Monthly Archives: January 2012
somniat 25: chrysocolla
A hydrated copper silicate material;
blue-green — the color of an inland sea
up high on a mountain;
glue for soldering gold;
quartz, limonite, azurite, malachite,
and cuprite;
smooth and shapely, showing off their contours,
a world in world from deep within the earth;
all the rocks around me hum,
a tune of waiting written into the ripples and waves
of their multicolored layers
that now vibrate
and trill out a secret message
from a time before time.
My angel arrives with a white kit and a red cross
that she places on the ground next to me;
she has a glass of water and she hands it to me;
she opens her kit and finds a small bottle
of tiny white pills;
she twists off the cap and pours out two,
take these, it’ll help you.
The pills are bitter and bite my tongue,
where they cling with small insect like claws,
and even before they’ve been washed down
by the lukewarm, tasteless water in the glass
my heavenly nurse is at work again
drowning some cotton in a clear liquid
that reeks and bubbles with a pungent acidity;
mere moments afterwards she is hovering behind me
applying her evil mixture
so that my entire skull feels afire
as if it were coming apart,
my soul leaking out
into the world.
With nimble fingers, she takes white gauze and tape
and sets to work at plugging me up;
her hands come back, red with my own blood;
she forces a smile and her eyes nearly twinkle,
as she says,
you’re as good as you’ll ever be,
we should get going.
My angel disappears briefly
but is soon back and fully prepared;
she has on a slim backpack
and holds a wide eyed flashlight
that glares at me and makes me blink;
my celestial savior reaches out her hand
and I take it;
her hot energy pulsates once again into me;
her soul replenishes me;
so I stand and think that I’m fine,
but almost immediately my whole world reels
as blood rushes to my head
and everything begins to blacken out
to angel shouts of breathe, breathe!
Poison and disease;
illusion and reality;
dreams from which there is no waking;
I must be gone only seconds
for when I come back, I’m still standing,
and my angel with hands of steel is balancing me
under my arms
while looking up at me with eyes so large
they hold all the blackness of space
and the hope of the stars;
you can do this,
she assures me,
you can do this.
Perhaps the pills she gave me finally kick in,
or maybe its my faith in her
that rises to a new height;
either way, my head begins to clear,
as I realize the air I breathe is tinged
with the sweet, perfume smell of her;
so much so,
that I want to lean in,
perhaps to steal a kiss —
but something she told me
once before I met her
comes back to me,
a story of dreams and drugs and disease
and a world yet untouched, begging for mercy –
for a few seconds, I remember.
I stand up straight and steady myself,
there’s still a way to go;
I smile at my angel for the first time today,
as I tell her, thank you.
somniat 24: heat
I don’t know what happened,
they just came in all of the sudden
and made everyone leave;
I hid in the back … yes …
I think I know another way out,
but it wouldn’t be easy;
it is then that she looks up,
and it is then that she sees me;
Jesus,
I’ll call you back.
She slowly hangs up the phone
and stares at me
for about the time it would take
for an idea to blossom;
her eyes are at first awash in a shallow angst
but gradually they give way to a profound pity;
and I accept it;
I let it wash over me
for I know now (and again)
that she is to be my salvation
and my redemption;
I will not make it out of here
without her.
She steps out of the shop cautiously
and with great care approaches me
glancing left and right, up and down the promenade,
to assure herself we are alone;
once satisfied, she slowly circles me,
like a predator to its prey
or like an animal wary of a trap –
a slow cautious feline dance
that ends with her so close
I can feel the heat from her body
and all at once I shiver.
You’re bleeding,
she shyly croons;
her voice is a gentle caress across inner wounds;
her eyes — probes that see deep within
as they hover over my own eyes,
pausing, for a moment of uncertainty.
She makes a decision;
come on, she says,
and she reaches out to take my hand.
I let her fingers curl around my own
and am infused by a fluid, melting energy
that immediately begins to seep into me;
I begin to think
I could die now
and it would be okay.
She leads me into the shop of rocks
and in front of a display of chrysocolla
she sits me down on a hard, cold, wooden chair;
when she tries to let go of my hand,
I won’t let her;
I realize I must be crying
because she’s wiping a tear away from me
just below my left eye;
we’re face to face now
and I’m drowning in the fathomless pools of her eyes;
you’re going to be okay,
she whispers,
I’m going to help you;
but I need you to trust me,
and I need you to listen to me;
first, let go of my hand.
