Friday, October 12, 2012

WALKING STRAIGHT THROUGH THE COBWEBS


WALKING STRAIGHT THROUGH THE COBWEBS

Walking straight through the cobwebs of old emotions,
trying to get these straitjackets off me, these
brown starclusters that stick but never seem to shine.
Don’t care if I’m in or out of my mind, enough’s enough
and comes a time to take a bath in your own grave
to wash all these ghosts off like the smoke of old fires
that returned to their urns like shepherd moons a long time ago.

And I still can’t tell if that’s a rose petal or an eyelid of blood
under the fingernail of the crescent moon
when she scratched the eyes out of her prophetic skull.
Tired of asking for clarity and being answered in labyrinths.
The more I see the more alone I feel. I’ve been
disciplined by catastrophe long enough to know
how to build bridges of fire across the mindstream
without extinguishing my reflection like a torch
in my own awareness. Suspension bridges
woven of spinal cords like the suicide nets
around the Peace Tower. Dream catchers, yes,
but who can stop the nightmares from falling to their deaths?

The scars grow old as the tongue leather of leeches.
Time for them to drop off like deathmasks on a pilgrimage
that just couldn’t keep up with the unholy pace of my blood.
Tired of waltzing with bear traps in a plastic marijuana patch.
Weary of arranging flowers so they’re not embarassed by the stars
that are wearing the same thing this year,
as they always do in the fall, when it’s not their wardrobe,
but our eyes that are renewed by their shining.
Not a crusade in advance of hope, not the retreat
of apostate despair, nor yet a sideways move
to get out of the way of anything I labour
under the delusion for convenience
I was meant to experience without being consulted.

It isn’t the stump that has to fear the lightning.
Asleep or awake, it’s all the same vision to a sorcerer
casting spells on the moon like oxymoronic dream grammars
that don’t come with parachutes or safety nets
to catch the flying fish when they swan dive back into the abyss.
What’s a thought? What’s an emotion?
Why do the butterflies sting worse than killer bees?
Why do the scalpels of thought only dance with amputees?

PATRICK WHITE

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