and you and you and you Options

[Guest_circumsolar_*]

and you and you and you


too soon, too soon, the eagle flew
while you were busy drawing down
the moon into your icy hands,
purchasing one-eyed wisdom
to crowd your poppied mind,
until you could no longer stand
but gently tumbled tousled thoughts
to fall asleep in twilight lands
- asleep in the laps of legends.

and as you dreamt, a river of woe
washed over you and carried you down
to those blasted banks, where the rocking stone
could be toppled by the gentlest touch:
you stroked the smooth-skinned serpent's egg
and, though asleep, you cried real tears
for emotions that somehow eluded you
and for the names of the faces you seemed to remember
with a distant and palsied anxiety.

and you dreamt you wrote a mystic piece
where vague and shuffling demons danced;
where Odin cast aside his mask
and settled on your shoulders round
a mammoth task...
a burden irredeemable -- a lance:
a lance to bear in diamond jousts,
advancing through the teeth of fear
to seize that chance to win the soured prize.

Methusulah, with his long grey beard,
whispered in your sleeping ear of
fools and wise men, sons and daughters;
of the Devil's love for holy water;
of a single, human footprint in the sand;
of the perils of duplicity,
the rigours of respectibility,
of such passions as can tear apart a man.

and on the sharp infliction of
such sorrows' textured wounds, you woke
with knotted hair and eyes still chasing phantoms...
and even though the darkstream coursed
still dully in your veins, you spoke
of fields of blood and lonely death's cold tantrums;
and lifelong cravings threatening to choke --
to strain and break the slenderest of throats:
with that distempered mind you reached
for lightless needles littering the floor;
and as a stray dog to its vomit, warm,
to poisoned dreams did you return, once more.


{published in Epiphanies and Other Absurdities 2005
 and also in Cold Eels 2005}

[Guest_Nina_*]

Hi Jan

Firstly, many congratulations on your success with this poem.  Having a work published is quite an achievement, well done.

I like the perspective taken with this drug addict, looking at the affect of the opiate on the MC's mind as he/she sleeps, the vivid nightmare which doesn't stop the craving  You have used some wonderful imagery, I especially like:

while you were busy drawing down
the moon into your icy hands,
purchasing one-eyed wisdom
to crowd your poppied mind

a very clever way of describing her satiating her craving temporarily.

and as you dreamt, a river of woe
washed over you and carried you down
to those blasted banks, where the rocking stone
could be toppled by the gentlest touch:

the fragilty of the MC's life or his/her hold on sanity.

you cried real tears
for emotions that somehow eluded you
and for the names of the faces you seemed to remember
with a distant and palsied anxiety.

drugs block the issues that are too painful to deal with but only add to the problem.

and as a stray dog to its vomit, warm,
to poisoned dreams did you return, once more.

a disturbing but powerful image to end on, that stays in the mind.

Thanks for sharing this

Nina