John's Apothecary (A self-serious blog)

All Tomorrow’s Parties.  The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967)

Phlox sat down.  The morning light fell in sharp gesture through the window & onto his proof, hanging triumphantly on the restaurant’s back wall.  It was finished, the denouement of chapter One, an extraordinary moment, & yet he felt no glee, only noble determination.  Caesar left Rome toward Gaul in his 43rd year.  He would be murdered on the Senate floor in a circle of daggers shortly following his 55th birthday.  12 years.  A Kingdom.

Phlox had reached the end of the beginning.  The Blue Water Grill was turning, still unfinished, but becoming its vision.  The weed, now isolated on the far wall, would be ignored.  Phlox knew this instinctively.  His primal energy would focus on forward tasks.  That which goes uncommented gathers strength, like accumulation of silent snow walls, avalanches blotting out mountains renewed with promise.  Untold power exists in slant.  Phlox would wait.

Feed the poor.  Mend the brokenhearted.  Protect the widow.  Rise up & deliver the Kingdom to all those who beg for their lives to go almost straight.  The tumble of weeds & dead flowers perched on the wall, like the red onions on his humble cheeseburger, represented a single truth.  Glory existed in every secret thing.  The sublime required that you open your eyes & submit.  Reward would follow.  All of the doubters, would know the truth.  It would never be spoken.  Photographs hang.  Lettuce wilts.