The Night Season
By Joseph Armstead
Stare into the shadows and gloom
And curse the endless chatter
Of your restless, unquiet mind.
In Purgatory, a proud heart,
abandoned in Perdition,
still beats.
A single, courageous soul
stands firm
and withers not ‘gainst the fearsome
and the foul.
A solitary ray
of brilliant light, the last fallen warrior,
unintentional hero
and reluctant rebel, braves
the darkness of the eternal pit
and journey’s ever onward, searching…
The time is not yet come to sleep.
Close not your tired eyes.
In Purgatory, a flower dares blossom.
Trapped and caged, the lone bloom,
an explosion of fragile color
in a vast and ugly landscape,
is yet strong enough to expose
the pristine nakedness of its
individuality
without doubt or guilt or regret.
The time is not yet come to sleep.
Close not your tired eyes.
This is a domain without a future,
a place where past regret, past cowardice,
past greed, past wantonness,
past tense -- past imperfect -- pastime
of the lost and the twisted,
are forever imprisoned,
an empire built on pointless fury
resounding with aborted yesterdays
and stillborn tomorrows.
Denied passage to the Dreamspace,
You shall not reach the Quietude
of the Timestream’s singing waters.
In Purgatory, a paradox sleeps.
in Perdition, an enigma slumbers,
at once uncomfortably
familiar and yet utterly alien,
a dream not yet envisioned
by a sleeper not yet succumbed
to the impressionistic metaphor
of the Id’s many insecurities.
The time is not yet come to sleep.
Close not your tired eyes.
You cannot look away.
The shadows sing cold night music,
until the arrival
of the broken light of a new dawn.
Sleep…Purgatory needs its hero.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_m_549285.jpg
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Tears of Antimatter Falling
by Joseph Armstead
Stasis: I've been waiting and
Time is frozen
still.
Tau particles,
mass energy without
internal structure,
flutter through the buzzing
Void like polarized
snowflakes...
I've been holding on to
the edge of the singing
Abyss
and Gravity is a vampire
draining my courage.
The hourglass is
meaningless,
the sands tumble over the
edge of the map,
"Beyond this point
There be dragons",
uncharted space,
and I can't
remember your name.
My heartbeat echoes
cold thunder
in the empty ocean
of weeping space.
This is not a constant
for all particle interactions.
I need reassurances,
your voice,
your face,
your touch,
a promise of tomorrow,
A lingering Hope
that this search for
elementary particles
does not result in
decaying charges and
electroweak unification.
I desperately need
to see (too see!) a future
with you yet in it (yet remain!).
Am I asking too much?
Time does not stand still
so much as slouch towards
Oblivion, desultory and
dejected, a gravitic ballet
of loss and regret,
lies and neglect,
a spark of passionate joy,
strange charms affecting
neutrinos, and all my
particle data
pours off the edge
of the quantum waterfall
into the cavity
that once held the
atomic furnace of
our two hearts.
Stasis: I've been waiting and
Time is frozen still.
The hourglass is meaningless.
I pray for Critical Mass.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_768px_12_simplex_t3_svg.jpg
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Sleepwalk in Denial
by Joseph Armstead
I can't sleep.
I hear the metal music of a train passing in the distance.
My reflection hides on the frozen silicon surface
of a mirror in the dark, across from the doorway, hanging
framed on a dirty wall I never notice anymore
when I pass this way on my path out the front door
--- repeating your name to resound in the spaces in-between,
water puddles on the floor, micro-oceans in the night,
bleedings I tracked in hours ago
from the wounded body of the world outside,
and I think I dropped the remnants
of my memories on the floor,
sloughed mindflesh,
the wreckage of an incomplete pupation,
metamorphosis interruptus,
and I notice that there is still the kiss of winter
tainting the newness of this spring evening
--- rambling, mumbled monologue replaying an unvoiced argument,
Those wet footprints will stain the pristine gloss
of the polished wooden floor, an idle thought, and
I ruminate on how much of me is lost
in a wrinkled, shapeless mound left lying in dust
on the floor's smooth, damp surface
as I grab my jacket off the coat rack, throw it on,
and I
walk...
...away...
......from this......
..........forced imprisonment..........
leaving my reflection frozen, hanging
in silvered glass in the dark.
--- I think, belatedly, that I should see something profound in this,
Traffic noises whisper faint lies from the boulevards outside.
I can't sleep.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_m_15497824.jpg
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Seasons of Noh
by Joseph Armstead
Black blossoms appear
heralding sad history,
shadows weep her name.
Noh:
They pass the windows ignorant of their own reflections,
hurrying in the spring rain, conscious of time, blindly dutiful,
each secretly knowing they have perhaps missed
their last chance at the passion of a lifetime.
It is the price they pay for their homogeneity,
it is a ball and chain of security, shame and cowardice.
If their faces looked back from the polished glass,
their stares would accuse them of treason.
Blind and faceless, they become the rain.
One looks back and sees...
