Floating fragments of winter-spring dreams, guardians of prophecies, frenetic notebook entries—my own cabinet de curiosités, made of paper and ink—strung together to achieve some sphere of meaning.
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A midwinter night’s dream. Our revelry, now fading into sleep. I could feel the drops of gold paint weighing on my eyelids. But sleep would not come easy; it does so rarely. The stars fading behind clouds of my breath; leaves of green and winter ice. The room dropped out before me, the walls melting into the depths of some ancient forest. Arrows of gold to pierce the heart—tiny skulls and bits of bone. A woven crown of branches, a paper crown of gold. Narnian haunts and snowy owls; an empress made of moonlight floats across the floor. She must believe I’m sleeping or she’d take me back to her wasteland realm. Drawn on by some silent spell, she leaves a dusting of snowflakes in her wake. They turn to stars then— Bursting in pinpricks of starlight and bronze—specters of a host, glasses raised. They drink to the memory—to seasons now past. What life is this, without a little change? What stars are these—not to point but inspire the way? Maps in the skies, maps in our eyes. A soul on fire, a heart of ice.
What mystery here? What tragic romance cast? Should I love? Should any dream that I love last? Do I waste my heart? Do I waste my breath? Why this secrecy? A world of magic and hope to be cut off at the knees; why then do I dream? These terrible questions. And nothing changes when you want it to. Only when it has to. What men or beasts are these? Why these fever dreams?
I see a new landscape—one of peace, even as I fight within myself for sleep. And the fires burn, and the ice creeps. The wind blows, and everything ends in death. Why then can’t I live as is? Why must everything appear as a vision of some wonder or a shadow of torment? If this is to be the world I know, let it lead to something.
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Why does everything I feel always negate itself? I feel the reality and the reverse.
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Neon crosses drip candles in a terrible aisle. So light and alive—soft, satin-white wings. And yet burdened by some unnamed weight—crossing links of welded armor. With loneliness embedded, how do you attempt to live without it? One chance encounter? Months of listless, touched-upon dreams to stir only the faintest ripples? Or not to be? Do I long after only that which I cannot attain? Obtain? Would it be clearer if I was meant to? Do I merely build these problems for myself? Unaware how to be unless struggling after some destiny? What restless, ceaseless, fantastic existence, this. What melodramatic shit. A poet complex, is it? If I knew now what I didn’t know then—would I have chosen differently? Would I have set upon some other path? If it was meant to be, it would have been, wouldn’t it? Best not to waste my spirit on such unanswerable questions. Heart of fire; eyes of ice. Let me find some rest tonight.
†
The aboveground underground. It’s fitting for such a wonderlandian rabble. Trees sprouting through the ceiling; tea party turned bacchanal. The night summons a tempest of neon and noise. Lights swing in the wallpaper; pictures move in the wall. Cheers to my ghost. Removed from all and out of time. A Fitzgeraldian narrator in my own right. 1920s novel protagonists; xylophone barroom remixes. Is that why I can stand this? I put myself in a place more tumultuous than my mind, and then I’m not afraid to look inside. This pocket of madness and age, bubbles and rages. And what am I so afraid of? So afraid, I only confront it here on the page in a port of colorful storms before a dreamy, lackadaisical la tee da ride home. All the city lights and storefront signs will bob on the water like jewel drop diamonds. One of the few times I can summon any kind of affection for this place. It does little good—not the purple windows, not the gentle wind. Not the golden cross, not the amber gin. Such is the way these revels sway. Such is the swagger and the chaos on this stage. Some quiet palatial garden, I think, would be better. But cheers to the ghost.
†
“Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love. Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate?”
†
The number of balconies in this town has gone unnoticed until now, seeing as I have a sudden urge to climb them all. I do not think modern balconies were made for climbing. Were ancient ones? Didn’t take long for these neighborhoods to lose their charm, stuffed as they are with marble driveways and roaring, silver-rimmed Minotaur trucks and Capulet terraces from which I’ve never seen an angel stand in all my nights—not once. These beautiful mansions in such modern disarray. Where went the ladders of ivy? Where are the poets; where are their plays?
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I named the gargoyles across the street. It’s like having grotesque guardian angels. And they understand me. Head tipped back; neck exposed. You do understand me; don’t you, boys?
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My mind moves in a million different directions. Without stopping for breath, without asking permission. Tell me—what’s the fastest way to get depressed? I ask as I turn on my phone. Swells of incapability held in the palm of one who could squeeze you into nothing. Who gives these creatures the power to breathe? Who holds whose puppet strings? Part of the mind’s mythologies. Apologies. Sandcastles, how carefully shaped, how easily melted. Not toppled—faded. Worn smooth. Nothing. There’s a castle up there in the clouds. I dream of falling every night.
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I make so little of everything. I make so much of nothing.
