SILT
VOL. 5
"the ancient world perhaps never existed, but there's no doubt that we have dreamt it" - fellini
an invasion of earth that already happened 5 million years ago.
precrambrian-ocean-mural-memory-touchstone informs the the black-lit room where the perspective was highlighted with a bright green ink. in the corners sat an array of disused animatronics, the gears and servos rusted and worn away. walking in the dark i could have sworn i felt the brush of his mechanical hand on the nape of my neck. after a brief glance from his single wax eye, he nodded and went about his buisness slumped against the others. when i looked down at my hand i saw he had left me a small, panting red creature.
my thoughts turn to the builders of ancient eras, who dream of cities gleaming in the deserts, built high above the beasts and monsters who roam its perimeters. but know this; there are also cities, fewer in numbers these days, that dream of people. the leprosy of time, dipped in the river of time, the corruption, the decay that makes everything more ambiguous, indecipherable, obscure, and thus full of enchantment. necropolises, gleaming thread bare, tiers upon tiers of bleached boned spires, decayed corpses arrayed in arched contortions in order to allow the walls of the building to grow higher and higher. the seasons turn deafening mild in these parts. crows bark like peripheral phantoms, their croaking bounching between two valleys, a type of music viewed from multiple perspectives. at the edge of the forest you find a priesthood of the dark god, now sadly extinct. our flashlights showed the way and spotted a few luminescent eyes in the dark. quick to appear and quick to disappear. our eyes see in the night, above sight can be heard "fogbanks of surface noise"
folk traditions
opener of roads
the witch of hissing hill
ghosts who take drugs to go haunting
archaeologist study little music dawn morning range station hum.
in the sanctuary of the church, the local priest would carry out a nightly ritual where he would lower his collection of bejewelled animals into a well and fish them out the next morning. a menagerie of bejewelled animals, carved from native gems and minerals found during the voyage of the wooden ship with yellow sails. then he would array them on the floor of his study and watch them slowly come to life. a couple minutes would go by and the dancing would begin.
"THE WOODEN SHIP"
living in a horizonless sea
the smell of brine soaked into our vestments,
though no one would mistake us for men of the cloth.
the only respite we had was beneath the decks
to find our books giving off a faint glow in the dark
their spines painted yellow
some an eggshell blue
others an emerald green.
but in the cabin boy's cubby
next to the one porthole with the queasy monochrome view
was tucked a faded and peeling volume
with an image of some old world jester on its cover
lost now to a distant accident
the kind no one has to worry about now.
ochre memory, european diseases
of black forests
wandering songs
and children huddled in churches
waiting out the plague
amidst peat fires
seen in distant hills.
the pen would soon come,
bringing symbols & towns,
a step from the dark into the light of the mind
close but invisible
and distant still
