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Nobody's Father
By M.D. Ward Nobody's
Father I went to see the old man the other day. He's
a scarecrow in a Pumpkinfield. He dangles on a cross staring
like a lunatic in the spotlight of the Moon. His button eyes are
blind with time. They don't recognize me. His head was crowned by a black
fedora. His arms were stretched wide open. And the wind and rain
and snow whip and lash his rags to threads. I went to see the old man
the other day.....He didn't see me. First Memory It's five o'clock on a freezing December
morning. I'm hanging out a five story window in Brooklyn. I can see my
mother's face through the black smoke. Her arms stretched out as if offering
a sacrifice to some cruel and stupid god. Her hands holding me out the
window for dear life. The Whole World is Screaming. I'm Dancing on Air.
Staring into my mother's petrified eyes. I grow old. I see Death. He
wears a black helmet. He's being held by his legs from the adjacent
building. I feel his rubbery hand clutching my foot. He croaks to my
mother to "Let Go"!!! I fall head first and dangle in his hand
between heaven and hell. Everything's in Slow Motion. I'm yanked through a window.
I'm two months and a million years old. Black As Sin By the time I was four I was magic. Filled to
the brim with joy and power. I was a lucky accident until then.
Then day became night and black became white and the world became grey.
My dear Aunt Rose took me by the hand to the Convent of Mercy. She
gave me a big chocolate heart wrapped in bright red tin foil and told
me I had to be a brave soldier. I tasted her tears as she kissed me
goodbye. The first nun I saw looked right through me. She was huge.
She looked down on me as if I were the spawn of Lucifer. Just another
Mortal sin. She had a Man dangling from two wooden sticks around her
neck. His hands and feet were pinned to the planks and his eyes rolled
back in his head. She told me he was God and that he died for my Sin.
The Sin of being Born. She took me down a long corridor to the
dormitory. The beds were lined up in rows and filled with the unwanted. This was
just the beginning. I was to spend the next thirteen years with lunatics
like her. The Brides of Christ were cold as ice. Desperate and
Faithless, clinging to the lie of Salvation. The Monks were more brutal but not
as vicious as the Sisters of Mercy. They chipped away all but a remnant
of my original soul with their original sin. A spark was all that
remained. Now it's a bonfire of rage and shame. How I would like to make
martyrs of them all. Pile them up like dead crows and set fire to their
black souls. Cremate the whole bloody memory. Begin to live...Again. Alone At Last I remember the day I left the Home. They gave
me a fifteen cent token and a kick in the ass for luck. I was told to
go to a boarding house somewhere in the rectum of Brooklyn. The old
Irish battleaxe that ran the place was harder than an old man's
kneecap. A frustrated Sister of Mercy, she would spy on the orphans as if
they were criminals. With a cracktooth smile she led me upstairs to the
room. Her bony fingers gave me a key and I let myself in. It Stank like
nothing human, and yet it was All too Human. The bed was soaked with
piss and tears. The paint peeling off the walls knew my secret. I was a
dead man. A walking corpse. And this was my tomb. I sat down and
fell asleep counting my blessings. The Naked
Truth Who am I? A throwaway bag o' bones, a
steppenwolf sniffing the linoleum. A bloody dream being born. A rootless
manplant. A heartsick sailor. A moon worshiper. A noise outside your window.
A blue thunderbolt. A blind flea. A rolling machine. A sleeping bookworm.
A stranger in limbo. A pinhead philosopher. A broken compass. A
crack in the ceiling. A forlorned conclusion. A whisper in the dark.
My father's name was Nobody and I'm my father's Son. Sleep In Peace,
Ye Blind Gods Waiting in the freezing rain for god or man
to stop the drops that taste like wine pressed from the eyes of angels.
Drunk as a sailor marooned on the moon, I descend into the bowels of the
BMT to find my bed. Soaked to the bone I settle into one of the old straw
seats and fall asleep as the train rocks me into the night. I dreamed of
nuns on broomsticks and priests with pitchforks. The heat from the
seat rises and kills the chill in my legs. At every stop I'm jarred
awake as the doors shoot open and the dance of the dead begins. At every
stop a new nightmare appears. One by one they come and go as the
doors shoot open and the rain turns to snow. Some stare at me as if I
were a piece of meat. Some don't see me at all. I nod and wait for the
morning to break through the yellow windows. No Way Home From the Stations of the Cross to the
Stations of the BMT. Never a second's blink. No rest for the extraneous.
