This is a poem I'm currently in the process of writing, with the end goal of submitting it to a literary journal. The current title is "Aftermath of The Larger Forgottonia Rapture", based off of two paintings by my grandmother, which I'll post later. Here is the poem.
When the rapture came to our town, some of the angels got left behind.
Pretty shit place to get left.
If you're used to heaven.
We didn't know what to make of them, at first.
Thought the man upstairs left a few behind to help clean up.
It was a scene, after all.
All the good and righteous in our town miracled up to heaven right where they stood.
Or sat.
Or ran.
The intersection by the park was a nightmare,
Damn thing hit right after the evening commute.
My mama went with them.
So did the kid.
I wasn't surprised when they didn't take me.
Sure as hell wasn't when they didn't take my father.
But about the mess now.
About the angels.
My Nana.
She went too.
My Nana was a painter, angels were among her favorite things to paint.
I hope she was happy to know she'd been right.
They were huge.
And winged.
And their skin was like glass.
You know those fish you can see straight through.
at the bottom of the marianas trench?
Like my nana's paintings,
They gleamed with the green of their strange infinite lymph nodes.
They sang, with the great, undulating purple of their ever-fractaling lungs.
Their voices like a thousand choirs each.
To some they had no eyes.
To some they were nothing but.
At night, their organs glowed through the trees on campus
Just like the hot air balloons in september.
They were so fearfully,
So wonderfully made.
They always looked so graceful.
Their feathers shining in the weak January sunlight like fiber optic cables.
It was hard to believe they were so dispensable.
It was harder to believe he'd forget them.
But they eventually gathered at the courthouse.
Shooting straight into the air like strange, silvery bottle rockets, one by one.
Sometimes for only an hour.
Sometimes for days.
The longest one was gone was a month.
Maybe they just got lost.
Or maybe they were locked out
Scraping those terrible wings on heaven's door
Then the screaming started.
Right in the middle of town, they all turned their faces
However many
Skyward.
Nobody knew what they were doing until they heard it.
Like trumpets.
Like infants.
Like a car crash.
Like looking at the sun straight on.
I heard it across town,
Fifteen floors up.
And could feel it shake the foundation.
Rupture the drum of my ear closest to the window.
Fill me with a grief that wasn't mine
A grief that was meant for a body so much bigger.
It was their pain.
Their last hope.
Their plead to reach Him.
And it caused twenty-three casualties.
Constructive criticism and comments welcome.
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