Phrenia, Bilateralis, Chapter Three

“Sibyl, wake up.”

Phrenia, Bilateralis, Chapter Two

“I have a cousin who lives in Flannerytown,” the barkeep said. “His name is Taylor Annocene. He runs an Inn.”

Sibyl nodded.

“His daugher has been working for me for the past ten years, but she’s since decided that she wants to return with the money she’s made, and start her own Inn in Flannerytown. I think that idea is ludicrous. But I’m not going to stop her.”

“Alright,” Sibyl said, “I mean, I understand.”

He gave her a dull look that implied that he understood what alright meant. “I’ll fetch her right quick...” he turned towards the counter, behind which was a doorway. He cupped his hands, and shouted, “CAROLINE!”

Goodnight, Horselover Fat

An unfortunately one-sided relationship,

Isn’t it?

to read an author’s work.

I was halfway through his book when it happened;

a golden beam shot from between the valley of the pages,

striking my forehead.

Following the path hewn by the beam, I drifted,

into the deepest reaches of his mind;

finding characters who lived in him, were a

part of him. He shared these shards,

With me!

though he didn’t know who I was,

we hadn’t met, not in a police station, or while

brokering a deal for a new identity.

It was as if I’d boarded a bus, and sat down next to him

by chance, and he’d leaned over and started talking

telling me;

that we don’t know what’s real, that our senses

might be lying to us. He said a pink beam, reflected

from an Ichthys necklace, had imparted wisdom

onto him. He said that nothing could exist without

god, and then leaned in to add that he wasn’t sure

he even believed in god.

But it wasn’t on a cacophonous bus; it was in a book.

Written on the page was his heart and his soul, and I needn’t have any

compunctions against looking in.

I wanted to meet this man, to shake his hand and to say thank you. And,

I wanted to chip away a piece of myself, to show something of mine, like he

had shown a piece of himself to me.

So I started my computer;

listened to the hum as wires tsk-

tsked and the disk drive spun;

online, I found his books that I’d read; followed the link

with his name, me being excited enough at this point

to look up any book signing tours to find out when

I could just tell him

if nothing else

that I loved his books. I discovered his name,

which was not Horselover Fat, although he called himself that once.

His name was Philip Kindred Dick, and he was

born in 1928, and he

died in 1982.

Golgotha

"To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far."--Cecil Rhodes

We gathered on the dock and watched it; a flaming ship,
trailing smoke and sloughing strips of steel skin.
Fins of gashed and guttered ripped hull like lips
slipped from skeletal metal bounds as infernal seraphim
with wings of zealotry. We were sure that the war
would never reach our streets and cluttered homes,
yet streaks of light and our defeat showed our error.
Foreign men and women from distant stars come
to tell electric tales of how our far and distant
orbit holds promise for cracks of ore and molten
veins of golden currency. They promised to shatter
our castes and social bonds. Shackles of we were given, platinum,
until our grandchildren grew thin and old to watch the tugs
pull our blood from the earth and churn it all together like mud.

Still haven't seen that movie.

There was a movie poster in my best friend’s basement,

of a white mask with melting empty eyes,

the open, gaping mouth in a permanent

wail. In the dark, the face floated and

the poster around it might as well

have vanished. That image fed

the first nightmare that

I can remember.

Figures

in caliginous

robes drifting up

towards me, from

void, at the bottom

of the basement stairs.

Their flight did not elicit squeak

or screech from the wooden steps.

Their outstretched sleeves contained neither

hands or fingers. And although their pursuit was

sluggish, their empty, distended mouths, confessed

that I horrified them. My existence was just an occult

depravity. I thirsted to scream. But because they could not,

I had to wait,

for when I

woke

up.

Where I Used To Live

empty cans of chef boyardee
contents divorced from the can
into spotted blue plastic bowls
chocolate milk in a tall glass
sweet on the tongue and later sour in the stomach

streets between stacks of cluttered
newspapers
most older than the eldest brother
there’s enough room on the kitchen table, between the towers,
for the bowl, the glass, the steel spoon, and the empty can

stained carpets
hairballs lonely and unattended
scattered wind-up toys from happy meals
a cracked window behind the television and a speaker system,
whose wires have never been connected

a pink room upstairs with flares of flowers on the bed’s quilt
a blue room too, a blue sweatshirt forgotten on the floor
the other three rooms stuffed
with boxes of magazines and stained gold necklaces and expired
coupons for food lion and walmart

christmas tree in the study though
it’s fall and the tree’s been there since winter’s freeze
winking red light on the wireless router
like a single christmas light or from a life support system
for the computer long dead on the desk

a ripped alimony or child support check
under the keyboard
from a tall lawyer I used to see
and
you want to see again

Phrenia, Bilateralis, Chapter One

The Exitus Stone glowed. It had no specific hue or tint, it simply glowed, and when one gazed upon it they were sure that it was a light source, even though at night, it would provide no illumination to objects around it. In the days Sibyl had already spent within Phrenia, she’d never gotten used to the Exitus Stone’s unique properties.