Poet & writer R.M. Engelhardt is the host of Albany, NY's School Of Night and has been published in such journals & on line zines as Poetry Magazine, Outsider Ink.com, Sure! The Charles Bukowski Newsletter, Verve, Mobius, The Georgetown Review, Getunderground.com, My Favorite Bullet in and many others. He is also the founder of such poetry groups as www.AlbanyPoets.org (com) as well as the Central Muse Division.

I WAS ONCE DEAD TOO
In a famous painting
of Christ nailed to
and crucified upon the cross
I am the watching
leper on the right.
And with my one good eye
I watch as Jesus dies
and screams up into
darkening sky asking
his father for a reason
why?
And then, suddenly
as the clouds open up
and the rain begins
the Romans scatter like mice,
the water, burning off their
flesh like corrosive acid.
As I feel the wetness upon my
skin like the warmth of a beautiful woman
touching my face, I raise my
hands outward, and I am healed.
When a voice comes
which tells me I am now
the angel of death, and the
watcher in the eternity
that is time, wandering
the earth.
The screams of both Jesus,
and his murderers the Romans
now a distant sound & memory
in a world without messiahs
or miracles to amaze us.
Only questions
which remain unanswered.