I let go, and when I do so,
a stinging frost sweeps over me;
I shiver and shudder
as the whole world withdrawals from me
and I’m sucked into a deep pocket of frigid emptiness;
she puts a hand to my forehead
and looks up with immensely sad, dreaming eyes;
then she says,
you’re burning up.
somniat 23: parousiamania
I open my eyes
and I hear the ringing again
echoing across quivering black walls
that stretch in strange ways
so that I think, I could just reach out with my fingers
and touch the ceiling of the promenade
but when I try
it fades from from my touch —
was it always like this?
I used to come here, religiously;
Saturday mornings would always find me
in the used book store, the old musty book smell –
incense for my soul;
the old balding owner with his dropping glasses
would let me sit on the floor anywhere,
while I browsed through yellowed paged books
and wondered about lives now gone but still aflame;
then, after that, if there was still time
I’d always go the trinket shop
where they had small carved out wooden Buddhas,
and jeweled elephant figurines next to statuettes of monkey gods
and multi-armed ice-blue Shivas;
then finally after perhaps a detour or two,
I’d end it all with a visit to the shop of rocks
where I’d gaze at spheres of lapis lazuli
and touch small pyramids of aragonite.
A phone rings again and I can see the sound;
it is a white pulsation that shimmers through the dimness
past the ghosts of yesterday,
ancient specters that cry out for a world now gone;
this time, I find myself able to reach out
so that I can literally touch the sound
and bring it to my lips;
its taste, a sad, sweet, melancholic liquor –
the rush of nostalgia is so intense
I heave and gush out all my memories
and am left a blank and empty slate;
I’m suddenly on my knees, retching out
nothing but air — and a bitter bile;
what did they make do?
I steady myself, and stand up again,
I follow the panorama of sound –
a white glowing platinum smoke that pulsates with each ring;
I go past the book store, and the old man is there again,
though he died years ago —
he smiles at me and winks an eye,
he knows something;
and I walk past the trinket shop,
where I find that the little monkey gods have broken out of their molds
and ride atop the jeweled elephants trumpeting in parousiamania,
while all the ice-blue Shivas have come to life and dance,
arms like soft waves of water amid an aura of flames,
and all of it so mesmerizes me
that for a moment I remember who I was,
way back when
I still believed.
I continue to follow the light of the ringing,
the effervescent waves that ripple across the darkness;
this leads me nearly the entire length of the promenade
all the way to the shop of rocks
where I find its source,
an old black rotary dial phone that sits on a counter
and now rings in heavenly bells that play out a gentle melody
as it calls to my soul.
I see her hand first, as she reaches for the receiver;
she has smooth, delicate, gentle fingers — exquisite,
and as she picks up the phone, I follow her fingers
all the way to her face, and I have to catch my breath,
for her eyes are bottomless pools of soul, reflecting back
deep substrates of buried feeling;
her entire face glows, a flame in the blackness,
a warmth in the coldness;
she has soft straw colored hair that falls haphazardly
not quite making it to her shoulders;
she has full lips that curve up
to a place somewhere between compassion and foreboding;
she has changed forms,
but I know I have found my angel.
somniat 22: basalt and ebony
I stand and face a wide twisting tunnel
of black turbulent waters that have frozen in time;
infinity plays out a game with itself
across endless shades of basalt and ebony;
this games stretches out the entire length
of an underground promenade
as it slowly rises past dimly lit doorways
toward a massive gargoyle face,
its gaping mouth,
nothing but unappeasable and unruly teeth
that grit back half a century
of ignobility
Moments ago, I was in the atrium,
where now, behind me — through steel shutters,
a shot rings out,
a muffled sound that echoes
all the way down my spine
where it shimmers through the small of my back
until I convulsively shutter;
there is another shot
and then another
and then nothing.
I stand motionless and wait
for the whole world to open up
and swallow me whole;
then I hear someone
on the other side of the steel partition,
I hold my breath and wait,
but all that I hear now is a clicking,
a lock, sliding into place –
the atrium being sealed off.
I close my eyes,
and I make myself breathe:
in, out;
in, out;
in, out;
it’s not as easy
as it once was.
Somewhere a phone rings
and I can’t tell if it’s here
or there, before –
for a moment I’m back at home,
lifting up the receiver
and someone is telling me
(she has the voice of an angel):
it’s time,
it’s time,
you have to go now, Adam,
at the hotel,
they’re doing it,
they’re really doing it,
hurry.
Tears begin to form in my eyes;
drip, drop
tap, tap
drip, drop,
tap cliiick –
under the table at the food court,
a small surprise,
nobody sees it but me;
I know what it means,
because I know what I’ve done;
I have thrown my soul into the pot
and am playing the devil a hand;
no wonder I chase an angel.
