Dan A. Cardoza
He’s guilty. Thatch the pyramid with more
pitchy oak. A crime was committed, to that
we all agree, and we are almost certain it’s a
felony. Someone has to burn.
An anonymous voice in the crowd yells, “Are
we sure, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he
had an opinion?”
No answer was needed, the crowd pressed
forward, toward the mosh pit, the way they
used to in Aberdeen, at the Kurt Cobain
clubs. The air sparked lighters.
Then a woman yelled, begged let him speak,
let him speak? Some answered by thumbing
light. But it happened, the way few miracles
do, silence smothered the angry, like a
damp/dark cloud before rain.
In raspy Guiro vocals, he pleaded, “What is
my crime? It was only an idea.”
Just after he spoke, a new religion was born,
and like most, it was born in pyre, heaven the
ladder it climbed.
Long after the burning was done, long after
the wind whipped out his ashes, in the dawn’s
early light, someone screamed, “Rock, Paper,
Scissors!”
Only the few found knees.
***
Dan A. Cardoza has an MS Degree in Education from UC, Sacramento, Calif. He is the author of four poetry Chapbooks, and a new book of fiction, Second Stories. Recent Credits: 101 Words, Adelaide, Australia, California Quarterly, Chaleur, Cleaver, Confluence, UK, Dissections, Door=Jar, Drabble, Entropy, Esthetic Apostle, Foxglove, Frogmore, UK, High Shelf Press, Poetry Northwest, Rue Scribe, Runcible Spoon, Skylight 47, Spelk, Spillwords, Fiction Pool, Stray Branch, Urban Arts, Zen Space, Tulpa, Australia and Zeroflash.