4:30 a.m.; 81 minutes done. The mad, wicked and wayward somnambulists tucked away all of them into realms of inordinate conciliation, lifted or carried down by damascene wings, lavender scented. And I? I do but lie here yet awhile, slowly coiling in this treacherous twilight reversed.

When sleep finally came, I dreamt of old friends.

Na Zdrowie!

Something from the dark:

The picture found its way into my room. I'd grown tired of picking it up off the floor, replacing it upon the wall again and again, and simply left it on the floor now. Every time it fell it changed a little, sharper and clearer one day, darker and full of shadows the next. Sometimes the faces were turned away from me. Other times...I could not bear to look. Faces ought to have eyes, don't you agree? And so it had a new home, underfoot and near the dust, only a pale hole on the wall now, in the shape of a haunting.

And then it came into my room, innocent and benign there at the foot of my bed. Waiting for me. Did it peer into my face as I dreamed? Did it slide under the door, creeping like a moonbeam? I stared at it, this reminder, this monument, this cancer, this infected reflection. And then I took it up in my bed cover and threw it, warmly wrapped and buried, into the bin outside. The bin grew darker and colder it seemed, out there in the rain, full of poison and unwanted. I locked the doors and drew the curtains. I made every room bright and lit every candle, and then I made coffee and swore not to sleep.

I should have set a fire in the bin, I thought, days later, dirty and exhausted, just before I succumbed. I should have sent it straight to hell.

I woke and found it pressed against my face. My own hand held it there, but I could not see around the picture. Faces watched me. Mouths spoke. The figures within began to move, and the glass began to crack.

My genius is a cat. She haunts the shadows and the corners of my eyes, Cheshire disappearing act when I turn to see. She is quick and warm and beautiful, but slinks away when I try to touch her. Unless she's hungry. Then it's all delightful proximity. My sleep is a landscape of her deep throated purr, and I wake to liquid sapphires as she stares down at me, making sure I remember. She sits on my shoulder as I write or confess, making sure I get it all down.

My muse is no Pre-Raphaelite angel; my muse is a willful ball of silk that bites my hand when I'm not paying attention.

I was asleep the first time it happened; it woke me up. I knew it was moving, I could feel it crawling up my arm and across my neck. I didn't stir, only stared into the dark, wondering if I was going mad. If someone had spoken just then, or touched me, I don't think I would have ever stopped screaming.

The next morning when I got out of the shower, it was gone. I froze, my towel in my hair. Through wet strands I saw the bare flesh of my arm, a hard expanse of skin...beautiful and clean. With dull horror, as if in a film, I turned and lifted my hair away from my neck. There, there it lay curled, crouched and waiting: an onyx spider. My first tattoo.

I was traveling in a strange land, brokenhearted, vengeful, bitter in some nightmarish landscape of poverty and humidity. I thought the dark shopkeeper would give me ink, but he only listened while I explained, then shuffled away into the back. I wandered the room, admiring the many designs on the walls: faded lines curled on old paper, yellow and brittle. Most were ugly. And some were so beautiful I wished I'd had a knife, a sharp wicked thing, something I kept in my pocket, a good knife, so that I could--

"Sit," from over my shoulder. An indistinct shape, a woman, as white as the man was dark. She did not look at me. I went to her and she turned a chair so I could be seated. It was filthy and soothing.

"Your shirt," she said. I took it off. She held up a design, the very thing I'd described, only perfect. I nodded, in a daze. She put it on my arm, rubbing the paper with coarse efficiency, took it off again. I could see the thing, an embryonic blue, a blueprint. I laughed. She lifted up the gun, turned on the machine. The gun chattered demonically and began to writhe, it oozed black blood. I began to sweat. I began to doubt. A heavy sack went over my head, and a thick arm went round my neck. And then I began to dream.

I finished toweling myself, shaved and dressed. (When I brushed my teeth I felt it cling.) And then I went out. The tattoo was pleased.

One night I was in the city. I came out of a club, reeking of smoke and sweat. I was accosted, and followed, and then rough cracked hands shoved me into a wall and a hateful voice demanded cash. I shook with adrenaline, fear and shock. His breath was foul and rotten, his eyes were yellowed and red. And then they were wide, and quivered, when the spider ran out and across my face. His hands left me, and then I dragged him down and beat him. I walked away, shivering, and when I drove home the tattoo was on my hand.

