Oxygen Vine Dreamscape
a voice was singing
Oxygen vine
sweet life of mine
o how you twine
oxygen vine
You began to turn me leaflike
browsing me in slack moments,
a subscription of yours, a pastime.
I saw a skewed wall in a lunatic jungle,
undeciphered petroglyphs
scrawled over by flaming flower graffiti
dark hands of roots, celladon vineshadows,
utterly unreadable
a nonsense song
Oxygen vine
trace me a line
o how you twine
oxygen vine
I was deaf from the reverberations
of collision when you told me
I was a wall against whose
resistance you built your self, but
I was only flesh behind a wall
etched with the sigils of an unknown cabal,
its vines and shadows
become my skin
in the deep night
Oxygen vine
black columbine
o how you twine
oxygen vine
Love is a cannibal you explained.
His first goal is to kill and eat the other
then make tuneful bells from the bones.
Just so you grew your tensile intoxicant ribbons in me
so hungry and alive, tickling, strangling
composting accommodating flesh till I was friable ooze
root-fractured, absorbed into your sucking shoots
root-fractured, absorbed into your sucking shoots
flensed down to my skull for a drum
sweet notes pulsing
Oxygen vine
razors in wine
o how you twine
oxygen vine
I was wined and twined
cut so quickly
I never knew when my smile lost its lips.
You pierced and numbed me
bubbled my blood out with your own
beads of verdant air, an antagonism of life support
careless of the red drops’ splash
or my cyanic throat
rattling and humming
Oxygen vine
ventilator’s whine
o how you twine
oxygen vine
Autumn brings a bonfire.
Dry leaves and twigs burn tinder fast
thorns and flowers flaring farewell
in a temperature that crackles,
twining flames fed hotter
by an inrush of escaping air exploding
black under the lids into
smoke blown like seeds on the wind
vanishing
Oxygen vine
darkness define
your ashen design
into silence
March 2011
(re-) Posted for Meeting the Bar: Where in the World? at dVerse Poets Pub
Charles Miller is hosting Meeting the Bar today at the pub, and asks us to try to create an alien world or landscape. This poem came to mind, so I'm reposting it. If it appears familiar to some, it's probably because it originally appeared for One Shot Wednesday at the gone but never forgotten, and ever inimitable
One Stop Poetry.
Photo copyright joy ann jones
first the oxygen vine chorus is rather haunting...i recognized it immediately i just did not know where...i thought maybe a short piece from earlier...
ReplyDeleteI was only flesh behind a wall
etched with the sigils of an unknown cabal,
its vines and shadows
become my skin...great imagery in that...
love is a cannibal...ha i like that part as well...lots of great grit and texture through there...growing the ribbons within you...
i never knew when my smile lots its lips...another really cool line..
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ReplyDeleteThis is pretty amazing, once again. I kinda thought it would go the way it did, but the poem gained in power and vividness as it unwound its growing sense of terror. So the idea that I knew it was coming left me feeling like one of the actors in a film who see the terror but are immobilized by what they see and feel. This only feeds the terror as you so expertly weaves the narrative's tender tendrils around our throats and don't let go. the haunting refrain intensifies the terror, like a child's rhyme that serves as a powerful background of innocence putting in relief the evil that menaces the narrator. This was a pleasure to read, evoking that process whereby the human becomes the alien, symbolized by nature's process metamorphosing animal to plant, while consciousness remains unrestrained.
ReplyDeleteThis, like Fishmonger, is another poem(actually three poems intertwined like the vine) that derives from a dream, in which I actually heard the voice singing the refrain. Thanks for the insights, Charles, and for this mind-expanding prompt.
DeleteWOW ...
ReplyDelete"I was deaf from the reverberations
of collision when you told me
I was a wall against whose
resistance you built your self"
Isn't this the truth ...
"Love is a cannibal you explained"
I adore the sound of these word combinations:
"composting accommodating flesh till I was friable ooze
root-fractured, absorbed into your sucking shoots
flensed down to my skull for a drum"
I like the variance of the one line in the "nonsense song"; this is my favorite: "razors in wine"
The third line of this is particularly gripping:
"I was wined and twined
cut so quickly
I never knew when my smile lost its lips"
Oh man, this is so great Hedge.
