- byroniceye -
writer, poet, filmmaker, photographer.
(byronic) hero in my own mind.
documenting the inspirations and challenges
of my first novel.
~ satis est ~
(byronic) hero in my own mind.
documenting the inspirations and challenges
of my first novel.
~ satis est ~
-
There is no language deep enough to tell you,
provoke or convince you.
I might as well shout at you through obsidian mirrors; no reflection, no substance
just an Aztec ghost, a ruin of memory
an uncomfortable history. All I have are words that chafe.
All I have is you, through dark glass
through dark eyes. -
Starstruck (animation by Martin Higareda, 2008)
(right click to play)
-
At last I found a place of opulence, red-eyed vampires, clove cigarettes, coffee and neon and sideways glances. I ordered one of everything and Tabasco especially, but I grabbed the waitress before she left: I’ve always wanted a sister, I told her. Someone whose hand I could hold, tenderly, while I spoke of my dreams. Someone whose own dreams were of singular interest to me, someone whose loves and vexations were milk and honey and music to me. I stood then, and raved: A sister, I demanded, with eyes like coal and skin like snow, a voice of dusky reason and infinite wisdom, hair like velvet drapes to hide my tears when I can’t write. Can’t you see, I begged. And the waitress nodded distantly, too pleasantly, and maddened, I fled. The tragedy of genius is the inevitable sacrifice, someone yelled after me. Nervy bastards. I could smell cloves for hours afterwards. I unplugged my computer when I got home, and slept too late.
-
The kiss…lingers for days. Weeks. It was a stupid gesture, and rather surreal. In the space of a moment he crosses to her, takes her head in his hands, touches her face and feels this skin at last, the strangeness and familiarity of her warmth and breath and dark, thick hair, now so close…and her lips feel exactly as he has always imagined them, soft and full, unbearably sweet and pure and worth breaking himself to pieces, worth a thousand tortured nights at least, and for twenty or thirty seconds time can go to Hell. But this perfection—her scent, the taste of her, her final corporeal majesty, everything this forced intimacy has won him—means, finally, nothing.
-
If Morrison were alive today, would he have a website? Would it be a vital testament to his genius and art, free MP3’s for all, or a premium site for members only? Would he have a smart phone, an iPad, would he care about megapixels and Facetime? Would he be in shape, a fit and rugged example of a man in his (sixties) prime, the sex appeal wholly undiminished? Would he make guest television appearances, cameos in film? Would he stay home to watch HBO, or would you catch him at the AFI, absorbing Jarmusch or Malick?
Would he be a resonant voice speaking out against these dark days, where we anoint one another with toxins, cripple ourselves with our food and drugs, where the very worst of simpletons sway legions? Or would these times reflect nothing new, inspiring him to say and feel nothing, just sit atop a horse upon an embankment, looking down into the swollen dirty crush of humanity, stoic, or crying like an Indian?
I think he’d have written books. I think he might have attempted filmmaking again. I think he’d be reclusive, but busy. He’d have aligned himself with another fitful genius, neither liked too well but together producing some awesome beauty. He’d speak out politically from time to time, grudgingly, knowing his words would change nothing in this world, but a spirited thinker still. He’d be a great fan of up and coming bands, but only the ones with shocking talent. He’d sing with them, on occasion. He’d travel. He’d quietly yearn. He’d be an excellent, albeit mercurial, friend, wise beyond his years, and your years, and mine.
Morrison is dead. Long live Jim Morrison.
-
The darkness was poisoned. The darkness burned. I walked a space, and fought to breathe, and presently saw the passage I moved in. The brick and mortar ground and growled, scales of stones that breathed in turn. Finally there was a door, dim and stout, and then the bright and polished hall of Raverne.
“Enter, Calian, and be welcome,” said the king, frail and fragile even then. With him was his guard, his retinue, physickers, and his son Josak, upright and serious and all of eight, his mother the queen two years dead. But the king had been speaking to a young woman, her dress plain but fine and suitable for war. And this woman looked also at me, and whatever she thought she kept to herself.
“Kezia, daughter of Amaia, demothi of Akkadin,” said Radek (and still shaking, lifted a hand to me, and I was honored at this effort), “my Pallaton Calian.”
“My lord,” said she.
“Your grace,” I bowing said.
“Your fever is rampant,” she murmured, cocking her head. “You will not see dawn.”
And the room grew quite large, and the king and Kezia and all that stood with watchful eye melted, drifted, and became as dream.
-
That night I dreamt her coupling, renewed in want, her face unmasked in tender, exquisite joy. Her limbs shook gently with need, her lips came apart with a small noise before she bit them silent. It was the beautiful, perfect cry of one whose world is another’s, and knows nothing else: the man above her who thrust and gripped and spent. Her eyes opened, and ached, devouring him.
I was not seen.
-
I dreamt of a girl who was trying to get over a man. The man was rich and obviously cultured; a playboy. He dated many, but quickly moved on without hesitation, or explanation. The girl was very sad, she’d loved him. His new interest, a woman, seemed to stalk the girl, following her from place to place, watching her everywhere, even appearing near her home. (This unnerved her, but she tried to stay calm.)
Finally the woman, shaking and crying, confronted the girl. The girl tried to explain, but the woman pulled out a gun and shot her. The girl fell back. Then the woman began to scream, hysterical, nearly mad. The girl looked down at herself, confused. There was no blood. She was already dead.
