SUPERNATURAL In the pissing rain last night a skywide lightning show flashed for half an hour. No thunderbolts, no crackling static, just a distant thunder faintly rumbling elsewhere. The blackness of the night turned white, a most amazing strobing whiteness everywhere —— the kind of thing to stir belief in mythic gods, to fend off fear and decorate the supernatural. jh
Severe weather … hail … storms … tornadoes …
Postscript: Sept. 6 — Cold Turkey Press is publishing a small poster of the poem in an edition limited to 36 copies with an image of a painting by Constable.
In the current issue of The Atlantic monthly magazine, Mel Brooks is skillfully interviewed.
Mel is now 97 years old.
Near the end of the interview, the subject of Lenny Bruce is on the table. Brooks expresses deep love for Lenny and his wonderful work.
Brooks then reports on a 100% ad libbed routine that Lenny did and Mel heard,
Lenny first asks his audience a question: “What if Jesus was electrocuted?”
Lenny goes on to answer his own question by stating that “If he was. every large building would have a huge electric chair on top of it, and people would have small electric chairs hanging around their necks on chains.”
Your poem and this reading of the interview with Mel Brooks made my day!
happy to be associated with el senor brooks and el senor bruce.
I thought if fit in Olay with the second and third line of your poem.
interesting abt 2nd and 3rd lines appealing to you. if you meant that those two fellas are/were a skywide lightning show, i fully agree. the lines were, btw, strictly factual observation. one added thought (probably not best to reveal but i will) is that the last two lines of the poem land too much on-the-nose. but i cldnt wrangle my way out of that.
oh, and about the electric chair jezus ref, here’s something peculiarly relevant. seventeen years ago i asked norman mustill in an email what he was up to. his reply:
“busily muckin’ away at my ‘Combo Electric Chair/Voting Machine’ and other expediencies.” well, now these many years later, expediencies indeed.
i never saw that piece of Mustill’s. i don’t even know if he finished it. but a “voting machine/electric chair” memorializing Trumpscheisse would be a great fit.
It looks like having a window in a high rise in Manhattan is worth whatever the cost of the apartment. The biggest screen on earth looks to be this night sky. Why have visions if all we have to do is look out the window… .
yes, the river perch in the city has a great view. but i saw that storm from countryside.
yes again—when the world offers such visions there’s no need for “visions” but what the hell . . ,