somniat 20: a standoff

somniat 20 – a standoff

They’ve always called it the atrium
and I’ve never known why;
what light there is, is near the ground
lighting up the fountain,
but the area above
disappears into thick shadows
that always leave you wondering
what’s up there
in all that blackness,
and if it’s an atrium,
then where is the sky?

Once I was a student
and I used to come here
and the atrium
was the center of my world:

… on one side the promenade
outdated and ancient, half-occupied
with the oddest and queerest of shops
selling nothing practical, but everything amusing,
comic books and knick-knacks,
science fiction themed adult toys,
magic charms and colorful rocks,
old books and funny games;
there were even stores that sold
somebody else’s used underwear.

… on the other side was the old cinema,
where once they used to show only the most avant-garde
and trendiest of films,
then when business began to fail, soft porn,
which they argued was of artistic merit —
but when too many began to complain
they became a twenty-four hour cinema
showing forgotten classics
around the clock.

These days, the only way up
to the hotel,
and the only way down
to the food court,
is through the atrium;
of course, nobody comes here now,
except artist wannabes,
lost students …
and now wingless dragonflies
that circle me
and dance with me
as I move slowly,
cautiously toward the center,
where the waterless fountain
dry burps some dust
but helps me not,
I saw an angel,
you must have seen her,
she came this way,
I don’t really want to bother her;
I just want to see her again,
to make sure she was real.

I’ve confounded them,
one of them shakes his head
and barks at the others,
most of them move off
and go back to doing what they were doing,
shutting the place down –
sliding large metal shutters
across the entrance to the promenade
trapping off whatever shop keepers
or customers still might be there
at this hour.

The two soldiers that stay with me,
point their rifles and are ready,
in their eyes
there is a cold familiar hate,
though mere moments ago
we were strangers.

Then there is scuffling,
a momentum, and again
these wingless angry dragonflies
begin to swarm together
to see what the approaching problem is.

There is a swelling emerging from the theater
pushing its way out through the cinema lobby,
mohawks, spiked waves, waterfalls of hair,
a stormy rainbow against black,
hooligans and delinquents,
who want out.

But the armed men in rain coats
with their bulbous goggle eyes
and their ventilated noses
have shifted
into either a chorus line
or an attack position;
there’s even more down here
than I’d realized, a whole flank
with rifles ready and aimed
to face
the maladjusted and the discontent,
and behind them –
nervous business men,
students in plaid,
nearly every lost reject
they tried to stuff into that theater
or seal off down in that food court,
they’re almost all here now
and they all want out.

But I’ve seen these soldiers’ eyes,
the hate and the fear,
and I feel, a rising wave of catastrophe
about to sweep over us all;
you’ll regret it when it done,
is what I think or what I say,
but I see no way to stop
this unfolding tragedy,
until out of no where
there is a chime,
angel bells, I’m sure,
and we all look up
as there a sudden brightness in room,
someone has set the entire ceiling afire
in an explosion
of light.