We’re afraid of everyone–
Afraid of the sun — John Lennon
I’m amazed at how consistent
people are with their love
for the sun and so-called
“wonderfully-sunny weather.”
It may be the Mozart-playing
vampire in my genetic woodpile,
but my gut aches with dread to see
a bright red sun in the sky. It makes
me squint hard like Clint Eastwood
in a bloodsoaked spaghetti western
unrelieved by love or sentimentality.
Yet the sun is guilty of far more
heinous crimes, like bringing out
the burglars, rapists, and obnoxiously
loud neighbors. Nietzsche wrote that
mankind is a diseaes on the skin of the
Earth, and more than 50 years on this
whirling ball of dirt has taught me the
worth of those words. So the next time
you’re basking in your love of that
flaming ball of cancer above,
remember the droughts and the
life-destroying crimes going down
on a brightly-lit boulevard near
you.
— Fyodor Bukowski, author of Mail-Order Annie