-
Sometimes, late at night, just as my meditations took me from deep breathing to deep subconscious, I could feel those eyes watching me again, somewhere in the dreaming dark. Whether they were really there, or some vestigial and sublime remnant of the near death experience, didn’t matter. They were comforting to me. Familiar.
-
Her mirror voice is gone from me. Her dusky skin and thoughtless hands, once filled with simple lusts, I have no fear to feel again. My nights are overfilled not with her ghosts, but with strange memory, floodwaters, portents of a future past, and this awful thing of seeming promise, empty, and weightless, now haunts me little. Was I asleep from the beginning? Enchanted, drunk on flesh and blood? Or merely lost in tiresome reverie? How amusing, that my days now are merely days, and I do not miss such coiled and elegant distraction.
-
She tried to keep her mind still as she walked along the corridor, which curved around and sloped down, so that it became a spiral, arcing forever. Down and down and down, the firelight hissing and smoking around her, the silken cords of her robes swaying in a perfect rhythm as she moved. She clasped her hands. She unclasped them. She thought of her mother, far away and alone, and felt quite sad. And even when the voice filled her head suddenly, golden and majestic, she could not forget her loneliness. It spoke her name, her new one, her old one, names she’d never heard before but suddenly remembered, all her names from all her lives until now. It called her. It called her. And she was filled with new longing, felt tears falling from her eyes, and she ran now, ran down and down and down, nearly tripping, forgetting ritual and reverence. A light grew around her, and burned her eyes, and now she could feel him, and sobbed aloud in some strange joy.
She ran into the last chamber, sweaty and exhausted, her hair clinging to her face. Light was everywhere, everything was light. She felt him move near, and brought trembling fingers to her eyes, brushed aside veil and hair and wet. She saw white, she saw gold. She saw blue and sapphire and rust colored clouds, she saw burning mountains and broken seas and torn skies drowning in stars. Warm gentle hands took hers and lifted her up, and now she dared to look into his face. She was ready. She was prepared.
She saw the writhing tentacles just before they pierced her face, the sharp little maw before it began to feed. Dead little eyes stared somewhere past her, black and unmoving, like scars. She thought she heard chanting. Or screaming. Her mind was going. She remembered thinking, It is a lie. It was all a cruel dream.
And then another thought in her mind, not her own. Yes. It was a cruel dream.
I gave it to you.
And then, perfectly, nothing.
-
I was in New Orleans. I was looking for a woman, but I wasn’t working for anyone, I was on my own. I knew her personally. I was tracking her by drops of blood on the street, which was hard, since it had rained recently. I went into a bar where some of her friends were. They seemed unnatural, watching me closely, their eyes dark and bright. They chuckled and laughed at my efforts, amused. “Do you really want to find her? Why? No, stay, have a drink.”
She: was slight of frame and had dark hair. When she looked at me I grew excited, like endlessly meeting her for the first time. My last memory of this girl was of her slitting open her finger with a razor. Her lips parted slightly as she drew in her breath, her eyes lowered as she drew the metal through her skin. “This is all there is,” she proclaimed.
I left the bar and walked around, now turning corners at random. The French Quarter was vividly real, the buildings old and ornate and comforting. It had started to rain again when I found her. She was at the end of the street, and went into a doorway. I hurried to catch up. We were inside some grand hotel. Wet and tired, I spoke with her about the future, about us. She was cool, and a little sad.
She told me I wasn’t ready.
-
The last time this face appeared it had an accent, one I couldn’t place. Which was quite strange, as the face never speaks. I think if it did it would tell lies, soothing truths masquerading as comfort. It’s not like I have a thin skin, but I don’t particularly care for smoke and mirrors; either speak plainly, or shut the hell up. But wait…you don’t speak. (The face nods, and floats off into the dark to fuck with the cat.)
I wonder if it watches over me while I sleep. I wonder if it watches me sleep. I wonder if it sleeps. I wonder if it would ever sleep with me, or merely find its way onto the face of the next lover, a jarring surprise, when I open my eyes. Oh! Oh. Oh…it’s you.
-
I came here to give you some peace. You and I, all of us: part time gods with salaried jobs, must wake from sleep. Wake now and remember yourself. Rise now and look up, past distraction, reflection, and despair, and see the sun again. Feel it take and give, feel it burn and heal. Open your eyes and blind us with your brilliant soul one last time, and again, and once more! before you sleep. Sleep, and sleep.
-
I’ve seraphim on my shoulders, coiled silent with burning eye; attendants of flame, acolytes to my liturgies, servants of my augury:
Last night I dreamt of tokens, delicate ancient carvings of ivory and gold, wards against curses (I sold them). Small round gems held unlimited power; beautiful orbs of every brilliance and color, they lifted the very foundations of great structures and gave them flight. Within, from the highest window, I searched for her.
Last night I dreamt of gods, who were not; only mighty beings, brazen, petulant, consumed with epic yearning. I defied them, and begged of them a boon: give her to me, let her come. Let her feel this splendid joy, bright twin of my own. Give her peace, show her comfort; let her laughter break upon the waves like a weightless dawn. The flame in our flesh now merely embers, only waiting for her sweet breath, shall warm the seraphim, anoint them, and set them free.
These sacred servants never sleep, but stand vigil bright as candleflames in the dark, letting no ghost pass. Only my waking hours seem mythic, untrue. And I yearn for the grace, the perfection, of dream.
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