Hallucinyx
"As All Can Be" art by Edward Lee
by Dana Curtis
“The literary equivalent of a hallucinogen; or:qualities of a hallucinogen reduced to literary essence”
-Steve Erickson, American Stutter
I look for the opium den or
the library because I need
the sweet addled sleep of
the damned, the endlessly
levitated and furious, fearless
on the collapsed couch, words
leaking out the corners
of my mouth. It’s the only way
to look at a sunset, to really feel
my own twisted cells, the wind that only
blows through the syncopated
light. I stand on the street corner,
pass out books to the unsuspecting,
suck down smoke from its green
literary conflagration, its garden
of rewritten nightmares and indexes.
Behind each book on these ornate shelves
is a voodoo doll with a small, but entirely
operational, assault rifle. We have all read
this story before, the poison web
of repetition. Every true moment of joy
I have ever experienced was born
from the fracture of repetition,
drum circle imagining the dance
clubs on Mars. This is the only
way to see each flagrant reality, every
ancient moment made unbelievable
by revision. Never say no
to this addiction. It wants us
like this syringe. No one is so foolish
as to look up in the rain
to find the moon cut into pieces
of abalone. I crawled across the floor,
and all the pages stick to m
like genomes. I cross the wasted
land; I kiss the needle and know
the only true basis for immortality.
We have what we wanted:
words made of mirrors, sentences –
so many beautiful snakes and carefully
woven nooses. Let us become
each other’s metaphors while
I sleep in the backseat, alone
without insinuation. Because
the dream’s content doesn’t
matter so much as the fact
that it is gone. This hallucination
breaks apart the soot blackened
window. How high
do I need to be?
High enough to fall asleep
atop the un-punctuated world.
Dana Curtis’ fourth book of poetry, Directed by Lilly Obscure, was just published by Blazevox Books. Her third collection, Wave Particle Duality, was published by Blazevox in 2017. Her second collection, Camera Stellata, was published by CW Books, and her first book, The Body's Response to Famine, won the Pavement Saw Press Transcontinental Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in such publications as Ploughshares, Hotel Amerika, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, and Poetry Northwest.
Edward Lee is an artist and photographer from Ireland. His paintings and photography have been exhibited and published widely, with many pieces in private collections. His website can be found at https://lastimagesphotography.com
Twitter: @EdwardLeeArtist2
Instagram: @edwardleeart
