembling his name that was accidentally knocked over by those who
had everything and wanted for nothing because their father had worked
so hard in order for them to have it all

but worse than all of that
and worse than anything else

was that his great name once a symbol of freedom and strength
would forevermore be a symbol of pain and sorrow

and there's nothing worse than having everything you believe in
thrown upside down in the form of ultimate mockery

the realization that the pain will never go away

or be forgotten

a pain that is forever

a nail driven through his heart every  time  he  signs  his  name


                             ­                                         Signed _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
                                                                ­                                   John R. Eagle

I wish I was addicted to
alcohol but I'm not, I'm an
otherholic with too many
“others” to count.

My old man had a shot
and a beer at the counter,
then ordered a six-pack
to take back home.

I do the same sometimes
with tacos.

It was simple at first
I did it on a dare

There's a certain easiness
to difficult dares
when senses are dulled
by alcohol and fame

show me how
that color tastes

It was like
biting into the sun
it burned my tongue
and nothing else
would ever taste the same
or be the same
it calmed the storm
of daddy leaving
it was as if my
new found Catholicism
was a purgatory from where
I could see the bright white
pearly gates of heaven
and feel the chill
of their snow clad bars

colder than
the coldest winter chill

one night in a dream
my father told me
to meet him at the gates
and from that point
I went every night
but he never came
instead he died
and when he died
my dreams died
with him.

bury me softly
in this tomb

I continued to go there
night after night
I desperately wanted
to believe the gates
would lead to heaven
because in hell there's heat
and this place was cold
so cold with no sound
and no light only darkness

I would sit in the cold
for hours, losing all sense
of time, obligations
responsibilities, shivering
and sweating at the foot of
the gates, obsessed with the
furry luster of frozen pearls
the sound of silence and
the subtle shifting of
the weather

holding rare
flowers in bloom

a week, a month
a year would pass
the snow began to slip
in clumps and tumble
to the ground again
and again and again
and then
all hell broke loose
the heat was hot
the gates were gone
and I began to run
but

every path
led me to nowhere

the blue cold went red hot
and then turned black
I tried to leave that place
13 times I left and
13 times returned
there was nowhere else to go
no place to call home
I burned within my sick head

I wanted to peel
the skin from my face

so hot
I was bleeding for you
soaked in sweat
my calloused heart
would not ask for help

serenity
was far away

my hands were bruised
from breaking rocks all day
far from the chill
I couldn't remember
anymore anyway
so desperate
for a glimpse of snow
it all came down
to this

I could not live apart
from that place
and I could not live
within it

so tonight

I will marry the two
the here and the now with
the there and the then

mix the snow with the fire
mix the snow add the fire
mix   snow  with    fire
mix   snow  add    fire

snowfire
      
snowfire
      
snowfire

momma
I am burning
momma I am cold
mother please save me
don't leave me alone
I see you but
you've come too late
can you hold me anyway?
whisper in my ear
I'm so sorry mother
I haven't bathed in 2 weeks
momma come hold me please

I'm down in a hole mother
feeling so low mother

I'm so cold mother
come save me
take me home
mother
I am dying

mommy
I am dead
sit with me
in silence
sit with me
I am dead

mommy I'm scared

black is all I feel
so this must be how it feels
to be free

mother
I am dead

I stare at the wall
while you breathe in the dark
and together we wait
for our un-ripened fruit to ripen,

wait for that tiny window
of fruity perfection where
one of us will be compelled
to speak,

      “let's share this peach”
(or possibly a banana)

you see,
I do not worry about
what you are thinking

we are one with our fruit
and with not speaking

there is nothing to say
  -  so it isn't said

No chaos to spoil  
our ripening fruit

We have a cat named Ben who doesn’t wear a collar.
I know a saint named Ben whose picture's on a medal.


I wear it for safety, a bigger one we hang above the door for
superstitious reasons like a black cat that isn't ours
walking across our path, Ben is ours but Ben is brown not black
and Ben won't wear a collar so he stays indoors.

     St Benedict of Nursia the patron saint of lots of things,
     of remedies for poisoning, of evil witchcraft,  suffering,
     a patron saint of lots of things, of aggies, engineers,
     spelunkers and those with fever near the gates of death.

     He is the patron saint of gall stones but not kidney stones
     if so his medal would have saved me from significant pain,
     but still I wear his medal when I go out to keep myself
     protected from whatever it is he protects us against.

     before he became a good luck charm, before he was a medal
     he lived in a cave in Italy in the year 400 a.d. where for
     three years the townsfolk brought him food to eat and finally
     talked him into coming out. No, not that kind of coming out
     he wasn’t gay, he was a priestly hermit who was celibate.

     They put him in charge of a monastery when no one else
     wanted the job, but when he made the rules that still stick today
     they didn’t want to listen so they tried to poison him twice
     both unsuccessful. This is where he gets the nod for sainthood.

     Divine intervention saved the day, a raven stole the
     poisoned bread and a spasm smashed the poisoned cup.
     if they wanted him to go away they could have asked him  
     but I guess they needed a saint, someone to martyr, so
     he went back to his cave and was promptly forgotten

     until the Connecticut witch trials of 1647 when a captured
     witch confessed that her powers were contained by a
     conspicuous medal that she’d never seen before mounted
     over doorways, and she heard the whispers of the townsfolk say
     the medal was the medal of a saint they called St. Benedict.

I can personally attest that the medal is quite unique with
Latin inscriptions on both the front and the back. On one side
of the medal he stands and holds the holy rules, at his feet
a raven and a broken cup. An inscription on the medal reads:

            “May we at our death be fortified by his presence”

Flip it over and you’ll see:

               C
          C  S   S
       N D S M D
          P  M   B
               L

“May the holy cross be my light”
          “Let not the dragon be my overlord”
                      “This is the cross of Father Benedict”
                             “yadda   yadda   yadda”

Along the outer edge it looks like this, strangely similar
to a Ouija board.

                             PAX
                    B                    V
                V ­                           R
               I                    ­             S
                L                             N
                 Q                          S  
                     M                 V  


PAX  for Peace

The rest is this:
“Begone Satan yadda yadda yadda
          for evil is what you prefer yadda yadda
              so drink your own poison yadda”

350 some years since its inception and the medals popularity
still flourishes.  I reach down and finger the medal beneath
my t-shirt and I realize what the strangeness feels like.

It feels like witchcraft.

I guess I’ll wait and see if anything happens
before I pass judgment.

I hang it near our bed at night and while
we sleep

our brown cat Ben likes to bat it around.