(painting by Dan Lacey)
HURRICANE FLOYD - a mytho-poetic reading of current events.
by Rubadiri Victor
For those of us who believe such things
the turning point was when,
in those last moments,
facing the inevitable,
George Floyd called upon his Ancestors -
Mother.
In that one act -
uttered on the cusp of time
when the warm expansive waters of tropical oceans
are furiously evaporating,
forming dense clouds
whipped into frenzy by the Earth's rotation,
like children whipped
into delirium by the idea of freedom -
it was in that moment
that the hurricane entered George
and his mother enacted his deification.
His resurrection.
His Mother -
the Ancestor -
heard her Son,
and answered.
An Elder Artist-
a Grand Master-
a giant of a man,
was present with the president
when his bodyguard was killed by gangsters.
He said to me, "They can come for me, but I will tell them, you want a ghost for your gun, that equation is steel and flesh, but -
can you tote my Spirit?"
Well as it would turn out
those 4 officers
(led by the spirit of a Klansman -
the unholy spirit of an overseer retrieving the sacred icon of a runaway slave)
could not tote George's Spirit.
George's Spirit picked them up
and tossed them off his back
like a rodeo horse
Into spiralling winds.
The old Native American women
heard the winds and said,
"It is time."
And came and danced a circle around his eye,
the place where he ascended,
strengthening the wind,
fulfilling the prophecy
that said their dance would be required
to heal the Nation.
The sound of their dresses
tapped Morse code
on the heavens
and the vault began to open
and the deities all began to arrive
from their constellations
for the coronation
sitting in a Coliseum round
with the sphere of the world
in a whirlwind of cloud
below them
waiting on George
to abandon the avatar
and join them.
This is how big George is now!
At this moment,
with his face
immortal on walls and hearts
multiplied all over the world,
we are witnessing
the creation of a god.
"Can you tote my Spirit?"
he asked the slavers.
His Mother answered for them,
"No!"
Four could not go into one.
And the winds picked up,
pelting children into the street,
sending tyrants scurrying into bunkers,
and sending madmen with guns madder still
shooting into the air.
The cyclone tore down the Big old House on the hill
and the old statues of generals in the square.
It tore down walls and
blew roofs off of treacherous buildings.
There was nowhere to hide.
Old ghosts came out into the streets
naked,
their shame limp and plain for all to see,
chains were shaken loose-
such was the fury of George's passing...
With the wind raging outside the bunker
and the allied forces closing in,
the tyrant clutched an upside down bible and called for curfew -
but the children ignored the call
and instead danced into the street
past their bedtime
in the pregnant winds,
playing catch around the guns and tanks
and pelting the toy soldiers
back into their box.
And the winds roared on,
scattering tea leaves and presumptions,
Powers and Principalities
as George gathered strength
and ascended to take his seat
amongst the Gods.
And as he touched the Throne
the clouds burst
with the wild trumpet of change,
and the rains lashed
the unholy,
flooding the bunker
as the last shot rang out...
The morning after
nothing was the same
after the fury of George's passing.
The old things were all washed away.
Something new and true
would have to be built
upon the Promise,
as the children laughed and played
in the receding waters...
(painting by Dan Lacey)
Replies
A Rembrandt of our time.