Vague Traces
by J.R. Kelly



Vague Traces


Her brown eyes absorbed my fragile stare. A vacuum of wisdom, infinite depth and yet a coldness hostile to life. Could she see beyond my pale blue eyes, into yet another entity, the stillness of my soul. Passing the depths of restless imagination to endless meditations I cannot project. Why so lonely? I seek to smile and love anew. Too many nightmares and dark silence. Can I show you my life in just a kiss, a tender caress.... We lay on the shore, dreams fulfilled. I will not forget. Wrapped in each other's arms, we embraced the warmth the cold wind would not offer. Her teeth sunk softly into my neck.

Spring days, an afternoon of hope, new dreams I see to augment. Child roams the empty gardens, such a tree I too would have climbed. To taste forbidden fruits of freedom when such words did not exist. Bound in our own lies we freely confess to, we forge our own paradise. Create boundaries to shelter us from that which we cannot comprehend. Mystics and tarot cards litter the streets, the wind scatters them in its wisdom. Sailors and poor girls flock the smoky bars, hoping for nothing more. I sit too and wonder, confusion and empty pockets.

Oblivion brings its own joys and sorrows. Some lie wasted, communicating with the ground. Sharing some food they no longer want. Others purge their fears on passer-bys, abuse is nothing new. Police tell lies looking somewhat inhuman, capable of anything with their new insignia. They will teach me the ways of their cult. A new religion, may I be the chosen one? Sacrifice and torture, daring pursuits into the unknown. Egos caught up and pulled us down. Fast cars, women, pale attitudes not wishing to show their color. Shame, yet another cycle of new faces and places, something seems the same.

Many times bitten and always shy, I came home to wallow on lost opportunities. Regret always a slow poison. You only get one chance in life, always a cliché, always too late. Control, how easy in solitude. Knowing not your own mind, you are lost.

Hush little baby don't cry but scream. You too are alone in a wilderness. Silence echoed itself once again. Dreams returned, borrowed only in your absence. Walk slowly, the path has no destination unless you fall. Death that harbors murder, prayer and other black hymns. She that takes and shares with you, a golden moment. The bite that shatters and crumbles yet another fools paradise.

A belief too in a childhood dream kept me strong through days of hardship. Visions of strangers, blurred faces. A man follows me and when we meet I shall die. I see not his face, but hear his steady footfall, my heartbeat in the night. Walking through mountains and oceans, his face always pointing to mine. Perhaps our spirits battled somewhere and he comes for vengeance. To rid the world of disease or salvation? I a twentieth century believer cannot understand such childish nightmares.

My soul a demon of unknown purpose, shall I rock the boat or drown? Concepts tie me to the ground, so heavy, so profound, ties and dyes to drag me down. I am the show I am the clown, I am the lost, I am the found. Rhyme and rhythm, the twisted and the warped. Wisdom hinted at other truths, once you went beyond it.

The lyrics of leaders gave me faith, spawned from ignorance a new attitude quickly absorbed. Always an actor time caught up to pay the price for the empty stage I played on. Such uncertain overtures seek to elude me. Give me the melodies and unspoken words of the wind. Its stormy counterpoints whisper or roar, hinting at the chaotic serenity true freedom holds. Above the stars, their faint calling, exaggerate the distance to the naked eye. Under its healing light I am no longer a sinner. Confusion for now loses its grip and fades with other far away noises of night. I look around, familiar surroundings that disturb me. A voice in my mind a stranger to you. Almost pure but yet so empty. I think it dies with the emotion peace and happiness brings. The fragment of the warrior, my mind full with such unearthly spirits.

I being but an empty vessel shall make noise. Reflect the thunder of violence and passion. Desecrate and shatter the tedium life bears. Bullets flew through skulls, scattered thoughts lay by my feet. Mixed emotions, a darkness covered the horizon and caused myths of the unseen. I lay confused, another puzzle carried the time of thought. Penetration too deep. Naked once again, I dressed with a smile to conceal nothing.

My life........ Chase dragons from the night, delirium, cold sweat sweet breath. Answer child to the wind that chills the mind and tells tales, verifying vaguely felt feelings. Lost souls with cause to sorrow, plague the day and plague tomorrow. Touch the spot on which the restless rest. Disturb and put them to the test. Such mindless violence, no cause but change, their only hope to rearrange.

Avenues of hope, trees with snakish eyes whisper of a new beginning. Where is the hunter? He has given his testicles to stagnation. The snow queen smiles, such peace. The warrior garbled in his garbage of controlled folly, can take no more. I think he marches to her door.