Jiutai:
He is one of the crowd,
call him Gungen,
call him Ulysses,
call him Father or Son,
call him John Doe,
and his sadness
defines his existence,
tragic, broken, walking wounded and bleeding, he searches
for that singular moment when he can revisit past glories.
He rejects his present. He fears his future.
His journey is one navigating in an ocean of anonymity.
The memory of her name pains him.
Kyogen:
Loss is Destiny, Destiny is Fortune, Fortune is dreaming,
eyes wide screaming, facing away from Heaven, embracing
the arrival of Night, Mother of Shadows, lost and friendless
in a forest of faces, this puzzle, this question, this Everyman
who is a No-Man, stops for coffee, bitter and black.
The aroma that rises off the dark nectar
is a memory of romance.
Jiutai:
He is one of the crowd,
call him Gungen,
call him Ulysses,
call him Father or Son,
call him John Doe,
and in silence
he sings
an enka tune about lovers parting, broken hearts,
and a longing for hearth and home, sings a yano tune
about who it is who cries, why there are tears,
and what is gained by such naked wretchedness.
Not he. It is all so unseemly,so uncomfortably real,
and he hides what he can from the light of day.
It is a futile flight from his own heart.
Noh:
He stops, no longer walking,
the crowd parts around him
and
he turns his face away
from the curtain of evening
falling upon the wet streets
of the city that has molded
his brittle manhood,
and
he changes direction,
striding purposefully
against the flow of the crowd
walking back
into the memory
of her comforting arms.
It is a small battle
but a good death.
Embracing the scent,
black blossoms in the rain
haunt his waking dreams.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_m_4930397.jpg
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Seagull On a Cross
by Joseph Armstead
A seagull bathes in the rays
of the morning's sun,
perched on the wrought iron crucifix
of an aging brick and mortar church
on a street corner in a part of the city
where urban regentrification
has made only timid inroads.
The dirty white marquis of the church reads:
"Through my eyes I see a dusty crossroads in the rain.
Through His eyes I see the purity of an infinite Hope."
The seagull sees there are three
garbage dumpsters
nearby where it can scavenge its next meal
of discarded leftovers.
The corner it straddles is a four-way intersection
that was once the place where tribes
of warring Native Americans
met to air their differences, strategize
or talk peace
during times of famine, disease or violence.
Now it sits opposite an auto mechanics' shop
and an Afrocentric Moroccan cafe
with free wireless internet access,
its nearest neighbor on the same street, to the east,
being a music store reselling old vinyl records
of dead or obscure jazz musicians and big band orchestras,
and, to the south, a four-story tall,
private practice psychiatric clinic.
The Lord obviously believes in irony and subtext.
The bird preening its feathers atop the cross
believes in the smells on the wind over the streets.
A weary homeless woman pushing a shopping cart
believes she is being watched by agents of the CIA.
It's the end of spring and 7:15am
on a Saturday
and the church's doors are locked.
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_713005.jpg
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Dissent, Loathing and Gunfire Over a Sausage Casserole
by Joseph Armstead
(...the crackling hiss of static,
like a fire in a garbage can,
as the television ignites to life...)
Awakening with sand in my eyes, vision blurred,
my mouth dry as a desert and hunger
stabbing my belly
like an impatient street mugger.
Get up. Turn the T.V. on
while I scavenge breakfast.
A rage of global psychosis floods in through my cable.
I bathe in the electron downpour as if showering.
Corporate news broadcast delights
in a festival of murder,
somber tones, a junkie's eagerness,
sharing rumors and exposed secrets,
Politics and religion and economics
inspiring a legion of assassins.
We all have a reason to kill, white hoods and burnt crosses
We all have a reason to kill, oil prices and dead prophets
We all have a reason to kill, market crashes and lost profits
Brown sausage and drain.
Place on bottom of 9"x 13" casserole dish.
Place bread on top of sausage
and put shredded cheese on top of bread.
Mix with eight eggs and one tsp dry mustard
and two tbsp Worcestershire sauce,
then beat in large bowl:
March in lockstep and do what you're told,
March in lockstep and do what you're told.
My family photos are burning, and I watch the images curl and crisp,
The names of the Dead resound like the strike of a Judge's mallet.
We all have a reason to kill, minnarets and mullahs,
We all have a reason to kill, kevlar vests and grief-stricken mothers,
We all have a reason to kill, shiny metal badges distrust all the others
Pour liquid mixture over ingredients in casserole,
Bake for 45 to 50 minutes in 325 to 350 degree oven.
Cut into squares, serve hot.
Curse, lick burnt fingers and listen to the traffic report.
Corporate news broadcast morphs into a deoderant commercial.
Awaken to the clangorous music of a brand new day.
March in lockstep and do what you're told.
I can't taste anything I eat
and
My hunger still burns.
(...the shushing silence of a vacuum,
like the air escaping a punctured lung,
as the television fades to black...)
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: dreamstime_1864967.jpg

