Metamorphosis; or the journey to the Other Sky

in somniis veritates in veritate depravationes!
 
I
 
closing windows as the rains begin
raising shutters as the night comes in –
you place the towel by your thighs,
you sigh, sitting on the unkempt bed.
and writhing in your nudity
you curl, you bend, you pry
at millions of phosphenes in your eyes.
you lay and dream; you dream. you dream.
you wake and all the world is gone.
you open up to let the breeze inside;
the streetlamp’s light and pallid moon,
and the window at the far end of the room.
it’s a box within a box;
upon the wall it waits and calls,
but the silence of the pallid room
binds you to the bed.
 
you place your hand upon your heart
and wait –
it does not beat, but
lying still among the dishes
where the cockroaches skitter
it casts long bars upon the ceiling.
you place your hand upon the wall
and push yourself into your breast –
you press into that tomb beneath your chest
where the lonely streetlamp flickers.
 
the clouds and mist draw curtains on your flat:
the bed, the musty air, your hair;
wrapped in moisture,
buried now, along with you, inside.
a symptom of reality, you sleep.
 
II
 
I called upon the morning street,
asking it for providence.
I caught it in the streetlamp’s glow;
I heard it in the gutter.
in the rows and rows of trees that grow
so meekly by the stream.
in the poplar’s silent castanets;
it said: pity this thing.
 
the moon was fat, the path clear;
and all the thorns upon it
lit; puncturing the eye.
I looked upon the pregnant sky;
could not tell; was it streetlamp
was it star? what bled upon the
four o’ clocks, and called:
lotus eater!
 
what stood there in the pale hour
as I watched it from the windows –
the windows that have not been cleaned,
misted over by the night.
 
III
 
that night I travelled the unfinished roads
at unbearable speed.
through the mountain; through the old tunnel
lined with ancient stones.
to the old place.
 
when does the kiss become a scar,
and the pollen lose its potency?
 
IV
 
two birds were skipping in the dusty earth
and shaded likewise.
the air swirled and it was thick
and dream-like.
it congested him; his mind congealed.
thick pus around the hollows –
empty soul, empty soul;
and a sticky lattice among his limbs.
 
two brown things playing in the dirt,
hopping there and here
where he cleared the mound before.
little sores – little pus filled sores
in his mouth; beneath his nails.
and his knees would atrophy
sooner than his hunger stills.
 
curse the food and damn the water!
two flightlings elect to stamp.
the air would eat the clouds
and the clouds would drink the poison
in the air.
black, the cloth that wipes the windows.
black, the earth that bears the crop.
 
two birds were skipping in the dusty earth...
 
and then life fled;
and then he rose from bed.

deus in machina mortuus est;
the god in the machine is dead!