The Next Coming by Jewels Joyce Marcus



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The Writers of the Mendocino Coast got together with local artists in what's called a Ekphrasis in which one medium of art attempts to relate or describe another. Sixteen writers and sixteen local artists split into two groups. Eight writers submitted a story or poem, each of which was randomly drawn by eight artists. Each artist painted or photographed a visual interpretation of the written piece. In the other group, eight artists submitted their paintings or photographs to eight writers who then wrote a story or poem to interpret the work of art. Last Saturday, at the Artists Co-op in Mendocino, the writers and artists met and saw the results for the first time. I don’t have the painting this poem by Jewels Marcus references, so I Googled American children in Poverty for a picture that would capture the emotional essence of the portrait it was written to interpret.  I hope you will share this poem with every parent you know.

The Next Coming       



I’m not who you think I am.

Days of lush lazy lawns pregnant

with carefree laughing children

are long gone.

I’m your daughter’s daughter.

The new messiah.

The coroner.

The next coming.

I’m walking on the backs of discarded plastic bottles,

across seas, in search of salvation and clean drinking water.

I’m sifting through un-majestic purple mountains of trash,

for the tainted treasure of tasteless scraps    

to fill my aching    empty    guts.

I’m roaming radiated deserts for evidence of my inheritance.

I’m your judge      your jury      your coroner

stuffing the giant cracks you left in the scorched earth

with the putrid, swollen bodies of my kin.

I’m your daughter’s daughter

needing to grow new lungs to filter the filthy air

new hands to claw over continents of blackened concrete.

I’m the one left after the last holocaust.

The one you didn’t want to notice, too busy

entertaining  yourselves          for one third of your lives.

I’m not who you think I am.   

I’m the minister       the preacher        the teacher.

My hopes and prayers like wolves sent out to devour our fears.

I’m the new messiah.               Walking on water.

The coroner.                            Burying your future.

The next coming.

Jewels Joyce Marcus c2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekphrasis

For locals, all the art with accompanying stories and poems will be the program at this Wednesday's (the 17th) Writers of the Mendocino Coast meeting.
6 p.m.
in the Mendocino Hotel's
Garden Room



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