South of Eternity
by Joseph Armstead
The journey begins
with a single sob,
choking back
the hysteria
of surrender
under Reality's
relentless assault.
The castle in the clouds
drops like a stone
and shatters on the
stony face of the arid plain.
Hope plummets, gravity's slave,
tears float on polluted air.
The dreamer wakes, alarmed...
There are times when
the Great Machine
that moves the Cosmos
coughs and shudders,
gears grinding to a
momentary halt,
as something unexpected
gets caught in the
intermeshing teeth of
Causality ---
(clickety-clack, snicker-snack,
the machine heart in the
belly of the beast skips a beat) ---
And all the levers and tie-rods
and rusted engine parts
start screaming in protest
because the engine must not stop,
not ever, the flow must continue,
the roads must roll,
Time keeps a'movin' downstream
as the waters of Life rush
off the edges of an
infinite waterfall,
pouring into the
chrome-plated bowl
of Forever.
The Sheep hide their eyes,
afraid to look up
into the Great Wheel
of the Universe
now that it has stopped
spinning.
They have fallen to
Extreme South,
right off the maps.
They can now see
the places where
the buses don't run.
The Sheep hide their eyes.
Wonders,
it's all about wonders
and wondrousness,
and dreams.
The Sheep don't,
dream that is,
but they know that
the Great Machine
will snap apart and
grind down
the Moments of Truth
caught in the teeth
of its gears and the
Engines of Creation
will again return to
running smoothly,
here in this place,
this haunted forgotten
nowhere off the map,
downstream,
south of eternity,
where the Sheep fear to look.
Journey's end
is a hysterical laugh,
caught in the throat,
all needles and pins,
hiding behind
the sound of weeping.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_3316842.jpg, "Starry Eternity" by Konstantin Yuganov
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A Hole in the Heart of Desire
by Joseph Armstead
The wind echoes
down corridors
of fleshy
memory,
a ripple
in the quicksilver
lake of yesterday,
and I can hear
your name floating
on the invisible
current, across dry
waters that cannot
nourish.
The drop of a stone
through the hole
in the heart
of the zero,
nothingness
squared.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_9489958.jpg, "Hole in the Body With the Heart" by Petr Vaclavek
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Jennifer Nocturne
by Joseph Armstead
She is polar ice
and rythmic coolness
wrapped in an
eye-candy package
that teases and enchants
and the magic
of her perpetual motion
hypnotizes
I knew her once,
felt the flame
of her passions,
helped her
keep her secrets,
but that
was a slow
eternity
ago
back in the age
where I walked
the edge of the razor
with a dancer's skill
and a rogue's
recklessness
She is a prism
of fractured
sensation,
memory and motion
married to endless
possibility
and I will regret
not keeping her name
locked deep inside
my heart
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_14537129.jpg, "Woman Over Dark"by Chesterf
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Breathing Glass
By Joseph Armstead
He's watching the sea, a vast liquid carpet undulating fitfully under a dark sky, but he can't hear the breaking of the waves over the fervent pounding in his ears. Rain pelts the ocean. Forty days and forty nights, or so the cliche says, the promise of cleansing and rebirth. Lies, all of it lies, a sodden, quicksand foundation for a questionable, contentious future.
...Rumors and deceptions fuse into a clogging, translucent barrier stealing his next breath before he can inhale it...
He is a cowboy riding the backs of serpents in someone else's dream and there is a strange freedom in that.
There's a tribal drumming in his chest that has usurped the beating of his heart, all stacatto syncopation in a relentless march-time rhythm, and that beat injects lava throughout the roadmap of veins crisscrossing his tense musculature. He wonders if anyone even notices the clear, all-enveloping armor, hardshell quicksilver, tailored tightly to his tensely vibrating body, a suit of glass. It is a false embrace offering little comfort and a frightening vulnerability.
...Childish dreams and promises of never leaving lace into an intricate web that hides him from sight...
Heat hisses from his grimacing lips, the steam from a crystal dragon's breath as the furnace within him, so nakedly visible, so exposed, burns with self-perpetuating heat, both ends burning, the hard sheath of mirrored steel trapping his breath in frozen scimitar curves. He voluntarily becomes a naked mannequin on display for debonair voyeurs. The sleeping part of his mind rebels. Tension. A tightly coiled spring of sleeping fury brought about by the invasiveness of a memory too long suppressed. He has no one to blame but himself and the frustration of that intoxicates him. He paid the price they asked of him. He never asked enough questions before buying the package. All sales were final.
He's watching the sea in the falling rain and the drumbeat in his chest sounds like the cadence of an army marching.
There is a strange freedom in that.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_3019014.jpg,"Depression" by Infs187
