Altar of Venus

emerging from hades
walk again in morn
we've consecrated
the altar anew, and
scattered heart shaped
diamonds at the x roads
quince and forsythia
herald your return
I walked too, in that
smokey place diving
deep to find the way
back to day. Alone.
There is no forgetting.

True to a Dream

Donald Petersen

And the curtains, the lamp,
The rose-papered wall,
The familiar cramp
Of books in the rack,
Would fade; he would fall
Through a slumbrous abyss
To a great zodiac
Where Lions hiss,
Where the master swings
A nine-tailed whip
Or the bluebird sings
In a private arbor
Or a wonderful ship
Has the sky for a harbor

And when it was past
All that he saw
Was darkness and vast
Confusions of vapor,
And rubbed his eyes raw,
And when he awoke,
The book-laden shelf
And the old rose-paper
Appeared the same
And he fancied himself
Cut off at stroke,
In a trice undone,
For as quick as it came
The show passed on.

And the persons he met,
Were brave but sad.
One paused by the bed
But could not talk.
Another one had
A limp in his walk,
There was a lone
Boy on a crutch
An heir to a throne
Was locked out of touch.
And the princess was pining
As princesses must
And everything shining
Began to rust.

And hour after hour,
Yet always true,
To the one highest tower
The boy withdrew
And true to a dream
That opens and closes
He ruled supreme,
Suppressing the roses,
That mounted the wall,
Until in a bold,
Deliberate choice
He relinquished his hold
At the faraway call
Of a downstairs voice.

Gone Atime

And back again, she rises morn
break to become shattered whole
abide dark that scintilla bloom
spring emergence at her degree

Requiem for a Vampire

Staked
not sorry

Into the Wild Electric-- Sleaze Bang

The minotaur wore rainbow shades and trekked the canyon, wild-electric. I looked in the mirror and decided to keep the glasses but hurl a sun-hot stone at the gleaming surface that gave our reflection such numbing clarity. The image rippled before the surface tension reasserted itself and gave eye to the sky of blue and cumulus. It mattered not because the trance of the single vision was no longer definitive. Once the spell breaks, the curtain is pulled aside, the illusion no longer durable, is merely incidental. The day teemed and whirred; insect buzz thrummed neural pathways and lizards skittered to their under boulder hide-holes but it seemed too hot for locomotion of warm creatures, excepting those made of flame. I was new-kindled and the whole world was a vision, nothing left that was not wonder. Humming birds took my eyes an flew in every direction, a scene kaleidoscopic such that the narrative thread became infinitely entwined with something organic. It writhed underground and made the very air squirm-bloom in a way that felt so giddy on the skin it was hard not to laugh and it was equally hard not to cry. Terrifying. A taste of oblivion that was to become the flavor of existence. Marvel Mojave, Captain Jack, he said it would come to this.

Wear a brave shirt, they say, ribboned, and reach out to touch without touching. This coup we count thrice. It's important to feel the full impact of a thing, tsunami-like. If you can be the quake, you can take the shore. A seed to split the hull, I planted it there. Right there. What moves creates reverberations that grow across time and space becoming, by exponentially increasing displacement, a wave that cannot be resisted or outrun. We didn't remember why we went to Death Valley, except to see the stones race, which, presumably requires a season or more. It was an itch to go someplace that never got scratched. That's how the story starts. It starts at the Eagle Tavern on Main and it starts with the impulse to find where the impulse began. Try to forget about it, they said. Have you ever tried to forget about something? How did that work out?

 I imagine it worked as well for you as it worked for me, meaning the thing attempted un-membered became the most re-membered member of the clan in my head. Minotaur with rainbow kaleido-specs and those are snakes that were our hair, this is how we embark on the labyrinthine road that is the story we have to tell, a story which, in truth, we have nobody but ourselves to tell. Truly, I'm hearing it here for the first time and in time it may find its way to other minds. It probably will because it's a mind of its own, the tale. The view is strange, but true. Clarity, at a certain point, no longer serves. It's like looking in the mirror unbroken, which is the real illusion. The shattered mirror no longer throws back the coherent image, but one that has complexified to many perspectives that, viewed through the focused orbs in one's head, looks entirely wrong. The looking glass we pass through is this multi-faceted one. Time itself becomes a yarn.

Stories, and human culture really, begin with myth. Everything that comes after is poured into those narratives that live in the stars. How far we've fallen from the peoples that dreamed their dreams in the vast cosmos. We're a people of imaginal penury, dreaming our dreams on screens in front of our eyes. Those who came before us, if they lasted long at all, had been steeped in mysteries that humans barely now know exist. When their seers looked at us they saw wraiths.

Wraiths have their particular powers, but they also require substance. Spirits are like us in that.

truth

For those who want the 
truth revealed, 
Opened hearts and secrets 
unsealed, 
From now until it's 
now again, 
After which the memory 
ends. 
Those who now are 
in this house, 
Will hear the truth 
from other's mouths.

Update. Yes. 

Sugarland Fantastic

Light brighter,

dark nighter, 

spirit reeling,
come in electric,
enter etheric,
Walla Walla
Babalon
Sugarland is
here, phoenix
rises, shackles
fall. the room
of roses, house
of twilight,
and of dawn,
morning star.