The Rat Sermon

from The Oasis by Cicada The Burrower

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lyrics

Once, the light bulb burst
in the popcorn machine.

It blazed like lightening for an instant,
and then in burned out.

The old projectionist—
(He has so many stories
about the way cinemas used to be.)
He told me where I could find a light
bulb, in a powdery, plaster storeroom.

It was deep within the theater's gut.
I needed a key.

When I got to the storeroom,
I pursued its messy shelves.
They were filled with forgotten objects,
rust-crusted hammers, fuses of various dimensions,
signs I had never seen before, and
a multiplicity of silver, moon-like bulbs
in ancient, water-marked boxes.

Entropy had taken hold of our provisions.
It was madness...

On the bottom shelf, in a dusty corner
of the room, I discovered
a large, glass mason jar,
containing a mummified rat.

I was compelled to examine
its gruesome remains.

The rat's eyes were like dim pearls,
and its mouth was held rigidly
agape, as though time had preserved
the moment, of its final breath.
Its carcass was emaciated,
like a weeping corpus, over
a purple congregation.

Soon, the rat's struggle had dawned on me.
Its pernicious fate had been starvation.

How long had it been trapped?
How ghastly! To view freedom,
like this wretched creature,
from the bindings of mortal captivity.

Had it struggled? Perhaps...

Perhaps, it had clawed frantically at the walls
of the jar.

Perhaps, it had squealed to
an indifferent silence. Pleading
for its amnesty, to the stillness of this place.

With or without struggle,
at a certain point,
fatigued, famished, and discouraged,
the rat laid upon its side,
and waited,
for the mercy of a failing heart.

This is all I knew of its death.

credits

from The Oasis, released October 23, 2014

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Cicada The Burrower Madison, Wisconsin

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