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Order this writing in the issue book Across the Wall the cc&d May-Aug. 2018 issues & chapbooks collection book		get the 372 page May-Aug. 2018 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN#035; paperback book:

Prophet

Greg G. Zaino

Earlier that morning in Providence,
on my way to meet a dope dealer,
I’d seen him standing on the corner
of Weybossett Street and Dorrance.
I’d known him from years past
when I took a state job in my twenties,
working then, as an Art therapist
at the hospital, ignorant assholes
referred to
as the “Nuthouse”.

There he was, outside of Dunkin Donuts,
wetness spreading down his grey pant leg.
We addicts and the juicers
referred to Phillip as ‘Prophet’.

Phil was paranoid schizophrenic; hallucinated,
but had a genius IQ and once
was someone folks looked up to,
now they’d just as soon spit on him.

His tattered appearance
and highly flavored smell of urine,
reviled passersby.
He was loathed by the self righteous;
these polished pillars of Providence
that preferred him locked away.

I handed Phil a dollar...

When the raggedy man
stopped taking his meds
he’d go off the hook,
be picked up by the cops,
and brought to my old place of employment,
the State of Rhode Island’s
psychiatric hospital in Cranston.

Phil was a gifted artist,
did fabulous pen and inks
pencil sketches, and watercolors.
My art paled at the time
compared to his ability.
But none of the upper echelon
of polite pricks knew any of this.
They detested his existence.
Everyone outside our realm
of drugs, alcohol, and homelessness,
saw Prophet as a piece of shit,
something to be walked around.

On the hill, outside the upscale
Providence Place Mall
you’d sometimes see Prophet,
spreading his message of impending doom
as horrified mothers, wearing fear,
held close their little ones;
saw him as one possessed,
and gave Phil wide berth,
crossed the street,
or stopped, and chose another entrance
on the sight of him.

The business district’s professionals,
in their smart Armani suits,
made direct complaints to the mayor’s office;
to the mayor himself,
who directed city cops
to do something about the fucking maniac.

Phillip was seen as poisonous- dangerous.
In hasty speech and malicious dialogue,
they’d demand his removal.
Out of sight- out of mind;
just another crazy bastard
that needs a straight jacket,
better off to be locked up for good!

The wild man knew that
the ignorant pointed jagged fingers at him,
but the young saw him as amusing,
felt no danger or hurt from the barefoot man.
Phil loved kids for their unpolluted hearts
and unbiased judgments.
Only the adults feared his illness,
and his words of disaster.
They shied away from him like pestilence.

At the Plaza that afternoon
with spittle flying off his tongue,
he spoke as one with an education.
Phil didn’t speak of some unseen God’s wrath,
but forecasted the end to it all
and the impending shutdown and collapse.

Booming with authority he spoke poetically
of the end of this existence,
when all would be brought low-
an upending of humanity,
of all creatures and continents.

“The heights of the ice covered peaks
will sink beneath the deepest seas!” yelled Prophet.
“They would be as if, they never existed at all!”

He drove it home to the small crowd,
spoke of the planet’s wobbling,
its poles shifting,
explained that the universe; like a lake’s bottom,
was going through a seasonal turning;
of being born once more
into something new; extraordinary.

In another life
Phil drove a silver car; one bought new
from an automobile plant in Germany.
He once owned a three story Victorian
on Providence’s high end, historical district;
the East Side.
In that other life he stood in a lecture hall
grasping the podium at Brown University
directing his talk to privileged ivy leaguers
lecturing on physics, astronomy,
and multi dimensional theory.

But that day in Burnside Park,
he merely stood defiant- lecturing us low born,
below the bronze statue of a larger than life,
disastrous Civil General
sitting astride his war horse.

I happened to be there
that late Spring afternoon,
taking in the sun, enjoying the day,
with another junkie; a gal named Lori,
who I’d been close to for about a year.
We had a little money in our pockets
a bundle and a half of dope between us,
and fresh diabetic syringes
we’d picked up that morning
at the needle exchange on Manton Avenue.

The poor and homeless addicts
like ourselves,
used the park as a meeting place.
somewhere to hang out until,
either being rousted by the cops,
leaving to grab a bus up to the meal site,
or heading to the homeless shelter at 5:00 pm.
Our days were predictable.

At its granite base his audience grew.
Phil’s voice carried.
Looking over the crowd- he spoke his truths,
cautioning all to put away hate for one another,
to cease the worrying, rage, cheating, and lying.

I saw two horse backed cops
coming like the 7th another two arrived and on foot.

The crowd had gained in numbers.
It was close to noon.
People sitting on the grass
were ordered to disperse.
Not a soul moved...
the cops had had their fill.

He cried out. “We only borrow time-
are given a beginning- and perhaps not...
be rewarded an eternity.”

Two policemen grabbed Phillip,
One at each arm,
but he managed to spit it out his last
before being dragged away.

“The days are short!”
Phil glanced upward and spoke once more.
“The Sun will rise and set for 2 months, 11 days,
and 19 minutes.
In a softer voice he finished.
“Then it all begins...”

His last words, before being removed,
Prophet screamed.
“Can you not see- Can anyone see at all?”
Johnny law held him in place.
They took Phil away.

The Providence police had a tale to tell,
laughed about it, shook their heads,
and told everyone the party was over.
Prophet was taken to the station
then shipped to the psychiatric hospital.

A few weeks later at Burnside park,
there below the statue where Phil lectured from
the day he was taken away,
I was alone that morning, sun on my face,
sitting in the grass and waiting for Lori.
I was trying to read a novel by Tolstoy,
but nodding from my ‘wake up’
the three bags of bomb dope,
I had just shot in the men’s room at city hall.

My thoughts turned to Prophet,
who was now up there having breakfast
at the institution.
I glanced at my cheap Timex watch,
smiled,
thinking...
Only one month,
seven days,
three hours,
twelve minutes...
and forty seconds remained
until the end of it all.
... Thirty nine,
thirty eight...

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