Jesus in the tearoom selling his soul to a three dollar vampire on
the edge of death. Christ in the form of a degenerate buys my stiff
socks and I'm saved for another day. I look into the metal mirror and
I realize I'm young. Funny, I've never felt young. Five dollars
for my stiff young socks! I could eat for a week on that. I could leave
the labyrinth of dead souls and ascend to the world of the living. Where
would I go? I didn't have a clue. The subway was my sick sanctuary. I
lived on the candybars and sodas that I kick out of the machines as the
trains roared through the stations. I'd sleep in it's iron belly deep
and away from the world. Insignificant as a fallen leaf. Grist for the
devil's mill. When there's no where to go, there's no way to turn. You
sit cold and crazy and wait to see what the night brings. It brings Incubus
and Sucubus. It brings fear and numbness. It brings desperation and
degradation. Woe to the children of the night. Woe to them All.
Better not to be born, than be born unloved. But such philosophic thoughts
are not even available when survival slaps you in the face. It's time to
see the sun. I walk out into the misty morning and go wherever the
wind takes me. Rosy
Resurrection And the wind blows, and the cock crows, and
the sun rises, and I lose my self in the faceless crowd above. The Sun
Hurts My Eyes. I wander around in small circles like a blind man in a coal
mine. I let the wind be my compass. It blew me down to the last exit in
Brooklyn. The last exit is on the last block of Atlantic Avenue. On this
block was an orange building with a red door. At night with the yellow
lights streaming through the windows, it looked like a demented jack o'
lantern. Inside were Holy ghosts, Invisible children of the sixies. The
Sons of Manson and the Sisters of the Damned. It was there I
received my first communion with the devil. A crystal promise that melted like
snow in the bubbling spoon. Tap Tap Tap on the vein, and it slides
in like it had a brain. Whatever was holding up my house of cards
before was blown to bits. Now I could not only stand the light, I Was the
Light!!! The Speed coursed through my veins and lit me up like a
Christmas Tree. I look out of different eyes, Luciferian Eyes that never
Blink. You could tell them all, the Lost children of the Night, you
could tell them from their shiny eyes. I wait until the sun is rising again
and take another poke. I never felt so alive in my life. I have been
resurrected. I am a God who forgot his name. I look at the amazement of
the devil before me as he loosens the belt around my arm. I look at all
of them. Staring at me, a stranger for supper, something to put in the
pot. ALL OF THEM WITCHES. They have No power over me. Just flies in the
web of my confusion. Now dawns a New day. The first day of my new
life. No more sleeping in hallways and subways. No more fear in the
darkness. The Tablets of Shame have been obliterated. I have become
Magical. I open the red door, and swallow the Sun.
It's amazing what happens when you're an
invisible man. When the hawk comes and covers the sun. And the cold
outside and in freezes your numbed heart. You wander aimlessly looking
for something, somewhere, something you lost a long time ago. A
terrible dream where you can't remember your name, where you can't remember
from whence you came. The nightmare of a truly lost soul. You belong to
nobody. The realization is colder than the snow. You mumble frozen
incantations into the void. There is no god here. There is no mother of
mercy. There's just the cold and the loneliness. It's amazing what happens
when you are invisible. When you're nothing and nobody, you got
nothing to lose. You melt into hallways and stuff newspaper in your holy
shoes. Finally, you just don't care anymore. The day dawns, and night
becomes life. The invisible at night are ghosts. I found them
haunting a house on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Castaways and poor rich
kids lit up the rooms with art and decadence. Poking crystal methedrine
into their veins they felt like gods. With speed the world became
magical. Every word, every number, took on a special significance. The
veils from my eyes fell away. I felt like Christ among the lepers.
I'd shoot up and light up like a Christmas tree. I'd walk through a blue
mist as the sun rose. My thoughts were gigantic. They were like magnets. I had
a telepathic connection with everything around me. In the world of
the underground I was alive. Among the lost, I finally became who I was. A
Miracle. Abel Chance. Smother the
Sun I should of been one to shine in the sun. Now
slivers of light surround my nights. There are no more days. I have
been waylaid by circumstance. Mother Night, Dead as the Moon,
Rock me in your Cradle of Gloom. My crib's a cage ribbed round with
rage. The faucet drips in sync with my frozen heart as the seconds melt away.