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I’ve always been drawn to the symbolism—of anything really, as long as it’s subtle—or flourishing. Subtly flourishing. Drunk on a prophecy; high priestess sing to me. Sing in my veins. Tell me the secret of your mystery: what is this wait? What approaching change? What shape will you take? Or are you an amorphous thing—like these visions of late? —different wonders though they all spin the same.
†
Run past the lake wound soft in the nest of homes. Their lights sprinkle the water like angelic, less-tangible stars. Observe his body floating still. Handsome, but for the gills sewing into his jaw and the green seeping into his skin. Was his own summer mansion somewhere out there? Further in the distance? Hear him moan the same name over and over. Daisy, he says. Daisy Daisy. The trees bend to brush the earth; the woman in the nightdress comes dancing through their moss-draped curtains. The window of a half-finished house gleams like a dead eye. Statues in the courtyards turn sharp, twist like stilled mourning angels, swans poised for the killing dive. Just another night run down Elm Street, can’t you tell? All this youth, flying from the forces that would seek to snuff it out. Fie! Fly! —all the devils rushing forth. See the surrounding shadows? Fill them with your favorite kindred spirits, your favorite penny dreadfuls. Wave hello.
†
A memorized maze—this neon grid with its shades. Nothing makes sense in these ungoverned hours unless you’re rocketboy rocketing through all the blinking saucers into the drop-bottom spiral-out sea of stars void. Would you speak to my soul? Everything takes its toll. Nothing makes sense, but nothing must. We swim; where do we go?
†
The high priestess in the prophecy—was it me? Was I the witch? Have I just been asking questions of myself? Kicks a bucket—useless magic. I went to see the wizard, once. Not that long ago. I entered that vast emerald city with all its spinning wonders and put on those green-lensed glasses just like everybody else. The curtain fell as curtains do, revealing just another rich old man with self-imposed power and a sweaty pink forehead. I hide away up in my chambers now, mulling over these truths. Bitterly convinced this kingdom runs on its illustrious drug cartel, yard sales, and those dull young knights wearing their three-piece suits. Outside the ferris wheel still spins. That emerald city still glistens. A row of blonde-crowned debutantes with matching white shoes and legs of bronze clip along in perfect unison. A row of six or seven tin-men sit on the rim of the fountain; each one with their heads rusted over their phones. Forget my phantoms for a moment, is anyone still living in the real world? This tiktokism clicks and whirs ever on, threatening to encroach, to consume. What will be left—of life, of art? What am I waiting for—to melt into oblivion? To find some magic broom and whoosh away into that sea of gray? These Glinda-the-Goods set my skin on edge, their hollow speech, their affected airs. And soothing scarecrows never last for long. They fall apart in the wind, and I cyclone self-destruct again. But where do witches belong if not the towers of castles, the wings of night, old tomes, empty piles of straw? What is this power for? These words—what magic do they form? I didn’t want to be in Kansas anymore—but Oz? What a smoldering wonder with tubby, unfulfilling leaders; men without hearts, entertainment gods these dragons and their clocks, tick tock, and stars so shallow they dazzle hypocritically before—like the bubbles that they are—vanish with a silent pop. And me? Will I too just vanish in a plume of smoke? And will they even wonder what that bucket of water stood for?
†
Oh, but there’s no place like home, you say through pouted lips. I suppose that explains it—I don’t know what home is. I had to go and make my own—willed it to existence. My looking-glass world a reflection of that truth—or pieces to make up for it. Now every time the world turns right side up I fall right through.
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Wonderland. I catch glimpses of it every now and then. The carefree grace, the pliant, willing space. Homesick for a place of precarious existence. Within reach always, but a challenge to find its doors and windows. Where do they disappear to? Who can tell me straight—and look it’s slipping away again. Stars turn into airplanes. How can I keep it? The colors and the wind—and the filter passes over; down comes the mad curtain. And everyone’s wearing hearts or diamonds over their eyes and wigs with feather downy gowns or panes of mirror armor. And there are mystic caterpillars and waspish flowers and shrill tea partiers—drab, emulating courtiers with noses upturned. And in a sudden vision I was dancing the single ladies to the nineties’ “young hearts run free” with a white knight and a unicorn on either side of me, their pale silver sheen reflecting neon ribbons of indigo violet and pink. Disco down the rabbit hole. And the mock turtle wept; and the queen careened; and the wily cat grinned. The sand opened up at my feet, tunneled down into possible infinity. Would I jump? Would I jump if it was real? Why shouldn’t it be? Why is it a lowering of the veil and not a lifting? —How do I know I’m not peeling back some gate of reality’s charade and finding a piece of the wonder-horror beneath? Or is anything I see only what I want—what I project? Are the dreams reliant on me anyway? Which dreamed it? Who is the one asleep—and who is the one awake?
†
I cannot escape these visions. Retreat? Reflect? Why? When? That’s all that I can do. What are these scribblings? I believe in the symbolism. But what’s it for? I should stop asking that. I should know by now I’ll only get that answer when I’m out the other side. When it’s time for another dream, another love, another bottle of wine. What figures are these? What fictional ghosts to teach us lessons? What mad tales? So say writing is my only way out—where does that lead? What kingdom, this? God help me I’ve been falling for so long now; I’ve been fixed upon this peak. I’ve been screaming from the tower. All hail the king. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” —even, it would seem, an invisible one. All hail the king—the king of nothing.
