Alicanto Cycle: Dreams of the Desert by Richard PaezAlicanto Cycle: Dreams of the Desert
veteris vestigia flammae – Virgil
“I feel once more the scars of the old flame”
Saltpeter (Axis Mundi)
We forge new weapons
– the deadliest of all –
to avenge old wounds :
On this equatorial battleground
that splits our earth in two,
under the vagrant sun
that strips our world of shade
the only shadows cast
are our own –
always directly beneath us.
The war took my feet –
I am the hobbling,
wobbling,
imbalanced man
faux-crucified
between twigs
I saved from the flames
the tiny night I cast below me
madrugada in motion
is the closest this place knows
to anything circadian
~
We brandish old weapons
– the deadliest by far –
to honor new wounds :
On the sun-bleached borderland
that splits our world in two,
under this lifeless light,
translucent alabaster,
the only shadows cast
are our own –
always underneath us.
The river hasn't moved
since our dead damned its flow.
Summer ice
awaits sublimation –
how can this endless desert-day
be so brilliant and so cold?
a:Symmetrical
She came across the courtyard,
constellations in her hair:
all the lights
God ever dreamt of
find themselves there.
She smiled at my compliments,
our throw-away affair:
if all we ever have is moments
then why in God's name should we care?
Atacama Giant
The stones here are soft
softer than those
our faces are carved from.
Our steps
cause tremors;
each breath,
death –
(or should have).
We are War and Famine,
Death and Pestilence –
Guerra y Inanición,
Muerte y Contagio –
Yet our only victims
are ourselves
the only sacrifices
our own.
We were woken
after aeons-sleep –
forgotten auguries,
preserved in sand,
quietly counting
moons and rains.
We were brought here
to announce Apocalypse
bring verdigris –
but Apocalypse
had already come.
The Detritus of Man (Menarche)
Mother, mother
the ocean smells like ink.
In those days, we bathed
in iodine and salt
we learned
how sand can flow
like water –
like water:
everything we know and are
everything we ever were
is water
everything we think we add –
our blood, our oil
pollutants and perversions
messages in bottles
all the detritus of man
she already has inside her,
always had inside her:
more gold can't be mined
more iron can't be found
in blood and earth combined –
to her,
all the dreams of man
are but a molecule
given enough time
– man's aeon,
her moment –
it all flows like water:
we dream, make plans
take our children to the shores
we washed upon as children
never dreaming, or knowing
that those shores,
those breakers and riptides
that ache-less flow
dreamt of us long before
the first amphibian took breath
Mother, mother
the ocean smells like ink.
Mother smiles,
saves chemistry lessons
for another age
hangs our clothes
on ocean-ward banisters
wishes us sweet dreams
Now,
out here in the desert,
our hands and feet
– palms and souls –
are stained beyond recognition
::: consumption :::
She said she worried for me
because I burned so brightly.
I had no heart to tell her
that my brightness
was only due
to contrast.
Every time I eat, I die.
I starve myself daily
live on a liquid diet
because I fear
what comes with
consumption:
She said she worried for me
I had no heart to tell her
I starve myself daily
because I fear 09/25/2009 Author's Note: In memory of those who died for saltrock and guano.
Posted on 09/25/2009 Copyright © 2023 Richard Paez
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