BLACK RAPIDS

Monday July 20, 2009

BLACK RAPIDS

By Philip Cairns

Copyright 2009 by Philip Cairns

I’m being sucked deep into the desolate, black abyss.

There are no colours or music.

Crisp burnt grass, as far as the eye can see.

My emotions rage out of control, like a bright red forest fire.

This void can be comforting and compulsive.

Grey thieves have stolen something

But I don’t know what.

My heart ceases to pump yet I’m still alive.

Is everything else dead?

Something is missing.

I can’t put my finger on it.

Can’t think.

The Black Dog is chewing away at my vitals.

The CD player has been playing the same damned note for 8 hours.

Food tastes like fuchsia sawdust.

Friends have deserted me or disappeared.

Please, someone, sing that song I like.

Shake me to life like a newborn’s ass.

Push me out into the world through the loose folds of ashen skin.

Let me say outrageous things.

The purple sunset burnt my eyeballs.

The weight of the world sits on my crooked shoulders.

I just need to be touched.

To be heard.

To speak the truth as I see it.

To find my lost hope.

I kissed the hard, beautiful sea shell

And it crumbled into tiny grains of sand.

Sit beside me.

Worry a little about me.

I want to see violet one more time before I die.

Tell me profound, loving things.

Shock me into rapture.

Hit the tingshaw so I can enter the divine.

Blast the sounds of a heavenly choir.

Wipe away a tear.

I’m standing on the edge of something frightening and bitter.

I can taste the reality of it.

You let me see your dark corners.

All I feel is sad and empty.

Don’t punish me for that.

I need the feeling, again,

Of Anita Ekberg dancing in a luscious black gown in “La Dolce Vita”.

The blond actor with the goatee doing back-flips.

The plunk-plunk of the 60s Euro-pop guitar.

The soft strings on the soundtrack

As Anita wanders through the late night streets of Rome,

Her curly platinum blonde hair cascading into the crevices of her exposed back.

Forgive me.

This bleak pit singes my face and scars my soul.

I can’t get up.

The cold steel door has slammed shut.

These emotions are like the deadly rapids in “Deliverance”,

Gurgling and bubbling,

Gobbling up the innocent and naive.

A part of me is dying a slow, painful death.

The pointed phoenix will rise, again, I can only hope.

All those lost dreams fading away.

This shimmering mirage is a devastating, lonely place.