That motherlode of Sun right there
literally blasting me in the face with its glory
it’s so far away (1 au, to be exact), but all this brilliance over vast
distances
Hydrogen fusion far off raining its streaming splendor upon me
upon Ball of Magma on spit of axis in Sky
I pay homage to your unapproachable light
while below your fiery flares I read
and find everything I read is like myself sending messages to
myself from the past
sorting through the junk of infinite lives
this is where we left off?
I don’t know what to do with all this
don’t look at me, I’m just doing the best I can
like the next guy
The sky’s brilliance is an awesome beauty to behold
and God is like a tired reviewer in his dusty office in Eternity
“What is all this shit?” as he shifts through the endless towering
paperstacks
endless images of self
piles of worse and worse xerox copies
until the copy is an entirely new image
and when turned upside down is rather beautiful
then all he wants to do is shoot paper airplanes, go home
make it to the end of the day to be with his wife and kids
he wears a 1970s brown suit velvet sun-faded with a felt daisy in
the pocket
Is there anything wrong with brown velvet objectively speaking?
aesthetically?
He’s only trying to make a good impression, it’s sweet
and alone at night God prays for peace and deliverance
but will he give it to himself?
I think so because he has endlessly in the story so far
now he is your mother waiting phoneside for a call
the Eternal Forgotten Grandmother piddling away lonesome long
hours at home
waiting in bunny slippers and curlers for her prodigal daughter to
pick up the damn phone
now two entangled souls lost on the public transit of the Universe
a sad timeless romantic epic of universal proportions
god, in red lipstick and black boots, who only wants to recognize
herself in a passing glance…
Are you…?
But, oh, when God does, it pours forth into Infinity
and then suns, galaxies, entire Universes are born from the blast
a fiery orgasmic plasmic ecstasy of Primordial Explosion
I think Whitman would approve of this Vision
bursting unimaginable
down to the most specific late-night hopes and fears
the worrying of an edge of blanket
And here I have made an Image yet again
like so many images before
an endless record trying to see Itself
an Awe-ful realization
while Ingres’ self-portrait stares severe at me 1800s
with eyes symbolic of humanity
it’s always the eyes
pouring into each other like two cups with the same wine
it’s Orgasmic
(Yes, Whitman would definitely approve)
The utter Orgasmic Quality of looking into another’s eyes
a tremble-inducing happening, fearfully waiting to spy the life
within
whose silly emanations vaunt forth always twice removed
circle each other in a constant dance of, friend or foe?
And the question must be asked
can we ever meet in perfect harmony?
or like an aesthetic medium does it just have its own limitations?
the limitation of division
our emanated beings gone forth from eternity
from the same foundation but now two sides to the same coin
always facing opposite directions but glued at the back
is the glue the Holy Ghost?
have I stumbled upon its form in an absurd delusion?
the answer to two millennia of theological conjectures in a drug-
induced dream?
the Gate for Ghostly Dreams
which one?
“Two gates for ghostly dreams there are:
One gate leads to Heaven, one to Hell
Sallying forth from one are the most
Beautiful delusive fantasies Bright
Cups of glimmering Poetic illusion
A spectral radiance of birthing Mind;
But those that come through the other door
Are Opaque and Dead in dread, no more.”
I don’t think this one came from the second
For it was a wondrous thing
And that’s what Eyes are made for anyways
as two portals for ghostly dreams
11/12/19
D.B.
Dawn Bratton lives in California and writes poetry and short poetic fiction that explores myth, death, perception, narratives with the past, and the nature of experienced reality. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in MARY: A Journal of New Writing, Calliope on the Web, Disquiet Arts, and Global Poemic. [email protected]
