"temperance," "the city," and "Illume #8 : This Is The Story Of How She Began To Remember ."

temperance  
 
. the streetlamps making . mechanically . many moons
. electrically seething . my walled-in backyard 
 
. is a prison : fact and opinion fused in contradiction . mortared 
brick on brick on brick . a fenced-in Suburbia of reality vs. 
you need to live in ! reality . a self-induced hypnosis of self-denial 
. the two wolves within . a doublethink paradox 
 
. the fallen , withering leaves of smog-/break Japanese cherry trees 
, an auto-monoxide exhaust-stained [un]purple-/ness of life 
 
. everything we see could also be otherwise . a Divine hand issuing forth 
from a storm cloud in the Tarot . congregated the world as subliminal 
into the world . to utter the unutterable beingness of the world , of being 
in the world . no ! look here , and here and here and here , and there 
 
!! stopping at circumstantial points to consider consequences , before 
evolving into something else . is progressive—becomes an example of 
how we might move through our days . our public and personal histories 
called forth to determine the power , the resolve to always . begin . again 
 
. as if an acolyte of the exquisite 
 
making visible the alchemical machinations of desire , exposing a stranger 
plane of being just beyond the surface of the ordinary , a trans-/ness of 
perspective dissenting in times of accepted atrocity : the apparatuses to 
mount deadly thoughts on a track to take out an interracial wedding party 
 
, to target someone we have never met , eye to eye 
. who but an oracle of riotous sense and ecstatic vision could 
so incisively depict desire’s exit wound 
 
and probable futures refracted in the rip , kindling electrical stars 
 
in our life’s blood ? who but an oracle ought to become 
in our present battlefields of embargoed being and [un]sanctioned 
 
brutality ? our every action is conditioned by something else 
coming before it ; evolution does not come from nothing 
 
. there is no first cause , no magickal agamas of smithereens 
. everything is necessarily both a cause and effect . a wisp 
brushed from the eye . the dispossessed utterances of those 
 
who did not get to be , could not continue to be 
their own utterance , but be-/coming .

the city 
 
the city . contorted to monolithic—pulsing in and out of
gridlock , from sinister seizures of progress slicing open 
the land and carving the grid into rectangular blocks 
of straight lines . the skyline as jagged as 
 
an inconclusive polygraph test . the camera’s eye aghast 
 
at ground zero . here , power attracts the worst and corrupts
the best . under its silver skin , is something else , other 
than you’ve been made to believe—the extractive 
and intrusive nerves of metal , plastic , and fiber optics 
 
vibrating beneath the asphalt , registering extruded waste 
 
and venture capitalism , a medulla oblongata rhyming 
each mouth and eye to the arrogant grasping of hands , is 
anything but natural . here , the crush of one thing 
onto the other . a totalitarian wind blowing from the east 
 
. to survive the city , i would need to heed the past
 
, to understand how power is a/massed , eclipsing the sun
. i would need to bridge the distance between ‘sivilization
 and the small bones of fear chewed too sharp to swallow 
what lies beyond . a tang of petrichor that salts the air 
 
, cloudburst imminent . a great dark wing 
 
that riles the storm wind . God is the dark matter between 
the stars , held fast by a catatonic fury and a blind crow 
trapped in His iris , as Noah makes final adjustments , and 
the gravity of a promise , a solemn covenant once sealed 
 
, now irrevocably , rescinded . 

Illume #8 : This Is The Story Of How She Began To Remember .  
 
after “Dream It or Leave It” by Dorothea Tanning 
 
Foremen, night-walkers, no judgment of this being whose fault is innocence, 
whose crime is magic, whose hair lengthens like the wind to lash her desire. 
Weep for the tears of the unseen creature, gather the ashes hidden by her 
shadow. Wait for the egg, falling like a comet in the dark sky, this exquisite 
egg that bursts in your brain.
 
 
this woman who captured 
                                          & shaped the flame  
                                          about a taboo ethos 
                                                                          & spoke its language
 
                                                                         . this dread woman
                                                            in a siren-red , silken gown 
 
denies that she’s a villain , but the world will not believe her  
 
. her heart 
like deep , dark water . the perfect hiding place 
. the collateral-damaged feminine tense 
hobbled-red with heavy apprehension
                                                             . she has come too far 
                                                             to turn back now
 
. she apprehends the blood-stained glow of possible danger        
& unguarded utterances  
 
. the menses-red of been discarded . hopeless 
                                                          into the wind & fallen facedown 
                                                          into the mud  
 
. but in spite of all this 
                                     , she is impelled by some curious force 
                                     to open every unlocked door 
 
                                    , to enter every brier-blocked cave  
 
                                   . to seek amongst  
                                     the canted ominously & fallen tombstones
 
, to lie down in condemned tenements of heroin dreams  
 
. her Westernized soul weighs ¾ of an ounce 
                                     more than her anxiety
 
. she dares the smoke-strangling escape , casting chance to the wind 
, the shrill , stiffened cry of fear skimming water 
                                                                              in attempt of flight
                                   despite the possibility 
                                   that absolutely nothing good can come of this
 
. in the distance , the columned , smoke-pillared panic 
smudging auguries into the wind . the feral whiff of predators  
 
. this woman 
, still cultivating her futuristic dream machine (her aspirations) 
                                                                        found abandoned 
                            under a pile of flat stones in a shadowy glade
 
. a sort of harness made from bands of crimson-red silk  
knotted together
 
. some sort of flying gear . red robin red & very beautiful
 
. this woman  
, fascinated by the intricacy of its design , & having   
satisfied herself of its proper positioning 
                                                                  , quickly puts it on
 
. this woman of now vanquished hesitations    
. the dread eternal spiral , but now , an endeavoring to persevere
 
. a patient lioness stealth of defiance . this is the time   
. let me press my brow
 
against the round golden brow of the moon 
                                         , quaff the magic mist of her seduction 
 
                                        , unreel my burning brain 
                                         the tangled skein of her nacreous rays
 
                                         . this woman , holding out her arms 
                                                                 & taking a deep breath
 
                                        , and gunshot skyward 
                                         , taunting the gravity 
                                         of so vast can reach forever
 
                                         . let me forget my name 
                                         in the frozen rapture of exhilaration's embrace 
 
! yes , let me know not my name , nor the number of my days .
 
 
Note: Incorporated into this poem are italicized fragments by Dorothea Tanning.