Wounded Lands: Man Ray Dream (A Bohemian's Lament)

Man Ray Dream (A Bohemian’s Lament)

I crawled out of my head on a cherry wood bed
In a room I did not recognize
With divinity’s haze from a thousand spring days
Pouring into my sand speckled eyes
The cruel night before became a waking dream
With its broken glass piss stains and human barking
The smearing of streetlights across blackened walls
Of a night to remember… but now I can hardly recall

As I stretched to awake every muscle did ache
I’d been drained of the strength to take flight
And in dizzying waves came the thick downy haze
But with time I was granted clear sight
The walls were like eggshells; the linen was fresh
Chianti and sweet lilacs greeted every breath
On the dresser was my wallet and on the floor were my clothes
Neatly folded and garnished with a yellow marigold

I crawled out of my head on a rusty brass bed
In a room familiar yet disguised
The windows poured scenes of European cities
A postcard collage come to life
And I felt like a stranger in someone else’s skin
Too tight for my body and too hot to breathe in
The air thick with cloves hung like Depression glass
And by my side I discovered another’s hand still I grasped

There was an ache in the bone; my ring made of stone
Had broken sometime in the night
And three women arose, and like leaves fell their clothes
For a castaway cast from his wife
And shudder broke silence, drawn to their bare breasts
Their accents illusive as warm winter breaths
As entangled in the pubic kiss music box chimes
They whispered to me what she said our first time

I crawled out of my head on an ebony bed
In a room I had come to despise
Broken tile floors and mildew sweating pores
And the ambient static of flies
A woman’s black hair clinging wet to the walls
The primate pulsating of locked bathroom stalls
A radio bleeding voices through the overhead vent
Brought the echoes of moments that the night before kept

In the corner of the room sat a pale woman nude
I recalled from an old photograph
Staring at the wall, she was pale and seemed small
With F-holes tattooed on her back
And she sat like a cello and I wanted to play her
My hands through her hair found each ribbon turned razor
And I licked from fingers the blackberry wine
And the stray drops that rolled down the stairs of her spine