The Sword of Azermoth

I feel my mind always switches the rails when I sleep in a strange place. This past weekend I went to pick up my best friend in Bursa, and had the most bizarre dreams...Granted, I went to sleep after a few vodka/Fantas, M&M's, two chicken wraps a la street meat, and 3/4's of a kilo of lamb over pita bread drizzled in tomato sauce and melted butter.

Seeing as I awoke in the middle of the night mid-nightmare, I wrote down what I remembered, and promptly passed out, apparently to finish the journey I had begun. This is the dream that ensued...

 

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In my dream the shape of my body was enormous. If you know the Shrike of the Hyperion book series, this was similar minus the spikes. Meters high, powerful, alone. Running around for no particular reason were a few of the students from a 4th grade class at my school, shouting at one another incoherently. After a few moments of watching them turn in circles, I began to hear them chant, over and over and over, these phrases.

'We believe in you so we see you. We believe in you so we see you. We believe in your so we see you.'

I didn't understand why they were doing this until the air and ground around me began to tremble and simmer. The feeling was like a combination of seeing heat waves bounce off a sizzling highway ribboning into nowhere and feeling as if I had been plunged into the hole of a guitar and the sound waves were bouncing in a hundred directions. I look around to hold on to something when all of a sudden a demon figure appeared in the middle of the students' circle. In the dream I knew without a doubt that the demon would destroy everything in its path, and that it could only be destroyed by decapitation. I looked down at left hand and realized I had been holding a two meter long sword, apparently named Azermoth. I swung without hesitation at the demon and lopped off his head. 

Somehow without its head, it became a something I could order to do anything. I immediately ordered it to create and open a book. It did, conjured up a book, opened it and took my shoulder and plunged me into the book. Falling into a book the size of something's palm is unnerving but when I fell all I could see was water. I held out my hands with curled fingers, and began chanting myself...From behind me came the skin, bones, muscles and hair of the students who had been in a circle before. The aforementioned things began forming some huge creature, though LUCKILY I awoke at that moment.

Normalcy rarely feels that good.

A Blue Marble Fades - Part I (Poem)

Tattered clouds

rippled like black slate sliding backwards on a mountaintop,

as I wound my way upwards.

The scene chilled me in a good way,

the type that gives you goosebumps, a weird half-smile and shrug of the shoulders.

A shrug almost as if to say, “so what? I’m alone with myself.

No one can hear my thoughts,

no one can snake into my heart,

no one can smear or smudge that sunset unless I say so.”

Yeah, that’s what it felt like.

   A small handful of climbing hours passed,

 and I found myself  camped under a sharp stony ledge,

distant from his eyes,

countries away from his baleful look

mountains further than his long fingers were capable of reaching.

I began my evening by supplicating the wind to

hide my scent,

hide my dreams,

hide my skipping into worlds unknown.

Then the blue arched marble of sky began slowly to fade,

mountains peaks like broken fingers struggled to hold up the horizon

and I became tiny as the sky inched closer to my ledge.

I slid my tongue around my teeth,

feeling rather than tasting bits of sand, grit and fear,

and sat down against pale gray rock, watching, always watching.

After all, he had tried many years ago to find me,

and I never underestimated

his avarice,

his reach,

his ability to keep ravens penned up inside filthy cages of soundless misery.

Feeling the solid weight of rock behind me,

lifeless and kind,

I slowly edged myself towards sleep,

one reluctant minute at at time.

Tar-Black Butterfly Wings (Poem)

I'd recently ended a week,

one much darker than most,

soaked in tremulous visions most would want to forget,

my mind a labyrinth of troubled butterflies with wet wings and too much space

yet no exit...

When

one evening I sat on a cliff of sadness holding my shadow's hand.

Serene and motionless

my shadow ran its darkness around my fingertips

slowly

lacing a dangerous caress

its two pale eyes hooded as full moons behind charcoal clouds

staring blinkless at endless questions

perched midair within a grasp at the edge of my cliff.

"Go ahead," I mumbled softly

And when at last it had its fill,

my neck a drained story,

I asked my sinister smiling shadow,

"what kept you so long?"

as I hung suspended for a beautiful moment

above tar black darkness,

my butterfly wings at last free to flee

slicing shadow from me,

moon from cloud.

Yolk and a Burnt Night (Poem)

The dawn had just cracked her egg upon the sky,

and spread its color in wide sweeping strokes

mixing yolk and burnt night,

when I heard their trill and song.

At once distant yet outside my head meters away,

they appeared as blotches of ink against a mottled tangerine sky,

hopping amongst flecks of water that took the hue of blood against the sunrise.

There existed a sense of harmony in their cacophony

as if a hand were orchestrating them like shadow puppets

dancing them along the edge of their birdbath world

whirling them in unfathomable geometric motion to the other side.

There existed in that orchestration extreme violence of sound

a staccato chirping rising and falling in excited waves,

cresting ruffled feathers and slamming into half-opened window

glazed over with my early morning breath,

watching and rubbing their song into existence with...

Mustard colored air drifted insolently above him

touching his lungs with pain

smearing his sunrise with sadness-colored dreams

while meters perhaps miles away the sound of lives popping continued.

At once distant yet directly inside his head,

cannons like rounded metal teeth blinked themselves into life

and shattered skyline with dirty streaks of smoke snaking over his way in arcs.

There existed a deathly lull within his shallow trench,

dug by his hands commanded by another

moving  him to sleep even as others and their parts

danced in different directions to a booming tempo.

There lived an ugly reminder in the muzzle's manic moan

a hush and a click rolling under  his hands

in a simple pattern

as a simple tooth sticking out of the earth

while hurt spreads across fields like swaths of old gum.

A Lady's Web...

The other night a nightmare clung to me.

I dreamed of following an old woman down an immense pathway covered in thousands of doors. Each door we passed I would look at lovingly, even when each door slowly turned into a spider's web. As soon as it turned into a web the woman would reach into one of the strands and pluck out some flowers, handing them to me, while exclaiming "how delicious!" I would take them, smiling, but suddenly become revolted by the smell, drop them in a panic as horrid thoughts raced through my mind, clouding reason. When they hit the floor I would suddenly smile stupidly, and reach out for another bouquet that she had waiting for me at the next door web.

I'm glad I awoke!

Mortality of a 20th Century Girl (Poem)

One girl in the corner: ignored, confident.

three girls on the floor: beautiful, splendid, ignorant. 

years whistle by – one in the corner a portion of life,

three on the floor skeletons in flight,

faces masked with sunken eyes. 

One risen to the sky,

three marching in a splendid funeral procession.

Residents Reared Right (Poem)

recapitulate! reiterate!

resist revolution’s rancid raving –

runaways reason, regarding rightfully restored rectories.

robbery! [richness rears rudeness]

rundown resorts rumble, relinquishing reality,

realizing raw resources,

realizing reinvigorated revolution. 

reduction! reports! reassess!

redirect rich risk rinsing,

ridiculing regrets royalty residents.

rich rinsing?  

robbery! rape! 

reaffirm revolution’s raving.