Melt away all the yesterdays. Melt away today. Melt away
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I should of been One to Shine in
the Sun. And now I wait for Oblivion. I lay in wait for the final
flicker. A candle in a coal mine. A diamond in the dark. A matchstick in the
wind. Nod of God As I sleep on a mountain green, I slip into a
purple dream. Where wind and water wash away the remnants of desire.
Where, at last, A million years past, I go home. Home is a garden under
the world. A garden in a graveyard. Where crimson poppies bloom from
the bones of the dead. There are no wars here. There are no victories.
Just the soft whirl of the stars. Just the hiss and bubble of the sun.
And the cyclops moon sighs beautiful lies into a sea of space. It is as it
always was. And I? I am just a purple dream, asleep on a mountain
green. We All Have a
Destiny My cat knows my place. I'm his door man. His
only asset is his beauty. It's enough. His mask is magnificent, Black
as hangman's cowl. His mouth is white, as is his belly and his feet and
the tip of his tail. All the rest is shiny Black. In the sun you can see
how pink he really is. His green eyes stare into mine like a statue.
Majestic as the Morning Star. The Wisest of Philosophers. The Perfection of
God. HE knows my Place. Some Seconds
Are Gold It's so beautiful...this moment...so perfect.
As the white tip of my cat twitches as he dreams upon my desk, as the
lamplight shimmers off the crystal bowl half filled with water and pale
greenstems end with scarlet poppies. I peer into an old photograph
smiling back at me. A child's face half hidden in the shadows stands
smiling back a half century at me. He beams at me like a dark sun. He was my
very soul. We are together now, finally, after all these years.
This moment, this perfect and beautiful moment. Man, This Guy
Is Depressing!! My fingers paint the dark. Among the lost
there is no company. They huddle together for warmth and freeze to
death. Broken Souls. Lost in Space. Eyeless in the Sun. Nobody knows the
way out or in. Standing still, on this black night, I shiver, for us
all. How It Happens Once, long ago, when I was young, a woman
told me I was a god, and I like a child believed her, and fell in love
with Myself. Ashes for
Valhalla Cross my Viking bones, Set my Flesh aflame,
Smolder me in Water, I shall Rise again. Fill my boat with withered leaves
far from any Shore. Bury me in burning Rain, with my hand still on my
Sword. My ashes like fireflies illuminate the night. They dance
above my head like stars, forbidden to expire. And I, like them, will
Rise again.. My hand Still on my Sword. She Gave More
Than She Ever Took Away She gave him a heart bent by briar and wire.
He wrapped up stars around the barbs and flowers in the core. And from
the holes wild poppies bloomed scarlet in the folds. Memories sneak
back when they dare. The snow on the windowsill peeks in at two lovers
sleeping like spoons. Lost and Found and Lost again. And all that's
left is a heart of thorns and the blue memory of her eyes. She has
become the night. What it's like Tap tap tap on the vein and it slides in
like it had a brain. Up pops the blood into the solution. It's
crucifixion time. Slam it home man, shoot the moon man, plunge that speed,
and smack that horse, and ride ride ride your magick carpet ride. The
Steeds of Speed eat coca leaves and dance upon the clouds. The rush of
smack is more profound. The Horses of heroin will drag you down down
down. But, baby, it don't really matter, since you been gone. All the drugs in the world won't bring you back. By now, your bones are
all that’s left. And I sit here with a spike full of junk and
regrets. I’ll see you soon baby, I’ll
shoot the stars out of the night, and in the
everlasting darkness, I’ll find you. Nobody's
Father I went to see the old man the other day. He's
a scarecrow in a Pumpkinfield. He dangles on a cross staring
like a lunatic in the spotlight of the Moon. His button eyes are
blind with time. They don't recognize me. His head was crowned by a black
fedora. His arms were stretched wide open. And the wind and rain
and snow whip and lash his rags to threads. I went to see the old man
the other day.....He didn't see me.
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