Isn't it strange…
Sure
the hybrid crawling. It might be some ancient beast from a crevice way down in
the sea, a genetic experiment or an alien baby taking inverted vengeance to defend the virginity of the sky. Dust turned to flame
and burned.
::::::::::::::::::::
up,
*Looking ^
I took in
the sight *
* of our
sacred *
glow
holy mother, *
ing gloriously
pale quiet reflecting *
* in the center of the sky
a holy moon
blazing *
in stars, the perfection of
the night sky.
I would be going there soon, I would. From the top of a high
mountain: icy white beams shooting straight
metaphysical
presence the glory of release.
Down
below in the sickness of city, the world was nothing but plague, and I didn't have to complexion to make a home in
the valley
or starve all night in poor places, fearing sickness. So transcendence absconded me,
freeing the body, up to whatever grove of richness on the surface of the moon.
I was going there,
I could.
Senseless as the gesture might be, I was sick
of climbing
high
mountains.
::::::::::::::::::::
I met her atop a building. For miles a broken city spat plumes of fire, lighting vivid reflections of the sky, paths still gleaming in sea. We stood at an equal distance from each other, with the wind in our hair. I wanted to see her, couldn't stand to say goodbye: a problem. All my life I've never been good at letting go of things; not myself, not my trace in others. Drops of blood, from my arm and legs, beaded and fell. I stumbled.
"Do you really have to go?"
She nodded.
Do you really…
standing Munch shadows, solid color and a vague absence of shape. In her eyes
reflecting the embers of this goddamn burning city: a sacrifice to whatever unnamed, unnoticed gods. Our capitalist fingers; never. Breath caught in my throat a pained tears of choking.
"Don't go," I said. "You can't."
She closed her eyes, long lashes touching together, fine fine darkness, held both arms to her chest. From here, intersecting, I could make out the mountains, the sea, the desert and the ruins of the city, smoldering now in gray folding tendrils to the tops and past every building, replacing clouds in the sky. If this were to be poetic, then fell a fine dusting of rain, but no rain came.
"I'll tell you my name," I said. "I promise."
She shook her head, lifting. Flashes and accumulation of jagged wavefront glorious center, she smiled (waving no no no no no) back choking savor monster glory tragic fading
::::::::::::::::::::
He
took a step. I thought of walking but there was no fighting the nature of duality. Were we right, or really; it wasn't as though I were facing some fabulous new
mystery, myself, the shadow of a shadow (no, my shadow's shadow); the smiling
grinning mystery of me. He took another step forward, white teeth I never had to
fight for, a smug sense of the accomplished.
But we couldn't talk we wouldn't, facing the impossibility of intersections.
Horizontal between a glowing beam connected us, shining in the middle, thick
pulsing as we moved. Could we tear, or would we, pushing past the obstacle that
was we, accumulation of mind sight poetry, tearing old newspapers. Because of him
I embraced the unreal, one eye, keeping secrets. Shadow creatures coming downthe walls: it
Could
we touch, or were we touching. Together what we were being. He defined me,
escaped me, erasing me. Was that what? Undoing the ghost of a ghost. I never. The
artist in me No one listens to poets, for being impenetrable. Because I wasn't
willing to try. They didn't give me free coffee anymore- they hadn't ever- and
someday pimply headed kids the scum of alleyways might take my spot from me. Approaching he was and smiled. Aphrodisiac my mind and bearing. He was me
but he wasn't, I couldn't let. Our hands, palm and outstretched fingers. A wind
picked up and flair;closer now we;stood and let- we never- closer fearing renewed
separation denial still fucking LIAR LIAR LIAR the goddamn shitting pissing showering
sun our outstretched hands palms crests and fingers we touched
we couldn't.
::::::::::::::::::::
What do you want me to do?
he asked. There was nothing stranger than hearing the Chimera ask
questions. In the distance stilclass="underline" spouting flame and danger. I didn't. I have no
objections to losing my favorite spot. The spirit of the patriot is not strong in me. "Probably leave it," I said. "It'll go away when it's had enough."
It cleaved, decapitating construction. Plaster showered blades of falling. Statues
fell
monumentally, not screaming. They had more courage than I had, though
similarly we suppressed the urge to care, not believing in some grander purpose, or
the distinguished idea of a grander message. It upturned taxis, chewed through big
signs, transformed. More shapes than one it shifted, a mass revolving. It wasn't very
strong, but had the strength to lift at least one nuclear missile.
I clapped.
I told you you would need my help, he said.
"Have I told you thanks yet?"
I've heard you aren't very good with thanking.
"No," I said. "Not really.
::::::::::::::::::::
She rose.
I told her not to go, but she said she had to leave. All around us still the city burned, sifting in the graveyard, but no zombies came out, not feasting on car engines, burning holes by swallowing gallons of antifreeze. I held her for a moment, and kissed her, and she looked at me, beautifully, to say hello. It wasn't that I would miss her, though I would, but somewhere in me, where the demons aren't, she made me into something entirely different from myself, ghost mirror withheld image rewinding. She reminded me that I'd been to the center of the universe: that I'd journeyed deep into the forest, that I'd fallen into the water, that I'd gone to the moon. Glorious epicenter beacon of natural light, she was my vacant beautification and gorgeous moonlit dream, to prophecy, to dream. Spare pieces of her the stories held, nothing together but a tangled epigraph of contradicting voices, telling stories about hallways, about sitting. Everywhere I'd met her she'd never been alone, except for now, and when she was gone I would be alone. Sometimes I lied about her, I would lie: that I didn't see her face in others, that there wasn't such a thing. I know that really it's heartless of me, but I've never been one for sentimentality: all my life, if it is, if I haven't gone spiraling through some void in dimension, eating novas, drinking solar flares, prophesying to the cosmos and epic clouds of gaseous dust… all my life, a journey toward, away from myself, as though I were more than (something) like a person, no artist the poet his fake fakery lie of a journey. I held her hand and made crazy declarations of love, some of them true, that might have made me cry, if I weren't crying already, to forsake unknowing, to cast aside some bountiful thing in myself. Behind us the sun the falling stars (finally finally falling) mountains sun sky desert the boundary of the sea a crying out a flowing our a rendezvous in heaven I really do I really the sacred rights a garden on the moon