Modesty in Flames

author’s note:

I caught the movie Indestructible Man a few years ago at the New Orleans Worst Film Festival.

I’m sorry if I’ve ruined the ending for you.


INDESTRUCTIBLE

The title would seem to be
misleading...

because Indestructible Man
erupted into raging fire
at the end of the movie.

But was he really destroyed?

True, he would no longer
rampage the land--no longer
be ruled by an anger
born from the incessant bullwhip.

But was he really destroyed?

In a recurrent dream
I know I have to step
on a certain round green stone
in the road, though I know
the stone will explode me--

impaled on shearing points
of a merciless wind,
I’ll be broken to bits
in a mad wrathful rush--yes

but even worse:
I will not become
unconscious--I will not
receive that black relief--

to fully appreciate hell
I must remain aware.

I do not have to step on that stone
yet I must step on that round stone.

Sometimes you see a sledgehammer
and you know in an instant
that sledgehammer owns you
for the next fifty years--

other times, you don’t know
then realize decades later
that you did know.

Or you see someone draining
his blood into an irrigation ditch

and you know he will soak through you
over the next fifty years.

He will because
you are indestructible.

And when someone asks “why did you?”

my reasonable excuses feel like lies.

But modesty will not allow me
to say what I wish to say
--except in a poem:

“I am indestructible--
 my arm may bleed,
 my feet may curse,
 my head may burst

 but

 I stepped on that bomb,
 I picked up that sledgehammer,
 I carried that broken body

 because I am indestructible--

 and yet I need to be destroyed

 because I’m still a long way
 from the core--so I know
 I’ll jump on many more
 round green stones
 in this road--

 but I also realize
 that I am--in that brief ringing--
 a brilliant nova
 at the top of the tower.
 No longer a ghost
 but the streak of a comet--
 shedding light
 through my universal home.”

© 2008, Michael R. Patton
dream steps
earnest audio