The Hour of the Neighborhood Frog King

The Hour of the Neighborhood Frog-King

 

Where have all the flowers gone? What happened to all of the poppies?

    The answer is, the Roman soldiers trampled them when they were raising up the cross on which they nailed Adonoi.

    Hello, this is the Frog-King, broadcasting on Paranoid Alien Radio, to ask you now, where have the young girls gone? The answer is, that you are tuned in on a soap opera. There are no perfect lovers, only duets and triangles which demonstrate how thorny a soap-opera pretty rose can really be.

    Do we ask why Isis weeps? Look out on the Aegean Sea, and you shall see reflection of a dreadful moment.

    The Great God Pan is dead.

    Didn’t the same thing happen to the Runner of the Marathon? Was it not with his dying breath that he delivered his victory message to Athens?

    And don’t we all discover in the end, that each one of us has been running a marathon race, which we can only win by crossing over, and leaving this world behind?

    Hello Again. This is your friendly Neighborhood Frog-King from a not so distant star, broadcasting over Paranoid Alien Radio. Do you understand, why we have been brought here?

    I used to have a tail that was so fine it would shine in the darkness. In those days, I used to be a preacher. I’d put the people into a trance, and all the pretty women would lay out their fish-baskets in front of me, and ask me to jump into bed. But then I made a mistake, because I started telling them, that my green and gold tail was much prettier than anything that God had. That’s why the Angel of Judgement came for me. With one whack of Her double axe, she severed my tail from my spine.

    That’s why I became the bandit who rides through the Staked Plain, driven by the pain of his lost tail. I still will be fleeing the men that I’ve killed and searching for my lost Evangeline, even after the real-estate agents have drawn and quartered Santa Fé, and platted the suburbs of Taos.

    “I’ve always known that the Priest and the Satanist hve a dirty secret in common,” Renata declares, with a certain set of her jaw. “That’s why the time has come when both the Patriarchs and their familiars must step aside, so that the Corn- Mother may return in glory from the underworld into which the Myths of the Fathers have cast her.”

    “Then let us be joined, in our commitment to bring about that transmutation,” I declare.

    “I’ve got to keep my distance, because I am still shattered by the pain,” she complains, with hurt emotions. “I’ve got to hide my love for you, because I am afraid to take the risk of having any more accidents.”

    “You speak as though it were a sin to acknowledge the reality of class conflict,” I make my counter-complaint.

    “I’ve reached the limits of what I can do for the struggle,” she demands emphatically.

    The trouble is, not only have I heard these words before – I have been the one who uttered them.