To summon the old, bloody sacrifices involving goats entrails and other such oddities. Bond them together with incantations, such intricate words as incest fuck and rape. All such shocks now hollow. Where once our spirits burned and gave light to mystery, acceptance of the dark makes blind men of us all.

Come to my temple o' loved one. Your rain of sweet velvet across my brow of vision. The painter dreamed and all did come to life. Faraway days did such, we could not behold. Naive sailor who welcomed the storm, so quickly swallowed. Under the pretense of reason we filtered our view to haze, but no vision did show us the way.

Lord of night instill a potion, perfume and adorn me. Give me the keys to your ivory doors. Take no prisoners, such wasted food.

Come you towards the brink. Someone dares to knock on forbidden doors. Their intrusive echoes disturb and old rhythm. It is enough. Such silence bound and harnessed our safe security in death. Pounding like waves to nurture the soil. Give life to new breeds, new seasons. Dreams will make destiny, control makes what is now.

Sweet the sound of water, it whispers and roars.

I lay on the bed, tired and philosophical. Morning followed morning, what a strange place. A vast dome of no dimension, a place within a space. Red and blue hues clung to my skin, electric vapors enwrapping me in its saving glory. Attachment, I want none of it. Come the pleasure dome awaits, enter within and enlarge its gates. My dreams must not be broken. The soul so still in flight or falling.

The knight wears a white tourniquet and dines in medieval banquets built of cardboard walls. As they deal the cards of tarot to strangers the waiter places the silver spoons in his pocket. He too has children. The card of Justice slips from his sleeve.

Perennial fountain show me the prism. The blur of recollection, its bland taste, death on my tongue. A mildewed mind can see no further than its own disease. Yet all that's clean excludes the shadow of mystery. Such precious gems we reap from the mudpits of despair.

Shall I paint my own picture and call it my world? Clam up like an oyster surrounded by its pearl. The warrior calls forth his spirit such shells cannot contain. Physical illusions no longer cause him pain.

The eagle awaits me. Such vagueness continues. The symbols fade and all is still. Like nights on a lonely shore where ghosts freely roam your mind. Soothe with tender touches towards the everlasting sleep. How bright the sun clashes, its eager vitality I fear.

Boredom, the great cousin of violence taught me to read the clouds. A magical land whose boundaries were known only to those who dwelled there. Besides its quiet shores I entered the land beneath the ninth wave. The push and pull of swirling ecstasy, gushing torrents of energy. A seagull suddenly rises, its piercing cry breaks the trance. My body jerks and shudders. A physical image of the sound. The spell has being cast. Concrete walls become clouds.

Childish charms that make a mockery of my thought. Following the paths of the ungraspable. Fatigue gives creaks in youthful bones. I shall grow a beard soon. Eyes flicker madly, soon soft silence shall drown their respite. Wave after wave shall cleanse. Blade of change, tear into pulsing veins. Sacrificial knife, summon spirits, my kindred untamed. Slice, virgin blood pours pure and chaste. To meet with sand and sea. Moonlit blood of wind and water.

The seventh is the herb of Venus, the womb of all magic. Behold, the four altitudes are imploding, angels are awakening, Solomon's Triangle has broken its bounds. Lucifer holds a book of power, summoning the waves of Hecates through the tides of time. Like a muddy puddle, the depth is never apparent.

Thoughts like beacon lights steered my field of vision, each conclusion forming a new set of lights. Some need more to reassure their uncertainty. The sky will be a river, the earth will be its shore. Your mind shall be the vessel of which you use to cross. The wizard smiled and turned away.

The maiden of dreams gives the virgin his lonely thoughts. A seeker in a land uncovered. The five senses and the seven deadly sins of acceptance. We have given up our jungle for a zoo. The bars that enclose us make us docile. Its neatly trimmed gardens, raspberry roses and blackcurrant lies.

I am going. The simplicity overwhelms me. I want hard stone against my back. The womb. The metal door slams shut. The stench of urine and alcohol fills my senses. The pastel walls a pacifying yellow. Look on these works ye mighty and despair. Like a schoolyard game of cat and mouse, I waited for the bell to ring. The hour is not mine to use. Escape, the next guard shall receive a friendly blade. Theses are the rules of my land.

I am a conscientious psychotic. Despair shall not tempt me towards faith. I watch the old exposed to the folly they can no longer join. My new religion crumbles everyday, every time some new brightly dressed monster appears on the screen. No more tawny goddess with shaven cunt and aborted childhood. No more idle drunk to walk on nightmares shores. The dawn a pale sickly growth in the darkness.

I am a man of many faces. Chose one and you are condemned. Stranger art thou, who walks in passing shadows. With nothing but a passing smile, I leave madmen in my wake.


Copyright J.R. Kelly, 1998

Pook Publishing
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