One horrible night, rejected and alone, it found a home on my stomach. When I ended a friendship, it descended to my thigh. And when I fucked beautiful strangers, it danced across my back. Its poisons were my poisons. Whatever skein it wove with my longings and fear, it fed well.

And then one morning it was gone. I searched carefully, then frantically, filled with dread. I think it's inside me. I don't know what it feeds on now.

Next I think I'll get a snake.

"It's art. You give it up, you were never an artist in the first place."

It was the morning of the Illumination. She woke from troubling dreams: wars, plagues, destruction. She did not understand. Pre-dawn, she lighted candles and began her litanies. She kneeled, cloistered for the space of an hour, before the acolytes came. She had almost forgotten the dreams.

She walked through dark hallways, flanked by two silent maidens, their dry, sliding footsteps echoing lightly. Through a door and then an archway, she was led down steps into a low ritual chamber, where a small pool was heated by several fire warmed stones. Now she was bathed and anointed. The sounds of water calmed her, made her think of her childhood by the sea. She thought of storms while they dressed her, of great slate colored skies while they tied her hair with silken cords. Everything was so very big when she was a child. They covered her head with a veil. Everything here was so very close, nights and days of stone and firelight and incense. Now she was led back up the stairs, head bowed, eyes closed.

She heard a sweet warm chant as they entered the Vestibule, where hundreds of the faithful were gathered. She smelled musk and fresh bread, she smelled sandalwood and lavender and hyacinth. She could taste it in her mouth. The chanting grew louder, became almost a hum, and she was knelt before the Dais. She knew that if she lifted her gaze she would see the curving passageway to the chamber of the Avatar, lit with brazen torches. It was hidden from view every day of the year except this one. Still, she did not raise her eyes.

She yearned to be taken up in the Illumination. Stories were told of how the greatest most faithful servants of the Avatar were taken up physically to see Him in his true glory, to be made into immortal servants of light and flame. Angels. Demons? Dreams. She chose this path years ago, and hoped and prayed, she drew penitance and suffered and stayed pure in all things. And she knew in her heart, which beat so fiercely now, louder than the chants, that this day would come. She had always known. She did not smile. She did not raise her eyes.

A quiet rush of wind came from the passageway, and all fell silent. She stood now, and waited. The torches crackled, and she waited. And then a sound, something from a childhood terror, something low and impossible and familiar, a sound from God, a sound from beyond the threshold of this life...beckoning. Now she did lift her gaze, and she went in.

She tried to keep her mind still as she walked slowly along the corridor, which curved around and sloped down, so that it became a spiral, but it seemed to go on forever. Down and down and down, the firelight hissing and smoking around her, the silken cords of her robes swaying in a perfect rhythm as she moved. She clasped her hands. She unclasped them. She thought of her mother suddenly, faraway and alone, and felt quite sad. And even when the Voice filled her head, golden and majestic, she could not forget her loneliness. It spoke her name, her new one, her old one, names she'd never heard before but suddenly remembered, all her names from all her lives until now. It called her. It called her. And she was filled with new longing, felt tears falling from her eyes, and she ran now, ran down and down and down, nearly tripping, forgetting ritual and reverence. A light grew around her, and burned her eyes, and now she could feel Him, and sobbed aloud in some strange joy.

She ran into the last chamber, sweaty and exhausted, her hair clinging to her face. Light was everywhere, everything was light. She felt Him move near, and brought trembling fingers to her eyes, brushed aside veil and hair and wet. She saw white, she saw gold. She saw blue and sapphire and rust colored clouds, she saw burning mountains and broken seas and torn skies drowning in stars. Warm gentle hands took hers and lifted her up, and now she dared to look into His face. She was ready. She was prepared.

She saw the writhing tentacles just before they pierced her face, the sharp little maw before it began to feed. Dead little eyes stared somewhere past her, black and unmoving, like scars. She heard chanting, she thought. Or screaming. Her mind was going. She remembered thinking, It is a lie. It was all a cruel dream.

