Free The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly by Denis Johnson Page A

the studious array
    of little crucifixions in the vineyards,
    they know how we begin to disbelieve
    the moon and stars,
    and the wild
    deer who blows over the road,
    and how we are visited by craft from distant worlds,
    people who come near but never land.
    Oh they know
    the tortures of sweetness,
    these young girls
    waiting under the beautiful eyes of billboards.

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly
    James Hampton, 1909, Elloree, SC—1964, Washington, DC Custodian, General Services Administration; Maker of The Throne
    1
    I dreamed I had been dreaming,
    And sadness did descend.
    And when from the first dreaming
    I woke, I walked behind
    The window crossed with smoke and rain
    In Washington, DC,
    The neighbors strangling newspapers
    Or watching the TV
    Down on the rug in undershirts
    Like bankrupt criminals.
    The street where Revelation
    Made James Hampton miserable
    Lay wet beyond the glass,
    And on it moved streetcorner men
    In a steam of crossed-out clues
    And pompadours and voodoo and
    Sweet Jesus made of ivory;
    But when I woke, the headlights
    Shone out on Elloree.
    Two endless roads, four endless fields,
    And where I woke, the veils
    Of rain fell down around a sign:
    FRI & SAT JAM W/ THE MEAN
    MONSTER MAN & II.
    Nobody in the Elloree,
    South Carolina, Stop-n-Go,
    Nobody in the Sunoco,
    Or in all of Elloree, his birthplace, knows
    His name. But right outside
    Runs Hampton Street, called, probably,
    For the owners of his family.
    God, are you there, for I have been
    Long on these highways and I’ve seen
    Miami, Treasure Coast, Space Coast,
    I have seen where the astronauts burned,
    I have looked where the Fathers placed the pale
    Orange churches in the sun,
    Have passed through Georgia in its green
    Eternity of leaves unturned,
    But nothing like Elloree.
    2
    Sam and I drove up from Key West, Florida,
    Visited James Hampton’s birthplace in South Carolina,
    And saw The Throne
    At The National Museum of American Art in Washington.
    It was in a big room. I couldn’t take it all in,
    And I was a little frightened.
    I left and came back home to Massachusetts.
    I’m glad The Throne exists:
    My days are better for it, and I feel
    Something that makes me know my life is real
    To think he died unknown and without a friend,
    But this feeling isn’t sorrow. I was his friend
    As I looked at and was looked at by the rushing-together parts
    Of this vision of someone who was probably insane
    Growing brighter and brighter like a forest after a rain—
    And if you look at the leaves of a forest,
    At its dirt and its heights, the stuttering mystic
    Replication, the blithering symmetry,
    You’ll go crazy, too. If you look at the city
    And its spilled wine
    And broken glass, its spilled and broken people and hearts,
    You’ll go crazy. If you stand
    In the world you’ll go out of your mind.
    But it’s all right,
    What happened to him. I can, now
    That he doesn’t have to,
    Accept it.
    I don’t believe that Christ, when he claimed
    The last will be first, the lost life saved—
    When he implied that the deeply abysmal is deeply blessed—
    I just can’t believe that Christ, when faced
    With poor, poor people aspiring to become at best
    The wives and husbands of a lonely fear,
    Would have spoken redundantly.
    Surely he couldn’t have referred to some other time
    Or place, when in fact such a place and time
    Are unnecessary. We have a time and a place here,
    Now, abundantly.
    3
    He waits forever in front of diagrams
    On a blackboard in one of his photographs,
    Labels that make no sense attached
    To the radiant, alien things he sketched,
    Which aren’t objects, but plans.
    Of his last dated
    Vision he stated:
    â€œThis design is proof of the Virgin Mary descending
    Into Heaven…”
    The streetcorner men, the shaken earthlings—
    It’s easy to imagine his hands
    When looking at their hands
    Of leather, loving on the necks
    Of