keep it down

keep your head down
they said,
and it will all blow over.

keep your voice down
they said,
we can hear you just fine.

keep your eyes down
they said,
for we are your superiors,
and to look us in the eye would be an insult.

so I keep my head down,
and I keep my voice down,
and I keep my eyes down,
like they said to.

and all I can see is the ground--
and my shoes.
All that I can see are my shoes,
and the ground,
and I cannot see anything
else.

stabilized

i wore the same bra for six days
because they gave it to me
and it fit
and i was captive there
and had no choice

what little i remember:
harsh light
thin sheets
blue clothes like
crackling paper
clinging to the new arrivals
with static electricity
and fear

i escaped that place
through a pharmaceutical fog
playing the game just so
nodding along to every word
they said
and pretending
that i wasn't trapped

outside
the corners of these buildings cut
into my consciousness
gnarled fingers rising up
from cigarette-strewn streets
to scrape the sky
and i
am still wearing the bra that
they gave me
and all the labels that
they gave me
and the world seems
just
that
much
smaller

sol 3

the gods' leftover snow falls stubbornly
from tumultuous sky
frosting sour mud left lingering in gutters
studding my black coat in little white balls and
standing here at this bus stop in the cold
i am an alien observer of this society
lost and confused as human organisms
ebb and flow in mysterious tides...
i may look like one of you but
i am not one of you and
i never have been or
(so it seems) never will be.

well, then.

Myst-inspired poetry

I've been re-playing Myst recently (the realtime 3D version, realMYST, from 2000, to be exact). There is nothing more calming, to me, than entering these worlds, these fantastical places, and losing myself in them for a time. I am moving on to Riven soon, then Exile, then Revelation...

These works inspire me. I've been making a bit of fanart, using screenshots from the game. I've been writing fanfiction as well. And a bit of poetry, which I'd like to share:

----

MYST

water over a broken boat
i am on a dock
gull sound, but no humanity.
My head, my body, feels manipulated,
i see blue skies
as if squeezed into a small, small space
and drawn out again
into the salty air.
The wood beneath me is soft with age.
where am i?
Metal mountain, marble library. Secrets.
Birds chirp in high pine branches.
It is a small island.
It is not mine.
it was the book...

----

Stoneship

rain lashes against my shivering form

i did not ask for this

lighting chars the stormy sky in great

white streaks

burning clouds to purple ash

to be scattered on hurricane winds.

this world has drowned...

the rock is sharp and inhospitable.

Only down below the decks and stones

through dripping tunnels newly drained

can I find some small comfort and warmth

in someone else's bed.

i am alone

in glass-walled, underwater chambers

I observe sea creatures, sinuous, strange,

that I know I could not find anywhere on Earth

and it finally

sinks in

i am very far from home

----

Mechanical

the sea engulfs this place

i dare not fall in

this metal fortress does not belong

to this desolate

salt

desert

yet still it stands, rusting, creaking,

impenetrable by all

but a single person walking, carefully,

along a catwalk stretched out

over deep, unsounded waters.

what were they afraid of?

I do not trust the men

who saw fit to build their throne rooms here,

fill them with weapons and gold

and stare out over the sea

like conquering kings.

i will not stay long

The fortress spins along its aged track

great, rusted gears grinding against

each other, at my request.

I gather only what I need

and go.

----

Selenetic

white mists swathe a barren landscape

carved out by gentle waters, long ago.

i can barely see

someone has built stairways, here and there

to smooth out rough terrain

and show which way to go.

the sky changes color: brilliant orange, pink,

purple, blue; each hour something new,

absorbed into the mists and coloring the age.

When nighttime falls, the darkness is complete.

I huddle beneath a single bulb, which throws

a circle of light before a brick facade,

and wait till morning.

time means nothing to me anymore

I have learned to pay attention:

this place is filled with sound.

I harness it to my own advantage.

Deep beneath the earth, I use what I have learned

to navigate my way back from whence I came.

----

Channelwood

amphibian chorus swells

to fill this strange and muggy air.

boardwalks maze among the ragged trunks

standing straight out of brackish water,

roots drowned, but still standing

strong.

trees lift a village up above the calm

and endless sea.

I climb.

Even as high above the water as I am

in this relentless wind,

swaying on rope bridges and

exploring gutted, empty dwellings,

utterly alone among

the left-behind lives of people

I will never know...

Even so, I've found a place

to sleep

and dream of what all this means

----

Rime

air, brittle with cold,

feathers into snow

and hardens into icy crust upon the rock.

a mosaic of rock and ice and sea and rusted

struts

supports this metal platform.

The melancholy cry of some great sea creature

unseen but for a sliver of greenish back

sliding through dark waters

lends this place a somber air.

Longing for heat, drawn to it,

I defrost the simple dwelling here;

through foggy tunnels, into the mountain,

I find a lost laboratory

and glimpse, through a window of crystal,

what is in store for me

tomorrow.

unleash the kraken

it's Monday night

the moon hangs above me in four pieces, small and fragile in the orange-black sky

muffled laughter seeps thru the ringing in my ears

I'm okay and I'm dying in the same breath.

I can't sleep

every smell and taste is too strong, and I flinch from them, and my hunger grows with each passing hour. time means little to me now. the world presses down on me like a million stones in avalanche

and I

lay down

and look up at the quadrupled moon

and I wonder how long this life will last

three minutes

and outside I know the snow is melting under the warm sun I cannot feel under these fluorescent lights that buzz and hum:

background radiation of my shrunken universe folded in on itself with the gravity of each person here:

chemicals and medications and blood and power and helplessness bagged in skin and gathered up for who knows what reason except that it happened and we have to deal with it somehow:

three minutes can be a very long time

Frivolous purchase??

I don't do this very often with expensive items, but I just bought this for myself:

http://www.dinosaurcorporation.com/slothskull1.html

It is a replica of a female hoffmann's two-toed sloth skull. I'm thinking of it as like a Halloween present to myself?? I'm going to use it both as an art reference and as a decorative piece in my house...

Cost me $100...





DX




pax.