A Note Passed to Me from a Homeless Man on the Subway in 1992:

by the Homeless Man

I traveled the world and there I found those that God had set upon this little blue ball to save it all...
It was me and you.
But we have dropped the ball and we shall all fall,
fall away our lessons not learned,
the school closed for more than summer,
it will be closed for ever
and only those that have suffered in the faith of loving kindness shall pass unto graduation
and evolution and the escape out of here.
The rest have just failed.
I am afraid that I too have failed because God said speak,
and I did,
but no one listened to my metaphor—
my pretty packaged truth and my faith hard nailed into my soul,
by the deeds and punishment of myself by myself in the name of the lord.
The Lord God.

...You mine as well paint your face and come to them, and call yourself the Angel of Death—
Before them stand and declare you are the reaper,
because you will bring death to them all,
surely, death to them all will drip from your bloody tongue,
For when you reveal your pale horse to them it shall come in these words
and hell shall follow them, I am death,
and I bring death to you all in the form of one single fragrant word,
one word that we have bent so that it needs a handle,
a slogan an explanation for the original word has been trampled and misused so,
I will now reveal this two-part one-word to you and wipe you all from the face of this lush green forest
you have all trampled so.
The wordÕs first part was just... Love.
But now add the word before it: Unconditional and surely you will all die,
you will all die as those who have practiced theseÐthis word,
have done before you.
They that have practiced this have all been slaughtered and died for you in itÕs name sake,
have they not?
And now as I come to you with my face painted like a grinning skull of a little pale horse-a-ridin guy,
Surely you all shall die.
Because I am here to say that you too can play and revel in these ultimately demising word-words
which roll from the grinning mouth of death yet so stained with as hen tears.
Yes you too are able to be liken unto these words if only you would try,
but then you must die and go to the sky, where these words do no good
because they are needed down here among us with our faces painted with death,
aren't they?
These words and those who can perform them-it,
are needed here, to spread the word first hand, but -pop-pop-pop-
off you go at the hands of those you love so,
no conditions though—
I love you violent arrogant conniving slaughterers
no matter what you say or do or feel, so off with my head.
Now you are dead and unconditional love is again hammered into a book or a word or a man,
instead of the sum of all parts, the simplest acts of just being true to the nature you were,
before you were born to nature.
Here I stand and tell you the plan:
You are all the sons and daughters of a softhearted and loving God.
It is you who have brought this nasty pain and suffering to this little globe
and you who can free yourselves from it.
Just love Ôem all one or in a bunch, and then youÕll have a nice 13 man lunch,
with a virgin and a ho or two and then off to the great wahoo—
Way way up in the sky where, no one dies and the rain a falls falls all day,
In the form of GodÕs Way and the play of things past time and space,
things beyond lust, disgrace, things beyond things eloquent and peaceful,
yet seething with the passion of a hundred marches with a cross.
I am Death.
And I am here to tell you yours is in you hands.
Right there in the palms of your giving and loving hands.
Or else just a whirl, spin whirl,
On this wheel of fortune of life.
Ashes to ashes and then back again,
this time with a back ache and one more or less friend,
but always my joyful,
milky white face and dusty horsy are there with the message of your personal Apocalypse—
there before you in the form of one word made two,
by the misuse of me and the misuse of you.
So wander wander round and round
til you come to see the Death-faced Angel deep in the ground—
The ground where a seed with two words once one is buried,
waiting for the water of everyone.

Mozal Tov.

©2000DavidCaplan