22 April 2008

for judas

the other day I met the Big man behind the biochem lab where I'll be doing research this summer. he smiles, gestures, welcomes me as a new acolyte; projects are discussed, chemical reactions go up on the white board. i politely resist the urge to say that
it strikes me, increasingly,
how quick stainless steel and plastic entirely replaced stained glass and iron crosses as the ornate monument to a myopic obsession with invisible things. these new alters are maintained (much the same) by devoted, celibate young monks in robes of white; now their gloved hands hold not chalices but pipettes, with bunson burners to light the sacrament.
maybe cause i am not a man i cant revere this dissection, vivisection, the deep satisfaction of gutting, cutting, pulling everything apart into tiny pieces, separating gray into black and white.
even the smallest molecules themselves cannot have their peace: we drown them in magnetic fields till they are forced to let go of everything and fall apart.
once the last fragmentation is complete, he at the helm turns toward me
so delighted in all this golden hubris,
with his pale face bathed in the green glow of so many machines.

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