There is nothing like a church wine brung freshly from a barrel chilled in the cellar beneath the crypt and kept fresh by the cold dead bodies that surround it. What sweetness does death bring to life! And by taking life out of death we are left with only the sweetest parts and we are able to hold it gladly like a de-clawed rose. I lick my blushing lips and swallow my dry throat in anticipation of this joy, this one-night-stand with a stranger I’ve loved for years. For a sinner like me, an instantaneous and guilt-free satisfaction such as this borders on the pornographic.

When my mother died I was just eleven. A great light in my world snuffed out by the monster, or rather by the parasite he shot inside of her. But like many adults who see their parents through fatal illness, her death came to me as a slow but screeching halt. When sunlight filters through the rose window of San Zeno its corners sometimes spread the light out into its spectrum like the rainbow that follows a storm. Instead of the pure white light you see its seven teammates, broken down into their individual occupations. Red for the love she gave me, orange for the changing leaves of her season, yellow for the happy times, green for my envious love, blue for the rivers of tears she dried, and violet for her goodness. And rather than watch her rainbow disappear I suffered each loss individually until I could bear it no more. Death was a relief. What is my mother if she does not have her red love for me? What is her love if we have no happy times? The Lord snuffed her out with the jolly indifference of an altarboy, cleaning up the prayer candles after mass and pretending it’s his birthday cake.
And so I gave God His Birthday Wish. With nothing left for me at home I ran still freshly shamed by the geyser Matelda discovered. And I joined a monastery.

Our Friar, who art in his cell, cruelty be thy game.

I hailed Mary at all hours as I scrubbed the floors and helped prepare meals for my fellow Capuchin monks. I did not follow the other boys into the tomato patches where they—like sloppy seconds Onan—spilled their seed on the ground. Mercutio’s knees prayed holes through his robes. Mercutio studied. Mercutio blew out other’s candles until they smelled only of rosaries.

I prayed for the souls that rode a plume of smoke to the heavens and only asked that they send my love to someone special for me. Was she my mother once again? Did she change back into the benevolent partner of my life who chased monsters out from under my truckle bed whispered the Queen Mab to take their place each night? Or is she something else entirely now with her white, Greco-roman angel uniform in heaven and her parasite Valentine living as a gentlemen in Verona?
And then one day I realized I could not recall my own mother’s face.

I wanted her to be there, to hear me. When Dante’s first two volumes came out, I scoured Purgatory for her and then, in fear, I turned to the Inferno. If she is not in heaven, then Virgil himself must not recognize her. That means her hidden sin was avarice and she dines with other faceless aristocrats. But if she is in purgatory, only prayers and time can save her.
When I prayed early in the still-dark morning of my graduation day, I could feel St. Christopher leaning over the rail and putting one arm on my shoulder, kneeling humbly to pray along with me. I pray for lost dogs and departed cats and St. Francis comes to me. I pray for mothers everywhere and my mother in particular and St. Mary herself comes to join me and her vacant womb glows with affection for all. But I could not feel my mother.

Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Dona eis requiem sempiternam.

The three of us prayed aloud for my father and I heard the echoes of his voice behind me as he walked into the church. I recall his voice only from the bass tones I could catch while in Utero. He knelt in a dark pew. We started the prayer over again together and the passionate and wonderful Archangel Gabriel entered the room, speaking along with us and letting his trumpet rest. His broad shoulders burst out of his cape as he lowered himself on the kneeler next to me, bending its groaning boards. I shivered like a tiny lantern who nearly suffocates from the wind that feeds a nearby forest fire. He chanted along with me and yet his presence towering over me said, Be not afraid, and he produced a tiny candle of his own from beneath his wings and lit it off of mine.

I fell under a spell of chanting along with St. Chris, St. Francis, Mary and her Son, St. Luke, St. Matthew, and St. Stephen. All of them donned their best and most colorful vestments and abandoned the fresco paintings up high and knelt down with humble Mercutio to say a word of prayer. More blessed saints took time from their lives and filed into the pews behind me with my father, joining in a prayer that they had begun before Mercutio pulled himself into this world. They entered with the calm dignity of a Pope’s choir, each one with a candle to light their way through the dark recesses of a church that should be closed. Each candle from beneath the coin box where the poverty-bound saints donated a piece of silver for a piece of wax to honor mother’s name. Each one lit from St. Prometheus, who follows in the rear and carries the first torch. The Holy Spirit rode in the window on the watery beam of a full moon—weeks ahead of its scheduled cycle. Jesus wept. Jesus himself got up from his knees, stricken with a grief that took the air from his lungs as it had in Gesthemone. He stood up and agony spewed from bursting stitches of the wound at his side. For appreciation of fortune or being moved by grief, Jesus walked over to Mary and kissed her on the cheek as he cried into her hair in thankfulness for the mother he had lost and found once again.

But he did not stop praying.

Jesus took to the altar and pulled goblets of wine from behind it or, perhaps it occurs to me now he simply took the blood he shed from his wound and un-transubstantiated it into wine, cutting it with the holiest holy water from his grief stricken tears.

