what crawls from the dregs of Britain’s stereophonic lab (room 39) to nest in my neighbor’s eardrum, banishing humdrum, basket flung, bald and irreplaceable in an instant?
color overwhelming, arriving in twisted hues to mixed reviews: scrawled and sprawled, flawed, flavored in the semen of Sunday.
no time to carve totems for this something-or-other in the animated awesome of outfit change. child white-masked and ear-covered, me red-striped and white dancing demons to 4AM slumber. all before the cab ride and a discount earned from singing “landslide” just right before the day hit rewind and his head was soft exhausted.
dream one: ethereal hummingbird, translucent and pink-winged, nectar-seeking beak escapes light-mask, drinks of me. So that explains it. Introductory perception of faery confection.
This is my confession.
dream two: the moan to groan calls colors home, summons ancients crouched lion in reverse pyramids, spinning circles in micro-waves. they come towards the beacon blasted, the sore spot stinking of tree sap, to the tongue waterfall crawled sparing no fin no gills hunting for those blue-tinted and spider-eyed.
Do you remember me, like this?
and in this late night hour I milk old heartache from my sleeves and wonder why no one reads Elizabeth Smart when she’s among the few sensible enough to be hysterical, choked declarations of preferring dogs to children and corncobs to men. No one raided the farm land like she did. No one vacuumed the glamor from Grand Central and reduced it to assholes with speech impediments panhandling for fetuses they never showed to claim.
Straight jackets make terrible lovers.
Be a man already, you bowling ball.
I’ve been awake like this since Monday.
faery person pulling perfect shots from phantom machines to tiger stripe my eyes. I nod into caffeine foam oh yes oh yes om aum OHM this should brighten, it really should, and he watches me nod off right at the table and dream a gold tooth cigar-soaked laugh, coaxing naked forward. Oh yes. Oh yes.
waking aggravated, anxious, scratching at coming something, new sound escaping hidden hallway, new sound removing swords and trapping them in lakes. It just isn’t safe to swim anywhere these days.
and he swears he’s going to listen, and what does that mean? anchored to observation deck so long, how can he record me recording? monocle for bifocal, hearing aid for sonar. neither of us bats. this is a crow’s game.
always, the eye in your window.