Author Archives: matt

Somniat 27 – the lolling tongue

She drinks the blood
of those who have gone before her
and her tongue wallows in the wounds
of those life has left behind
as she tastes their defeat
and thrives on it;
she is time
and she is death
and it is ill advised to walk before her
unless an angel has lent you her strength
and guides your every step.

A narrow beam of light
is all that we have in the utter dark
and there is not a sound that can be heard
except our own footsteps that echo across the walls
and slowly die
each time we stop to pause and listen;
oh, and then, what we see when we are still,
in our narrow beam of light.

I’ve heard so much about this stairway,
about the effort to have its artwork painted over,
whitewashed;
the painted walls and steps were an immediate embarrassment
to those who had commissioned the work
and they had literally gagged upon first seeing it;
complaints from the city counsel soon followed
and at minimum they demanded that the edges of each step
be marked in black and yellow stripes;
but deaf ears, big money, and smart attorneys all worked in concert
to preserve what many said was a rare work of exquisite art –
they said, it would be a sin against humanity to have it removed;
so instead of repainting the steps and the accompanying passage walls,
two signs were put up, one in the subway and one in the promenade,
warning those who traversed the stairway
to take care and not fall prey its visual illusions;
yet even with the signs
each year there would be new injuries
and even occasional deaths;
the controversy never really ended,
it just faded away
when the trains stopped coming
and the subway station finally closed.

Where my angel shines her light
we see small circles of darkness;
a series of small floating lopped off heads
strung out like pearls along a necklace,
each with vacant eyes that stare out at us
with an emptiness so solid, it fills us with dread,
a sinking sense of doom;
and over, around them, beyond them,
there are long powerful feminine arms
that stretch out nearly the entire length of the stairway,
each with skin the color of a thundercloud just before it bursts;
and each ending in a wide hand of scarlet,
and each of these in turn clutching a separate and distinct object:
a trident with thick stylized threatening teeth,
a wildly curved falchion fresh from the kill,
a severed head that drips blood down into
a bowl shaped out of a half skull that rests in yet another hand,
– this bowl lets off an eerie colored fire
and when we pass it, I feel sure I can feel its heat;
there is more,
a hand that holds incense I can almost smell
– sweet, cloying, fragrant quietus;
so many arms, so many hands, so many destinies;
and they all converge on a single point.

My heavenly chaperon now shines her light forward
up the lolling tongue
which is what they always called the stairway
because it was painted in such a way
as to give one the visual sense that they were not walking on a stairway at all
but instead upon a smooth, wet, pink plane, that gently curved inward;
and though surely the width never changed
from the top down, people were sure, the surface became tapered and rounded,
while from to bottom up, the effect was just the opposite;
and on either side of the lolling tongue
dripped the depiction of dark crimson streams
that unnerved all onlookers.

As we near the top, we see it,
my angel shines her light upon it,
the famed face of the demon goddess –
so hated in her era and by so many,
yet after all this time
still here, glaring down at those who approach
with eyes that change as you move
so that if you shift just the right way
you’ll see compassion,
but shift a little more, and there’ll be contempt,
love, passion, hurt, anger, lust, scorn
ribaldry, irony, and back to contempt,
a kaleidoscope of feeling,
I try it again and move more slowly,
this time I catch shades of shyness
and ripples of jealousy,
just a taste of euphoria
but a slap of impatience;
no wonder so many slipped on the smooth stairs
as they shifted and wondered
what was it that this goddess really felt;
and then there was and still is
her third eye, up on her forehead,
a vertical slit that stared out empty and void,
unblinking, it followed you,
so wherever you were on the stairway
it was there on you;
its touch, palpable.

Finally, we reach the stairway’s summit
where the lolling tongue drips from its egress,
so that to step into the subway station
is to go through the mouth of the goddess
and be devoured by her.

As we advance on the last steps
what starts in me as a slight shiver
at once becomes an uncontrollable shudder;
I look up at the goddess
and through the darkness I can see her eyes;
she glares down at me
in a preternatural hate;
my world begins to spin
and I fall backwards
in a weightless vertigo;
but my angel has caught me
in the cusp of her arms
and for an instant, I’m sure,
we are hovering over the stairway;
my angel has wings that glow a cold fiery blue,
so bright,
I have to shut my eyes;
and when I open them again
we are safe and on our feet
in the subway station.

You almost fell,
she says lightly, almost laughing,
but I caught you.

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somniat 26 — what the gargoyle saw

Over its mocking mouth
and over its misshapen, oversized nose,
the gargoyle’s eyes are all that’s left of its menace;
huge, deep, and hollow,
they glare down the entire length of the promenade,
carefully crafted and put into place, back when everything
down here, so far underground,
was still fresh, and the amorphous walls
still wet and dripping in their peculiar molds.

Back then, each shop wasn’t just a curiosity
full of the trite and the worn, the camp and the discarded,
but instead each was a boutique
that represented the cutting edge,
small studios that featured the avant la lettre;
whether it was in painting or in fashion
or even in odd forms of miniature architecture,
it was here first, deep under the earth,
where creation was overflowing,
bursting at the seams in stunning innovation;
it was even here that Umhala Marsuya
turned in her first public minuet at sixteen to an mere audience of ten,
long before she danced at the Bella Vista Theater to an audience of a thousand;
and it was here that you could come to stand within inches Roy Murad
as he painted each stroke of the Cherchez la Femme
that now hangs in the Nirgendwo gallery
behind a wall of glass, where it can only be seen
by appointment and by the right people.

