The Waiting Room

deviant art by ushio


The Waiting Room


1.
I,
who have driven bone lonesome
along the dark desert spine
of a California two-laner,
speeding raw and vulnerable
flat out into the clamped maw
of another pre-dawn, spying a crew
bustling and busy a mile of so
up the road, their extremely bright
work lights criss-crossing as
twin bolts, dancing in the dark,
bobbing mysterious like those halogen
flashlights that Muldar & Scully
always whipped out to search
for monsters,
illuminating grayish-brown wooden
planks and the tarpaper borselinos
on three low buildings,
cropped together
like withered mushrooms,
as the cold bursts of white became
wild eyes, twitchy, strabismus-ridden,
and a railroad siding became
a mouth as the metal tracks bent
dumbly into a smile,
sporting a fat cigar railroad car
dangling heavy on its metallic lips,
peppered lightly with the dancing eyes—
until I drew close enough
to make out some kind of shiny
stainless steel water tank towering
over the shacks,
with the work lights
radiating from its thick base.
Strange.
What the hell were those guys doing
out there at 3am, 17 miles N of
Red Mountain,8 miles S of Ridgecrest
and the China Lake Naval Weapons Center,
creating a perfect phalanx
between Edwards Air Force Base,
Area 51, and me?

My yellow Pinto charged bravely forward,
breakneck and fearless as my eyes
cleared and I realized that there
were no stanchions beneath
the water tank—
it just hovered motionless 200 feet
in the air; and there were
other lights, two rows of them,
red and green rotating, pulsating
in opposite directions
at its metal midriff,
like bulbs on a theater marquee—
and it came to me violently,
filling my veins with ice water—
this damned thing was a UFO
and I was alone at 3am on the desert
rushing toward it like a man moth
diving into a flame
just as the searchlights snapped off,
and in a beauteous blink I watched
the craft seem to disappear,
or would have if I had not tracked it
from a dead stall east blurring low,
beyond supersonic, parallel to
the shoulders along a ridge of white
desert hillocks stretched taunt
as a back drop, without a sound,
in a tenth of a second,
gone, beyond the horizon,
twenty miles in a twitch,
swallowed by the plateau’s darkness.
Breathless, reeking from alacrity,
in shock, still—
I was elated to receive my magnificent
and terrible gift.

2.
I,
who have been kissed by the white dragon,
have seen the orange pennants waving
frantically in the stiff breezes
across electric azure, bucking aslant
to yellow towers,
in a garden of golden minarets
as far as vision perceived;
two moons and a robin’s egg blue sun
perched peacefully in a perfect sky,
somewhere beyond the now horizon,
where my real face shined featureless
and iridescent , where every variety
of truth resided within me,
where a rainbow was worn
as skin and a cloak—
I,
who have glimpsed gleefully
beyond the curtain, piercing the veil,
as I reclined in meditation,
awakened to the arrival of a quiet
billowing gray white cloud that filtered
in through the high barred windows
thirty feet above,
moving over to hover directly above me,
to suddenly erupt with twin bolts
of kundalini embrace,
white light transferred within
white lightning,
much like metaphysical heart paddles,
reconnecting, salvaging, invigorating—
until just as suddenly I was aware
of a translucent figure standing
alongside me, looking like a glass
sculpture of the Silver Surfer,
perhaps my higher Self
ready to abandon the sad broken hulk,
the dysfunctional machine
I had become, only reconsidering,
following the psychic blister left
of Spirit’s white hot kiss,then
swinging itself, while grasping both
my wrists, directly in front of me,
to pause for a moment
before it’s shimmering grace
slapped my soul
by thrusting itself at my chest
and disappearing
down the rabbit hole of my innards,
recharging my love capillaries,
reinventing my resolve,
putting old Humpty back together
again, sort of;
slamming the door to the other side,
denying me passage, activating my
stop-loss on this life,
extending my tour, leaving me astride
a steed of pain, renewing the contract,
acknowledging that those lessons
unlearned beckoned benevolently,
inexorably.

3.
Yes,
I,
who harbor a mere sliver,
a single shard of
the big truth, cuddling it
like a broken piece of stained glass
that I take out at times and stare at,
trying to imagine the entire picture,
the whole artfulness,
every inch of perspective,
but it’s like viewing a door handle
while trying to visualize the actual car—
I am a man who has seen ghosts
in my house,
several times;
and yet I
inexplicably
am denied audience with Him,
who awaits me, has beckoned to me
forever from the depth of great forests,
tall and red-eyed.

I long for our inevitable meeting,
wedged stoically between faith and finite,
an ancient memory wanting to be reborn
open armed to some
radical reinforcement on some
night’s journey that will include Him.
I will know Him; have always known Him,
as now I study His haunts,
document His movements,
memorize every line I’ve read
of His meetings with others,
call to Him silently on midnight forays
deep into damp rain forests,
and when I close my lids I can
imagine our encounter,
like an adolescent left alone with a
thrice-folded Playmate of the Month;
still I can’t help but wonder if He
has chosen to elude me during
this incarnation,
and will only appear during my
very last moment
with his Jesus face,
taking my small hand
in His huge one, smiling as He
guides me Home.

Glenn Buttkus August 2009.