I was once God's Picasso painting
(the Guernica era).
Chuck Jones' illustration
of the tortured artist,
laid out like Wile E. Coyote
on a bed of scalding rocks
and a white flag screaming "SURRENDER"
clenched with both palms.

If it were feasible,
I'd have dove head first
into the smoky center of the sun
if it meant my audience understood
the shrieking woes I had to bellow through
to reach their overwhelmed palates.

But Tragedy is the sitcom foil
that has long outstayed its menopausal welcome,
and I would much prefer a haunting.

To Hell with those
who repulse the flies with
the vinegar of exploitation,
gawking as their spit seeps
through seven layers of collected scars,
who ventilate the wrists
to keep the audience comfortable.

Real aesthetic power
comes from a shower
of light hail on the spine,
the moments a ghostly hand
****** you on the finger
with quietly hidden truths
always whispered from a field away.

It's far more bracing,
the lump in the throat,
not the electrical gasp of shock.

It's a far greater sign
of a forthcoming apocalypse,
the angel weeping in pain,
not the footsteps
of the wailing banshee.

The wisp
over the wallop.