Don’t count him out just yet. There is stark contrast between the paradise we have been taught exists and this garden of agony in which we all seem to rest. Nothing is ever what it appears to be even when it’s all about appearances. He’s guilty too. He sometimes grabs hold of the apparition from time to time, especially when he wants to believe.
He's beginning to believe in nothing, for nothing is real. Only shadows, apparitions, mirages. He held onto hope only to have it slip through his fingers. A Zen koan, right? There’s something to be said in that. The longer one holds on, the more certain it will slip away.
He stands in his own Gethsemane, waiting. When will the hammer she wields come crashing down? When will the eyes which peer through the darkness finally see? It’s all up for grabs. Nothing is for keeps.
He holds out his hand only to have it slapped away. Reverberation — the cries of the damned suck unhealthy udders. The milk is sour and full of embryos.
This garden reeks of horse shit and decay but he’s still holding on. Lies are the prophecies handed down from one bony hand to another, arthritic fingers twisted around a maple staff, too thick to grab hold of properly. Deceit waters the flowers which grow to die under rancid hell breath.
He is certainly not alone here. He witnesses the suffering, the lame, the damned along the river, hearing not its song but discordant symphonies composed under the influence of evil. They all wait here, hoping.
Hope — the rotten apple yanked from dead branches by Lilith, then fed with a smile on her face and clouds in her eyes. Teeth sink into it, remain inside as it’s pulled away. Toothless smiles for the happy jesters who prance about the fire, bells ringing, puppets bowing to the enemy within.
He is certainly not alone here. This garden is for him. This garden is for everyone. This garden swallows the nectar which helps give birth to a new atrocity exhibition, one in which the admission to enter is simply putting your trust in someone else.
New York City, May 2005