moonmilk precipitates
siskiyou mountains
of southwestern oregon,
upon massive cerulean waterfalls
and lavender honey fields.
atop a hill
engulfed by kaleidoscopic
limestone caves.
i discovered ancient remnants
of my unconscious
hidden
in moonmilk crevices.
dripstone cave structures,
glittering,
entrenched
with fingerfluting lines
on clay surfaces.
the creamy
carbonate minerals,
i yearned to nourish myself
by licking.
winterwhisper
showered in lace frills
a cotton silk gossamer
twists, unfurling
into sheaths of pale
white ringlets
curls of smoke descend
invading the now-ashen asphalt
dewy with rainsweat
a slight steam
withers itself
in perpetuity
the hare slumbers on
the moist mint grass
beneath a bridge of roses.
silent turkeys
splaying,
crouching beneath frosted trees.
afar,
the silken sewn veil
unwraps itself,
as if in ecstatic delirium.
secret music
naked on the cotton-silk,
strewn,
golden light,
on my damp skin.
my black leather heel
plummets
on a mote of dust.
slender fingers
fidgeting on a wineglass stem
"are you tempted
by borrowed luxury?"
"or drunken sweetness?"
frankincense coils of smoke
rise and jolt from a lighter's flame
bare,
without a god,
i peer into
a mirror's reflection,
drifting through visions,
of an eternal
birth.
dionysian solitude
staring upon the city
the glimmering star's
immaculate light gleams.
i sat atop the cement statue
of venus and bacchus:
desire and intoxication,
frozen under a crimson red sky.
love. . .
fluttering little angel wings,
with misty molecules
splayed into the ether,
and that particular madness
that night.
a kind of rot
picture me:
sickly sweet,
tender.
instantly drowned out,
beaten,
undone,
by human atrocities
and a brutal insistence.
the gangrenous foot encroaches,
and the maggot wriggles.
Symbol of Thanatos,1
demeaning.
teary eyes,
diseased lungs,
ruddy withering
bedbound limbs,
and mouths of pus.
my metamorphosis
meant nothing
under the machinery of ailments.
i wanted to achieve eternal bliss
a flock of social misfits
spread across the concrete,
held me like a dying baby.
political revolutionaries
chanted soliloquies,
maternally,
as i slipped into hypnogagia.
recreational druggies,
publishers & purveyors of the obscene,
brilliantly demented indeed…
art is not a luxury,
no
a survival instinct.
little dead bodies
i was never a mother
but i named you anyways.
i imagined you as one whole
collective,
Eleanor.
four babies in one
fetus-in-fetu2
strange and tiny
skeletal masses.
gelatinous fishy creatures,
hidden,
writhing within brain tissue.
a millennium ago,
would you have been eaten?
worshipped?
sacrificed?
terrible horrors.
i imagined all of you
conscious, aware,
swimming joyfully
inside the one fragile fetus,
closer to pure divinity,
than hermits hidden
in monastic mountain caves.
gutsnake
a diseased alimentary canal
imploded,
shielded gently
by thin mucosal layers.
pressurized
infinitely abscessed,
sloughing in chemo turmoil.
strangling i,
squeezing sufficiently,
like a snake,
then drowned,
by the warm, slippery flesh.
tortured
by its complete
superior
apathy
to my mortality.
gestation
i was swallowed whole
by polyphemus,
caught in the whirlpool of his belly,
sheathed in bicarbonate-rich mucus,
ancient salts
clinging softly to my skin.
living off digested remains,
and primordial soups.
he spoke in reverberations,
rumbling deep,
as i fingerpainted on the inner walls
with burning secretions.
i swam naked
inside endless canals, lost,
falling in darkness,
off of cliffs made of mucous membranes,
slipping into caverns and chambers,
emerging once again.
i became immortal and luminous
as i fed off his nutrients
like a growing fetus
in a warm embryonic sac.
———
1this poem is based off of my experiences working as a nurse, and how my encounters with decaying flesh reminded me of the greek God Thanatos.
2this poem is based off of the rare medical anomaly intracranial fetus-in-fetu, more specifically a real case of a baby born with three intracranial fetuses-in-fetu with multiple well-defined organs. see: radiograph, CT scan, specimens