Thanks, Shawna--the razor one is my favorite, too--glad you liked, and thanks for stopping by.
DeleteWow (like others) = this one is really very scary. Yikes. It is very powerful though. I agree with Shawna. I also very much liked the poem that Charles posted/linked. k.
ReplyDeleteThanks, k--it was a scary dream, but also sort of distanced in a weird way. Glad you enjoyed both poems.
DeleteFantastic writing. I am astounded that it was a dream and the refrain was sung in your dream. First that you dream such amazing dreams, second that you remember them. Terrific writing all the way through. Love the repeating-with-slight-variations-chorus. I, too, love the smile that lost its lips........fave stanza is "deaf from the reverberations of collision"......
ReplyDeleteThanks Sherry--for many years I wrote all my dreams down as soon as I got up, and it helped me become more able to remember them--I still jot down the ones that might make a poem as soon as I can open my eyelids far enough.;_)
Delete....Love is a cannibal you explained.
ReplyDeleteHis first goal is to kill and eat the other
then make tuneful bells from the bones...
and
...I was a wall against whose
resistance you built your self.. heck...this is rather haunting...esp. the refrain sent shivers down my spine..and i could hear it sung...love the images hedge and thought i've read this before, not a piece you could forget after having read it once..
What a homerun with the prompt Hedge. I love the style you chose, going back and forth, very effective, and it's really all encompassing, building the various sections of a world, love the thoughts, and imagery here. Way too many excellent lines to quote any individual ones, If I did that, I'd feel I'd be short-servicing the ones I didn't quote, or wind up quoting all the stanzas. Great piece. Thanks
ReplyDeleteso colorfully and texturally haunting. beautiful. ~jane
ReplyDeleteThere are some very atmospheric and some very eerie passages here. None more so than:-
ReplyDeleteI was only flesh behind a wall
etched with the sigils of an unknown cabal,
its vines and shadows
become my skin
This si fine writing in my estimation. Everything works well, the chorus included.
I'm thrilled to get a chance to read this - what an amazing vision you have offered. I love the subtle changes in the chorus and the jaunty beat which belies an undercurrent of chaos.
ReplyDeleteFave line? So many, but these words will remain with me today:
I never knew when my smile lost its lips.
PS.. Tiny typo in your title
Thanks, Kerry. Fixed. Still getting used to this new keyboard--not that I'm not always prone to the typos. ;_) Glad you liked this one.
Delete"smoke blown like seeds on the wind" but not actual seeds, so after the winter there is no rebirth? silence?
ReplyDeleteYou give Terror/beauty in 3 layers. After the first time through I read each layer on its own, as in "a voice was singing" and then "a nonsense song" etc. and then I looked to see if I could hear it aloud in your own voice so the rhythms and sounds could play out the eeriness of the familiar becoming strange. I also like how it looks on the page.
(I love reading your poems like I love eating at restaurants that cook dishes I cannot cook at home . . . )
Thanks so much Susan. What a generous compliment! And that's exactly how I meant this poem to be read--as three separate but intertwined voices/individual poems. I'm glad you were able to do that.
DeleteDefinitely an other-worldly experience. The metaphor that really grabbed me was the one about love as a cannibal.
ReplyDeleteThe photo completely freaked me out for a moment. I truly couldn't discern what it was. :)
ReplyDeleteI will re-read this one and enjoy it more with every read, hedgewitch. Vines have always fascinated me. They have a life all their own. But an oxygen vine? Pure hedgewitch brilliance.
Ha! on the photograph--I have no skills in that area at all, Talon, as one glance at yours is enough to tell me.:-) I only use my own photos as a last resort when I can't find anything that will go with the poem. Glad you liked and thanks.
DeleteA gorgeous poem, hauntingly beautiful yet terrifying at the same time. The form you have chosen, together with the refrain and centred presentation, make reading it an unforgetable experience.
ReplyDeleteReally clever creation... This reminds me of reading song lyrics and i love the little 'chorus' bits (for want of a better expression) they punctuate the rest of the piece so effectively.
ReplyDeletelove is a cannibal, and it's a vampire and it's all kinds of things we don't' want to talk about
ReplyDeleteAstrophotographer Seeks Stellar Bodies