†
Every night I go out, words lay themselves down like tiles in my mind. But home, they turn dull in significance, and I see them for what they are. Just the angry cries of a poet, the bitter passion of a restless heart with answers no one can give him. “I’m sorry, can you repeat the question?” It’s nothing. I didn’t say anything. What would I say? I can only see. It isn’t quite the same humorous irony that it once was. It’s a bit unnerving.
Do you know what it’s like—living with a head full of shadows? These days and nights in ~ W o n d e r l a n d ~ the neon lights and never ending tea parties? All those bunnies. Where do they go at night, the flower petalled people who blossom in the sun, who grace their pastel teahouses, who smile through the rose colored looking glass? Why, they go online, of course! Playing games on that algorithm chess board. Most are content to fester in their whirlpools, caught in a cycle of ideas and quotes they pulled out of the black-hole butt-hole chain of reposts. Where are your own words—where is your own voice? It seems to seem only satisfying when copying someone else—whomever the kings and queens decide are attractively empty enough. It’s the politics of influence, of looking at the world through the filter of your phone. I’m prisoner to it too but war to let go; I have to believe my words can be strong enough on their own. —That maybe they can do what I myself cannot.
†
These dreams. These passing seasons. Chance and all her fools. Things left unsaid and truths understood. It’s all so satisfyingly cruel. I am not well, I said. That was before the drink hit, before the paycheck pooled; before the tide receded—but even then. I am not well. I think. If I knew myself better would I be able to tell? Or is that perception of ourselves wrapped up in how we view ourselves to others? I wouldn’t feel well because those surrounding seem fine? My phone is my cyclops—the eye I cannot or will not blind. Fee. Fi. Fo Fum. —social mediums and all their humdrums. And “words…English words…are full of echoes…”
And the tide comes in, and I go back out. I hold so little connection to anyone. It’s frightening—but also holds a certain liberation. This circle of an eye is far too small. I know I’ll step out, but I feel something left undone. It’s going to vanish so fast. I have to trust that I’ll advance or find a way to take my mind off it. Vanquish the giant or become the giant, yes? What is left? The odyssey continues!—to find where I connect, where I might expand. I hope, I hope, I hope—but I do not wish. I will not wish for anything ever again.
I feel, connected by words, to all of history. Authors building the bridges, bridging the gaps, holding open the doors to the past. I feel as if I’ve lived a hundred different lives—my soul stretched like strands of web between them all. Different pools of time and I seem to have a finger dipped in every one. Because of word-wielders—because of their wills and a will of my own. But I long—I’m desperate—to know: what is the purpose, what is the weight of my drop in the ocean? I don’t think most artists get to know until they’re already gone. But still I ask. I seek it out. I fall down. The rabbit hole again and again. “Full of echoes…”
Woolf? These blue-hued worlds? Possession by robots. By ourselves. Giants? Atlas. World-wearing flesh. Gods and monsters still roving the lands. I am connected to all of the past—I feel it. Just as I am connected to nothing. Here. “Words, English words.” Convincing myself it’s okay. I don’t believe it. We are all prisoners. “And they don’t even let you play darts” the drunk lady said. Mrs. Dalloway? Read back my handwriting, you can tell where the gin kicks in. Forget it; forget everything I’ve said. The tide washes in. The waves. The waves.
†
This luminous haze. This effervescent cloud. Voice on the telephones drowning out the dreams. A desperate attempt to keep hold of everything. Painted trees sway inside their picture frames. The trees outside are covered in fake flowers. In order to survive—to keep myself sane—I have cultivated a very specific rhythm of living. But the ship is about to be upended; the metronome stopped by a certain finger and set to a different pulse. I fear a lacking of this carefully curated mirage. Will I be able to replicate it wherever I end up? This is just the usual abandonment of the comfort zone—the usual drop in the stomach when standing at the edge of the ledge, jutting over that blue, mysterious mist. The future is a kiss. I like to believe I can survive on merely paper and pen and the notes of music which wander back and forth across my soul. But the truth is that I have crafted the fragile surface of a world in which to pour and paint my fears and the desires of my heart. Trailing brush-tip fingertips through clouded waves of pain and will and unspoken wants. And without these walls what becomes of it all? I could surge over, collapse from the inside out. I could find a freedom I wasn’t aware I did not have. I asked for an open door; I asked for a path. It would seem I have been given one. It would seem my prayers have been answered. That doesn’t mean I fear them any less.
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But soft, across far towers breaks the light of day. Depart, you dreams. Away, away.
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“If these shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended— That you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream.”
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Yours,
Andrew
// Featured Image Courtesy of Norrel Blair //
a literary labyrinth 