And then another thought in her mind, not her own. Yes, child. It was a cruel dream.

I gave it to you.

And then there was nothing.

She warned me. She told me she would know, despite my stealth and prowess. Like Artemis at her bath, she would catch me watching: another Actaeon, helpless in his perfect lust and adoration. Even asleep, especially asleep, my gaze caresses her and she will wake, smiling a little, knowing all along. No secret, no surprise, no epic chase through wood and grove, slim bow at the ready, the dogs of war at her heel; dancing, singing, hunting, dreaming...she'll ask me to join and take my hand instantly...or, drowsy, murmur some eloquent I-told-you-so.

And then, pre-dawn, we close our eyes.

I held her close and delighted in her scent; Have I told you this story before? I murmured. She said no, tell me now, and squeezed me back.

I dressed in black and went to your funeral. You looked surprised to see me. I slipped the murder weapon under your pillow, for good luck perhaps, a token of forgiveness, strange coin of the afterlife; 'tis now your cursed albatross, not mine. No no, don't get up; I can show myself out.

I caught you, post-coital and damp, your lover's embrace fresh on your skin, the veil of cigarettes around your face clinging like his satisfaction upon your belly. I watched you swallow your whiskey and look away, your slender pulsating throat an enviable thing, a poet's inflamed dream, a madman's also, and I fingered the blade in my pocket.

I stared into your eyes as if I'd find salvation there, hope or meaning or some dullness from pain, thrusting hard and slow into your flesh to mete out justice, wrath, passion, memory: remember me. Remember ME. How furiously blind is this mockery of love even as I claim you, bite you, scratch your skin and pin you down, roaring low and steady into the calmed night.

You bought me the first drink in that glowing oasis, the music pressing us together, lips to ears; you were dressed in black. I watched you watch the dancing throng. Suddenly you said--

Wait. I know this story. Tell me another. And she brought my hand to her mouth and kissed it. I pulled her ever closer, delighting in her scent, and began again.

"and all that's best of dark and bright..."

Stupid stare, you do not reveal the depths beneath, where passions swim in celestial waters, vast and deep. Why is the tongue silent? Why do the hands merely roam like tidy beasts, smoothing and correcting her supple vestments? Did I say there were only a thousand pieces of her? A thousand alters perhaps, scented by unseen braziers, so that with every kiss I grow mad and wise and full of vision, an oracle, a dreamer: a fool surely, as well intentioned and twice as brave. Impassive blank face, will you not betray a single sign? Will you not with beguiling elegant word speak of her potency, her strength, her soft hard flesh and magnificent eyes? Of what a little thing she is, charmingly disarming: a tomboy Byron giddy and resplendent in her kind cruelnesses, tender devotions, and smooth pale skin? What a vital and beautiful fury it must be to truly lay in those arms, the frank union of first penetration an incendiary alchemy, the very air stolen from our lips. Destruction! Corruption! and a fierce embrace....

cadenza on a theme (variation)

It comes to her as she travels or moves, without traveling, or moving; divine apportation, a kiss from her muse. And sometimes while she sleeps, but today, this morning: as she sits in the sun on the stair in the foyer, naked, eyes closed and warmed. She goes to the piano and begins to breathe a rhythm, and it pours out of her hands, this thing, this deep and rolling sound, this perfect manifestation, this careful reincarnation of a time she almost told a heartbreaking truth to a boy while he slept, of a time when she was a girl and first fell in love, when it was a painful thing, and alien, quite beyond her comprehension...of a time when childhood ended, quick and unwieldy, like the waking from a dream. Now her fingers move faster and her feet romance the forte and una corda with a charming desperation. Now she is lost in the art of synesthesia, having worked an old betrayal and an unrequited love into her creation, far too familiar with the universal solvent of despair. She plays for an hour, frenzied, calm, eloquent, tedious, and meaningless in the end, because she has no thing to tell, only fragments, ghosts, shapeshift memories: rumblings and threats of a storm to come. She closes and caresses the fallboard, tender and embittered, the echoes of her artistry dancing yet upon the air. The sun occluded now, dark gray become the sky: today in the rain she will forget her music, forget herself, the time and day and all thoughts of pain, all in two inches of a lightning only she will see, meant for her that moment since the gods grew kind.

