Sunday, July 29, 2012

"Who Cries for Rome"


…The team discovered four women hiding in back rooms attached to the library. Patti Nielson, the art teacher from the 911 call, had crept into a cupboard in the break room. She had squatted in the cupboard for three more hours, knees aching, unaware the danger had passed. Three other faculty hid farther back. An officer instructed one to put her hand on his shoulder and follow him out, staring directly at his helmet, to minimize exposure to the horror.  ---from Columbine by Dave Cullen



What great behemoth once stood in this erstwhile neutered Wal-Mart parking pasture?

Some remarkable Titan now crumbled and humbled by the unstoppable army of time?



As the Visigoths heard the preamble of The Roman Empire’s backbone cracking,

Was there anyone to mourn the fall of once unstoppable army of the Caesars?



Will we hunker until our knees throb, waiting to be rescued simultaneously as others that are waiting to be rescued by us are muted as they whimper underneath wooden shields?



Focus, yes…

Look straight ahead, yes…

Be goal oriented, yes…

Don’t let you gaze stray, no…

This medusa-alley of modern living will do worse things than turn you to stone, or render Your opulent body into a quaint mound of NaCl, yes…



This could cause a reckoning within your will that challenges the acceptance of diminished expectations…



No one should cry for us as we are all-consumed with crying for ourselves while mesmerized by the soulless eyes of our ignoble acrylic busts displayed on plastic mantelpieces encasing LCD flames. Meanwhile a scratching sound pervades the front window…



Can you teach that which you cannot value?


Who cries for Rome?

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