Nikola Tesla in Budapest, 1881

The particular malady that now affected him was never

diagnosed. One of the symptoms was an acute sensitivity of

all the sense organs . . . this sensitivity was so tremendously

exaggerated that the effects were a form of torture.

John J. O'Neal, THE LIFE OF NIKOLA TESLA

I felt daylight flame beneath my skin

as the burning circuits of my veins

mapped each muscle.

I could scarcely stand the air,

its prickling static-

friction of dust and filament.

And for weeks,

I lay in padded darkness.

Each Sunday,

when the sound of church bells pounded,

memory's waves rang through me:

I was the child

who watched his father rehearse sermons,

who climbed the bell tower

and pulled ropes in the rung sunlight

as rafters exploded with birds.

But how wrong I was

to fear and praise that dim god.

My father's myths and hymns

told nothing of the ignited Christ,

God of the Charge

who gives no redemption.

My nerves have felt His currents,

the spinning coil of His fury.

The universe crackles,