Compositions I and II
I. The Dream
Its mouth hangs out
Esophageal creature
A phosphorous glaze and
Varices and veins
Lakes and rivers along
This undulating organ
As it snakes about the
Air—dry and bumpy, tiny-holed
From which dying tongues
Drape out from one world
Into this one, followed by
The other side of the vision, or
II. What the Dream Leads Into
Broad leaves that children
Once shielded themselves
From view with now scatter the floor.
Something like the mumps
Has returned, and evolved.
Rotten toes spot the landscape
Like wildflowers of the
Yellow-red prairie.
A child,
Blinks obsessively,
Unrelenting,
Compulsive,
Attempting to blink
Out what she had let in.
She catches what they have
And, half-festered, leaks
Along and down into a sump,
And toward a dying realm of
The frame—her other
Half a microscopic view,
Of nature and membrane.
And at the edge of vision,
I realize I am unknown,
Uncategorized, an opaque thing,
My flesh runs off
And I scatter with bones.
Meanwhile, the Hoarding Creature,
The Texture of Everything,
Scratches its utensil along
A clipboard, composed of the
Flesh of one of the prairie children.
It looks down at me,
Smirks, and shows me.
My body untethered,
Mind still alive,
A small, coiled heap of tissue
Praying it will not be washed away
Into the tributary or sump.
Dread overcomes my composition,
And we hear the vast and squelching gulp
As the throat expands
Into an abyss covering the
Entire sky-scape,
Gapes, gawks, salivates,
Constructs a starless, ethereal storm,
Chiding its classes for their visitation.
Expectations
Uproarious cackling
And then so abruptly studious,
The light bulbs flicker
Off
On
Off
On.
The scientist removes the wriggling creature
From the organ, which had grown
So used to clenching it.
He recites the Mentor’s phrase:
“If warnings exist to heed,
We simply cut through them and
Spill their troves,
And are presented with—“
And on he carves, slashes, slices,
Like a patriarch
Into the meat hunk on ancient holiday,
He bites the lower lip
Till he has to suck on it,
Glasses and face spattered,
His face glares down
From a portrait over his shoulder, as
The blood and sweat mix into
A glossy paste—frozen emotion, in time...
The whirring fades into the dark ether
Behind him as the transcendence arrives...
Flicker
Off.
He pants into a
Hostile frigidity, roiling with
Sadness, agitation, betrayal...
“No meaning.” The creature smiles,
Bulbous and bleeding along the
Counter beside him.
Spirit Walk
Windows were chipped teeth
The corners accentuated
Like beaks,
About to dig for worms.
Violins played us in,
Or was it the other way around?
Mornings,
Afternoons,
And evenings
Were all the same.
We were made into natural thinkers here,
Natural to the course of things,
Leeched of beliefs.
I think they went out with the sheets.
Those who stayed didn’t appreciate
Inheriting our burdens.
We exited down a long hall
Through gray doors.
We were led towards two bridges,
Both under a train track.
It grumbled when it passed over us
...when it did.
Andrew Christian (@midwesterngent3) studied English and Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa, where he took writing courses and developed scripts and reviews for the college radio station. Following graduation, he worked several jobs that further cultivated his weirdness, but found it hard to carve out time for writing. Some time after this lost love was rekindled, he started working at a library and was published under a pseudonym in the short story collection Iron Doves. Andrew is grateful for a steady diet of Goosebumps and horror movies growing up, as well as making short films with a strange crew.