But time has outlasted the promenade,
where with the ending of so called great economy
the artists packed it up and went elsewhere
and the trains stopped coming
and the wide mouth of gargoyle
that led the way to subway was patched over
with wide planks of plywood that were painted the color of ash
and gave the once menacing monster comically unruly teeth
which eventually gave way to the bright spectacle of graffiti
along with bits and pieces of words,
poetry that had accumulated over the years.

It is under the haunting eyes of the gargoyle
that we move toward our destination
at a pace so languid that on any other day
you would mistake us for a couple newly in love
taking a stroll somewhere out-of-the-way;
but even as my angel holds my hand, tenderly,
I know
we’ll never be lovers
and we’ll never be friends.

We are finally there, so close,
we stand under the gargoyle’s eyes
where they can no longer reach us;
my guardian with one hand in mine
and the other holding our light
searches the graffiti for something,
I don’t know what;
but she stops her light at this or that place
and reads aloud little bits of poetry;
her voice is solemn and unexpectedly sad:

Love sets us free
she reads, and
tears such as angels weep
and
where flaming wheels begin to run
and
the time of youth has fled
and grey hairs are on my head;
she closes her eyes and sighs,
where is it?

I see it before she does,
and I point it out,
Mercy, pity, peace
is the world’s release

That’s it,
she whispers,
and she almost smiles.

She puts her flashlight down
and faces me;
she lets her fingers trace briefly across my cheek
I’m letting you go,
and before I’ve protested
she lets go of my hand,
and soon is at work
on the piece of plywood where I found the message;
it is lose,
parts of its edge must have worn out long ago;
it doesn’t take long to pull it free
and then we have to step back quickly
as it nearly falls on top of us both;
the clang as it hits the ground
echoes down the promenade
and we look up at the gargoyle
half expecting its eyes to have shifted.

My angel take up her flashlight again
and shines it toward the new opening,
we see a long wide pink surface leading up
toward the old and unused subway station;
she puts her hand back in mine
as we duck under the board above
and slip out of the promenade;
but I stop her for a moment
and I look back
to remember it
one last time, before whispering,
good-bye.

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somniat — 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.

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somniat – 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.

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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.

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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.

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somniat 21: a festival of stars

The light is so bright
it blinds us;
it hits one spot first,
and then another over there,
and then one more,
and then yet another –
until the entire room
bounces and glistens
with sparkles and gleams;
so much light
down here so deep,
it’s as if world had turned
inside out.

Ah, and what we see,
everywhere up on that ceiling
that has lain so black for so long
is now nothing
but bright, shimmering, capricious stars
that float and burn in a multitude of colors,
chartreuse and teal,
gamboge and ecru,
azure and cyan,
amaranth and crimson,
magenta and cerise –
blinding out the blackness;
and these stars, they dance;
they caper across an infinite space
in a joyful frolic, a prance –
not just above us
but all around us,
an endless milky way of stars;
so that even the wingless dragonflies
stop ventilating
and their nervous trigger fingers
relax.

And I see it there,
a constellation that strums
the strings of my heart
and plays a tune
in the form of angel;
a secret message
that points me toward
the promenade,
so that now I know
where she’s gone.

I’m not really so far,
and there’s still a small crack in the shutters,
so with everyone looking up,
I slip back, a few steps,
and then a few steps more,
and then I’m through,
and then I’ve shut the final shutter,
and then I’m alone
in the promenade
that slopes up
toward where my angel
has gone.

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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.

somniat 19 — wingless dragonflies

An orange soda tips over at the counter
and spills out its contents
over scattered bits of popcorn
and abandoned licorice pastels,
then begins to drip
onto a plush black carpet –
no one mans the concession stand,
but I hear a soft movement,
a shuffling not far from the cash register;
I don’t know who’s there,
but I don’t call out to them
because I know its not her.

I leave the cinema lobby
through large double doors
that lead out, into to the atrium,
a massive underground chamber
centered around a fountain, that once
must have been spectacular,
but has since dried and cracked,
becoming a place for cigarette butts,
occasional trash and accumulated dust,
aluminum cans.

I am not alone,
there are men moving about
in funny full suited rain coats,
army green,
with goggles that give them
large circular bug eyes
and a nozzle that elongates their noses
and accentuates the sound of their breathing;
long exasperated, belabored breathes;
as they shout at me
and point their impressive rifles;
I haven’t time for this,
this game they are playing.

There are two ways down to the food court,
an elevator
and a long spiraling stairway –
tucked away in its own alcove;
the elevator has been shut down,
and the alcove sealed with a sliding metal shutter;
behind that shutter there is an intense banging,
and a voice that cries –
I look to see if I can open it
but I’m pushed away
by the butt of a rifle;
and I turn to see
eyes behind that bugged out mask,
inflamed and threatened,
ready to kill me.

A pack of soldiers, a swarm,
surrounds me,
I don’t know how many there are
but I’m their problem now
and they will unravel me;
they are dragonflies that buzz about me,
fearful and angry,
because their wings have been pulled off;
I stand still
and when, for a brief moment,
their bickering drone pauses,
I tell them,
I saw an angel.

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