"Soft Faith"
It struck me funny that I should dream of Kalashnikov's
Rifle, the very night I pulled from basement obscurity
My late mother's Olivetti Lettera. A student's dream was
In that Olivetti; the written pursuit of revolution she believed
Handed to her by some sky and concrete deity with a gift for
Worlds and obscenities made holy. Her soft faith as she
Called it, having read Burroughs as a prophet.
Yes, the obscure god-the hidden Public Worker-could
Craft worlds, but only those, from Moses to Burroughs, by
Words turned such worlds.
The ribbon was still in there; still virginal, as my mother was
Up until she authored me.
Later she told me how that "soft faith" died when out I came.
She never wrote again.
It was after the cancer had called on her that I moved back into
The home we'd shared, mother and son, until I myself left for
College. How still now was our house, and indeed the world
Without, so it seemed. Was it because I'd come back an
Unbeliever? Perhaps as an act of repentance, I put a blank page
Into the antique machine to see if I could draw out mother's dream.
Not thinking I began typing, typing, typing; oh what an exodus
Of words! I realized I was keeping Andre Breton's commandment
To run down from the room and into the crowd with guns going
Boom! Boom! Boom!
It was a true revolution. "Fight!" cried my fingers across the keys.
The night gave way to day, hen day to night, then...Stop.
So this is what it feels like to be God, the oldest dream of humanity.
Soft was my old bed when I lay down. Sleep brought me to the
Brush of the sub-Sahara, and thence to the dunes of Yemen and the
Bruised street corners of post-Soviet Georgia, etc. Everywhere where
Could be heard the faithful typing on Mikhail's rifle.
Dennis Villelmi is a writer from southwest Virginia. In addition to Dead Snakes,
his poems have been featured on Dagda Publishing's website, and in Dagda's
recently released anthology, "Threads."
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