dreamwrite 8

for all the days you’ve gone on ahead, wondering at the strange bright light just beyond he bridge, the greengold light coming from the water and the sun, the mirror surface passing under the bridge like transport, i’m riding on the mirror, the ridges of the archwork over my head, the creak and drip of old wood near the sea, even on this bright day, reminding of cold and night and dark. in the corner where the bridge embankment meets the lapping water i see nothing

not right now, but it radiates to me that something, certainly, must be or have been there, the sound of some history i can’t make out still echoes in scream or cry or mute frustration, i do not know, but certainly something has come and gone here, passing by lie i am this bridge, underneath and along my way, only some small ripple to note my passing, and on

bank lined with people pretty people with fans and billowing dresses and remarkable hats with strutting canes
do not know what era this is, perhaps simply constructed out of romantic unmemory

look down and the water reflects wavering back, and i wonder why it reflects grass and stone and rolling field opening into sky, when above it only should be me, and stony banks, and houses, and maybe a blue sky but not sitting above green grass, with little white wisps of cloud

started to learn this new thing and now it is

prisoner shivers in filthy rags, curled in on himself, cold and frightened, chains rubbing against permanent wounds on wrists and ankle, shaking he is not unused to this, and it seems like fear and desperation should be something that would go away, and though they dull as they become more the norm, the broken impotence of fear and despair do not subside into quiet friends, but rather into heavy masses of impossible inertia, unable to lift or be lifted, until only

nothing new to say for that, just the faint memory of a dream long long passed, meaning something only in tiny hindsight, already slipping
god was i ever really there, whole bands of experience whisper past my eyes, silly things, things that evoke only melancholy and surprise at their return now or their abandonment before

memories of a late night bored and tired, a little afraid, waiting in a shop room of expensive fine things, things i did not want, uncertain now if because i could never afford them or simply did not value them, or perhaps some coupling of the two where my inability to value them stemmed from my inability to perceive myself as ever owning anything so exquisite and expensive.

still i found the cases boring and the items unusable and i simply walked and touched nothing and looked at them, wondering both when we would be done and what kind of people or persons could afford these things, some kind of strange and unlikely luxury, surprised as much that these might be purchasable as that there might be those who would purchase, this kind of useless trifle somehow alien to my perception, as if perhaps i was missing some vital piece of the puzzle for this experience, standing and wondering, should i be wanting?

now so much later i often find myself in the same mental place, staring up at something and wondering what pice of the puzzle of human experience i have somewhere abandoned that i should feel so often alien, removed, as if by a lack of some want i too have a lack of kinship, facing those others with a strange non-hostile stare, simply wondering what it is they would have of this, or me, or each other, why they should do or act or be anything at all, that i should find them strange or un-self, not me, unidentifiable

woman in front of a mirror, i assumed woman because of some shawl or scarf

there is a figure like some hideous little thing curled in on itself, its face long and strange, too many fingers on its hands, flickering in and out of existence from a small nightstand with a lamp on it, seen from the right angle it is there, ugly little teeth too long and too few for its mouth, holding two fingers up beside its face, the other hand down on the floor wrapping around its knees, touching its feet, i think it might be smiling but the lampshade becomes a disconcertingly ridiculous hat and i can’t see it’s face anymore

but it’s there watching and waiting for children, but i do not know why, but the purpose seems malicious and i am uncomfortable with it being there, or not being there and then again appearing

infant with an eyeball plucked out, still smiling dazedly, the raw wound in the baby’s face alerting anyone to anything

an empty deadend hallway with too many doors and a woman wearing so little that all i can think about is sex. she looks back at me with no challenge or come-hither stare, just cold calculating disinterest, if i should move she may draw a gun and shoot at me. or ignore me. or neither, i can’t tell. this little back alley is the only place in the whole city where temptation is still fond, this red light shining down on us the last haven of the hooker and dealer and pimp and thief. last place on the grid where you can even see that oozing pink-red light. crossing that line is like walking out of a wall of ocean and into a alien cave system, suddenly dry and able to move and breathe, but with no point of reference or sense of scope or scale. a reality bend, mostly not even here, a place where you might go for an hour and lose only a minute, or a go for a minute and find you’ve died on the other side. safest plan sometimes is just don’t leave f you make it in at all. never leave if you look back and don’t recognize what’s on the other side.

charlie was following the girls home after the show, long stretches of doublification and triplification hovering in the air behind them, making each movement a study in temporal compression and fractal overlap, only the slightest indication that each slice of time

resyncing, clear now.

man walking following the girls just got off shift. charlie, not on contract, just following, not any more creepy than any surveillance is, wondering where two blonds with purchased livelihoods are heading off this time of night, not late enough for home, they should be working except they started out running, like they had somewhere to be, or be away from. flickers of drug still hanging in his face, he sees them and can’t tell if it was real or if one of them somehow became two things at one time, a stripper down the street and an impossible face n the sky full of red stars,

street signs change colors and he only kind of notices, the girls are moving away from him too quickly, like they’ve spotted him, he walks quickly, as much as possible, after them, his foot slowing them both down, wanting to keep one foot in the light, there’s a no about the thing being after you, but no of course you’re not safe, not really, in our own home if someone there can just do what they want anyway. when we have some time i’d love to hear your ideas on socialism

Technorati Tags: book of the labyrinth, dream

~ by downandin on January 5, 2008.