Member Poem

Descent
 
The sun sputters like it has Tourette’s
but cannot speak as
we go from zenith to zero.
Oh, stop, won’t you set me down,
oh burning spirit?
Can’t you see the terrible anguish of the wobbling sun,
and the forest,
I cannot just leave it,
you’ve made it a holocaust,
they’ll all die, all those worms and fishes.
The ground yawns and consumes us,
I feel like an umbrella that’s been opened and closed too much,
the flimsy rods of this body are straining,
they’ll break, and I’ll lose
my sense of direction again.
I remember colors,
vaguely I remember them,
they were
a rotted mushroom’s orange,
a shattered blue coke glass,
purple taffy suffering between my teeth,
a frog’s yellow belly,
a mantis, green body, red eyes,
the indigo glow of a cheap watch;
now everything is grey and black,
is this darkness?
Where there is no sun or wind,
can there be color?
I flex my fingers to be sure they’re there,
and the man clutching my arm
grins a mawkish smirk at me;
“I did not ask of thee
to outstretch thy hand
and gather my shattered form,”
I cry inwardly, but my tongue, newly formed,
cannot form my words;
this new body is a lie,
only my mind functions.
The guiding spirit gesticulates and nods,
but my eyes roll, and my ears ring.
What are the massive eyes that loom, and
to whom do these trembling claws which
grip the world in searing passion
belong?
My eyes roll from the outer darkness
to the internal cells of the
monastery of my brain.
She was so beautiful,
what a fool I must have been
to ever think I
could own her,
the shape of her face sharp
like the cut of a diamond,
and there I am
giggling as I fearfully touch mommy’s tri-horned lizard;
it was so frightening to me,
coolly clinging to the houseplant,
eyes swiveling like ball-turrets,
a tiny, disdainful dinosaur.
“…and I assure you, the road to any of the Heavens is no better,”
my burning guide assures me as I open my eyes once more.
I suffer as only a Jew can then,
and see the dolorous country below us
where fester a trillion castles sunken into the ashen ground
and scorching souls spinning ‘round and ‘round
as demonic folk head-bob like stoned teenagers
and ram cars over gaps like they were meant to;
he lets me go, his form composed of smoke and molten poetry,
and I fall, unable to muster any strength or will
as a vast goat-headed man,
dancing madly in the air,
his thunder-scarred wings
and mad, jubilant grin
personifying the exultant carnage around his ferocious air;
my guide seizes my hand
and we fly to that violent Sabbath.
I hear a familiar voice, beseeching me
to return to the dark path,
but it is out of my hands.
Amidst the chaos below,
 somber faces watch our descent,
and dragon hugs dragon.