If only she could savor these last few hours, for all their beautiful wretchedness, but she is unaware.

I woke at 4:30. Somewhere in the ether a highhanded voice of doom had silenced her with all the grace and subtlety of a poke in the eye. I twisted and stretched in that long dark stairway of night, my awareness struggling to illuminate the depths, unable. Not tonight, my lips pressed to her ear, nor hers to mine, but only a fleeting thought, perhaps more, a whispered blessing between pillow and dark. Should such a thing be carried aloft by angels, imps, denizens of dream? Or lost perhaps, like the ringing of a foreign bell into the sky, crystalline and pure, or unceremoniously hung up on by a haughty, disembodied voice. The currency of a thousand smiles? Not tonight. Not tonight. But tomorrow....

Sleep well, my little iPolidori, sweet avatar of fate.

Just two small moments quickly overcome by the velocity of night, where her face was turned to me of its own accord, and speaking twice with a voice like waves upon the sand, moonlit and fine...two moments, that burned with the stealth and fury of wounds that fell a soldier long after battle. But with eyes so clear and words so sweet she is only a lovely shadow of another, whose every thought in these long dark hours is the memory and promise of her small white hand in mine, evoking fever, lust, reckless passions and ideas, and soothing in turn. And if that smooth pale skin against mine is the alchemy of longing, storms upon the dry and yearning landscape, why still am I so brittle and coarse, a ravaged oak, splintered from that same lightning? From wood comes destruction and fire, and yet also a home, with hearth and roof and elegant bannisters, warm to the touch...have I been waiting all these years for her artisan craft, when I should have been about my own?

I have never been so inspired but for the lack of a muse, instead of sleeping in the arms of one.

Where are you going? I'm on my way to excellence. But you're lying in the mud. It's true, you can't find truth by looking.

Walk with me then, and let us find a warm room to drink; here, give me your arm. That's better. Tonight by the good firelight we'll toast and share painful memories, nodding solemnly as if we'd invented all our lover's discontent. Have a care, there is a puddle. Do you see that girl in the shadowed corner? No, the melancholy one with long hair, holding the cigarette near her face. I had a dream where she was Queen; I longed for her, it was quite carnal. Did you say you had a debt, or regret? Regardless, give it to me; absolution is my stock in trade, I can forgive anyone anything. But I am only a journeyman. Ah, clockwork pimps and their crystalline whores...have you coin of the realm? Never mind, we have arrived. Lodge with me tonight, I'll spin you tales til you sleep like the dead, guiltless and secure. In the morning you'll find me gone, no sharper than a dream and twice as cheap. We will meet again, in time.

To your health.

This is what I cannot say: I am a child of water and flame, some nameless bright creature with a tongue of slow fire, eyes of dark storm; I belong in no place or the other, consigned to nights of ice and wind, graceless before her coming, flightless before her kiss. What has become of an hour, when her footsteps bring her near? Time is unmanned, like silence, when she lay in these arms. I did not know strength, destiny or design, until I dared her gaze. And all she wished, all she could desire, in that ageless moment, was a truth beyond words...and so I am mute; the scent of some extinguised candle, the warmth of a lingering embrace.

Now...now, I remember what it is to dream.

If she lay there, unmoving, staring deep and unholy reptilian longing into my eyes, lips moving with arctic peace, soundless and eternal, blacker than your most perfect sleep, I would become subdued, content merely to caress her divine ratio, my hand endlessly exploring that deep meridian, breast to stomach to hip, and back again, fingers moving forward, now backward, gentle intrusions past her celestial equator, yearning for territories eager and unknown, somewhere past the rim of her jeans. She is now that most essential trinity: proximate, accessible, and willing...daring me to push, to pull, to drive into her with flesh what my thoughts already apprehend, what my dreams have always promised...but I can wait. If the dawn came upon us like a vital doom, I would wait; I could wait forever. For her.

i don't love you less when i feel her caress

I'm supposed to feed this great ravening hunger, but I haven't the words. What then can I offer? My flesh is mild, my soul quite bitter. A bite? it is nothing. You'll find no joy in licking my ink. All my thoughts are shapeless and familiar; there is nothing here to prey upon but a cast-off skin, unsatisfying proof indeed. But lock me away in good dark oak; in three months I'll seduce you with Dionysian gravity, furious and sweet, a willing rape of your palate, your intellect, all your delicate sensibilities. I'll fill your mouth with raw satisfaction, your eyes with a stare you'll feel in your belly; nothing good will come of our feast, I promise you this.