He invited all, even the Limbo-bound Prometheus, to take a drink.

And we did not stop praying.

Our voices did not fall or stand waiting for the others. With one loud, booming song in Latin we spoke in a meter whose rhythmic momentum shook the hymnals in their racks. The altar candles shivered in the wind of our saintly voices. And in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit we all said “Amen.”

In that final word each saint turned to their right and blew out their flames. This holy gale of voices ceasing quenched even the cowering fires of our altar candles. It flew around the crescent sacristy and shot into the back, snuffing out the red prayer candles just as the moth’s body does when he finally gets his fatal wish. The holy water rippled into a peaceful tempest.

I clutched my eyes shut for an extra second, waiting to hear my answer. A voice, a peace. I waited even just to see the image of her face in my mind once again. But I could not produce even that or remember her scent or even the voice that I loved to hear so much.

When I opened my eyes I found myself alone. The smoke of four hundred smoldering fallacies hung in the air and drifted back to heaven by the diagonal river of moonlight. In the darkness I could see only the empty pews surrounding me, forfeiting any hope of salvation. Each seat: stained with the still warm wax from the heavenly rapture.
I pressed my fingers into the congealing puddle left on the rail by the disappearance of Archangel Gabriel. It burned my hand. I should have expected this from a wax that protects his feathers as he flies close to the sun, turning Dedalus drab with jealousy. I shuttered in agony and stuck my hand into the cup that Jesus left behind. It felt cool and icy from the holy shivers of Christ’s suffering. When I stepped into the remaining moonlight I saw that I was alone. Brother Mercutio stood in disbelief, with his hand in the Carpenter’s goblet.

There were no Saints. Even the ones on the walls and the statues above hid themselves in Darkness. I checked behind a pole for St. Francis, but he left with the Holy Ghost. I looked into the altar desk and I did not find Jesus there playing tavern-man.
“And where was God in all of this?” I shouted. “Answer me!” But I could hear only my hollow echoes and they shouted their lonely anger back at me.

My cousin Leo, now five years older than when I saw him last, burst through the door and found me screaming in the sacristy with my robes splattered in church wine. The pews suffered burn marks and evenly spaced wax stains. Several dripping wine glasses emptied their remaining contents onto the red stained floor. “Mercutio, what are you doing?”

I could not breath. My lungs would not fill with the air they needed. It all stuck in my throat and came back out in my agonized moans. Cerberus—the three headed dog whom Hercules put to sleep—took the day off from guarding Hell and stationed himself in my throat. He scared all my breaths away. Instead my rage came out of a three-faced bark in my throat. The face looking back at me made me think that some mask had been placed over my own. The veins of concern popped out of his forehead and his troubled brow looked down on me as though I were turning into a monster. Cousin Leo bent his freckled visage down to me and jammed his roman nose in my face. He sniffed twice.

“Have you been drinking?” cousin Leo bent to pick up the emptied decanters, one of which shattered on the altar when Jesus went back to his office.

Labels: Nikki

TAX THIS

At first I thought this was funny...then I realized the awful truth of it. Be sure to read all the way to the end!

Tax his land, Tax his bed, Tax the table At which he's fed.
Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Tax his cow, Tax his goat.

Teach him taxes Are the rule.
Tax his pants, Tax his coat. Tax his ties, Tax his shirt.
Tax his work, Tax his dirt. Tax his tobacco, Tax his cigars, Tax his beers, Tax his drink.

Tax him if he Tries to think. If he cries, then Tax his tears
Tax his car, Tax his gas. Find other ways To tax his ass

Tax all he has. Then let him know That you won't be done with him till he has no dough
When he screams and hollers, Then tax him some more, Tax him till He's good and sore


Then tax his coffin, Tax his grave, Tax the sod in
Which he's laid

Put these words upon his tomb,
" Taxes drove me to my doom..."


When he's gone, Do not relax, Its time to apply
The Inheritance Tax, Real Estate Tax, Personal Property Tax, Building Permit Tax, Luxury Taxes, Utility Taxes, Well Permit Tax, School Tax

Vehicle Registration Tax, License, ! Vehicle Sales Registration Tax, Road Usage Tax, CDL license Tax, Watercraft Inventory Tax, Watercraft Tax, Recreational Vehicle Tax, Fuel Permit Tax, Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon), Sales Tax

Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA), Corporate Income Tax, IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties. (tax on top of Tax), Social Security Tax, Medicare Tax, State Income Tax, State Unemployment Tax (SUTA), Accounts Receivable Tax, Marriage License Tax, Property Tax, Food License Tax, Cigarette Tax, Dog License Tax, Fishing License Tax, Hunting License Tax, Liquor Tax, Workers Compensation Tax

Excise Taxes, Gross Receipts Tax, Service Charge Tax,Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax, Telephone Federal, Sta te and Local Surcharge Taxes, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax,
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago,
and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What the HELL happened?



Can you spell "politicians!"


And I still have to "press 1" for English.


I hope this goes around THE USA at least 100 times

Labels: Nikki