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Two Poems

by Rich Boucher



On Witnessing An Instance of Magick Being Practiced
In a Walmart Parking Lot in Providence, Rhode Island
And Wondering If It Is Up To Me To Decide
What Means Something And What Means Nothing

​​
I was coming out of the Walmart
when I spied a real and skinny young man
with a very old and full long beard
wearing a dirty, navy-blue Adidas hoodie
(the kind with the many white zippers)
seeming to be praying or yelling by himself,
or maybe he was yelling prayers,
right next to the cart corral
where I was bringing my cart
after my prolonged bout of shopping.
Worried that his mentalness was a danger to me,
I slowed down and looked all around me,
scanning my surroundings for another corral
but the next nearest one was full,
and as I turned again towards where
the young man was busy shrieking to the sky
I noticed it sounded like he was invoking
a long serious of powerful-sounding names,
none of which to me seemed especially English.
His voice rose and I saw other people staring.
One heavy lady stared at me like this whole thing
was all my fault and we glared at each other hard
for a few tense moments, neither of us making a move.
The yelling man had spit flying out of his shouting mouth
and then I thought I heard the word invisible
and he suddenly disappeared from view.
He vanished right in front of us all, everybody,
but we knew he was still there
because he was now laughing as well as shouting.
So weird to hear laughter but not see anybody, right?
A Mexican woman near me fell to her knees in tears and
started praying loudly to God while sobbing obnoxiously.
Lots of the word Dios over and over again and then
I heard the sound of several men shouting with their afraid voices
and someone right behind me screamed where’s your phone?!
and I thought a late afternoon in August was a bit too early
for midnight on October 31st to already be here.

Why couldn’t I move at all.

My ice cream was melting in the bag
and I couldn’t move at all for what felt like
a terrifying, eternal half hour.






After Giovanni Bellini’s Christ Blessing,
c. 1500


In this painting of the Christ, committed
by Giovanni Bellini onto oil and canvas
in one of the very first centuries of history,
we can see clearly the conclusion to all the
cruel punishments and unspeakable agony
that the foretold torturers laid down on the Jesus,
the symbols of divine aspect after the crucifixion
that caused him to lose an awful lot of weight
while at the same time keeping a real tight
and fit tone, with his pale, alabaster white
skin softly reflecting the golds and baby blues
of an early morning Galilee farmland sunrise;
note the sunshine-ray-shaped brass halo
around the head looking all 70’s surfer-like;
we can see also Bellini’s studious attention
to the details in the soft, gathered fabric
of the purple dress or toga or sarong
or whatever that is that Christ has on
that wraps and covers his slender waist
and shoulders while at the same time
tastefully yet clearly displaying the wounds
and six-pack of the Christ as well as
the stigmata in the palm of his right hand,
rendered in a muted wine colour to effect;
also note the bruises where the soldiers
got him good with a hubcap or something.
We notice that the world around Christ
seems at once sanctified and yet unchanged,
with farmers in the background making their way
through a pasture while in the foreground
we see two little rabbits of two different colours
at furious play as though there wasn’t anything
especially marvelous about what is happening
in this moment in time - we also must take note
of the countenance of Christ; a careful observer
will undoubtedly remark on what is plainly visible,
what appears to be a state of high heavenly irritation,
like what the hell did you do to me, you asswipes
in the dull pallor behind his blankly staring
and yet really ticked-off brown eyes.
While we can’t know what Bellini intended
by this expression on the face of the Christ,
we can guess; we do know that once you’ve forgiven the 77th
sin against you, you’ve done all that anyone
can really ask of you, and at that point
you can basically just have at it and go to town
as far as revenge goes.
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Rich Boucher resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rich’s poems have appeared in Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, Apeiron Review, Menacing Hedge, Cultural Weekly and Tinderbox Poetry Journal, among others, and he has work forthcoming in Street Poet Review. For more, check out his website here. He loves his life with his love Leann.
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Photo used under Creative Commons from wuestenigel
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