The State of the Union Is "Suck It, Fuckers"

This is it: a crack in the dark, a sliver of sunlight that carves hope and redemption into the void, carefree and effortless, only filled with the divine happiness of perfect understanding, a sense of karmic responsibility; illuminate. Show the way home.

We motes of slow dust, some float out of the dark and into the light. Some of us stay, and some drift back into the night, weightless, weighted. Beckoned. How many times must one feel that glow, how many glimpses of enlightenment before transcendence? It is a strange thing, this good and wholesome ray, filled with certainty, love, purpose...shall one wonder why some may choose the dark? When did fear or doubt become easier than truth?

Or, as Patrick Bateman might say: Work for your happiness, you artless bastard. Depression is for the lazy.

How impossible like drinking the wind
or growing drunk on storm
to warm my coiled thoughts and flesh
by fires never lit nor tended
only dreamt, her name whispered to no one
and shadow, darkness, and air unsweetened
by that splendid fragrance of her passing, or speaking
or dreaming in turn.

No comforting nights, no promised hours
no beatific peace of her certain weight upon my chest
no memory of sleeping hands' slow and secret communion.
To never know her morning face, golden and holy
blessed by sun in spectrumed glow
upon her hair a thousand candles
joyous and alive like her eyes, watching
waiting for my falling awake
and benediction.

How impossible like the death of sleep
to diminish this flame, ever hungrier despite the years
dancing and burning, by light or dark turning,
unfueled by any hope.

Why are all my dreams so dim?

I met her in some hotel room, it was dusky, I was taking her to the airport or somewhere, I was her ride. I was looking forward to showing her the new car. I inquired about dating, and she told me about some guy, and I asked her how good a kisser he was. She indicated he was ok. Really, I said. Suddenly we're kissing, and I'm holding her close, the back of my hand on her neck, I touch her face, push my fingers slowly through her hair. My heart does this slow explosion, as it usually does when I've found perfection, achievement, in dream.

We stop, and I can still feel the soft warmth on my face. He wasn't that good, she told me. That's too bad, I said, and kissed her again. This time our mouths parted.

Talk about horrible nightmares. We watched the F-5's approach at insane speeds, whipping across miles of terrain, faster than it took me to run across the room to the makeshift shelter we'd prepared. The whole house shook as the tornados passed, the whine and roar of the wind deafening. They were everywhere, appearing instantly, like horrible mushroom clouds that moved, and ate. When the roof finally lifted off our tiny room, we braced ourselves as best we could, but the cats disappeared instantly, along with the house.

Later (mercifully?) I was back on the Nocturne shoot, and for some reason we were all lined up, posed actually, naked, for some artful photo shoot.

W...t...f.

I've seraphim on my shoulders, coiled silent with burning eye; attendants of flame, acolytes to my liturgies, servants of my augury:

Last night I dreamt of tokens, delicate ancient carvings of ivory and gold, wards against curses (I sold them). Small round gems held unlimited power; beautiful orbs of every brilliance and color, they lifted the very foundations of great structures and gave them flight. Within, from the highest window, I searched for her.

Last night I dreamt of gods, who were not; only mighty beings, brazen, petulant, consumed with epic yearning. I defied them, and begged of them a boon: give her to me, let her come. Let her feel this splendid joy, bright twin of my own. Give her peace, show her comfort; let her laughter break upon the waves like a dawn. The flame in our flesh now merely embers, only waiting for her sweet breath, shall warm the seraphim, anoint them, and set them free.

These sacred servants never sleep, but stand vigil bright as candleflames in the dark, letting no ghost pass. Only my waking hours seem mythic, untrue. Where is the grace, the perfection of dream?

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