current fragments

I face the heavens but cannot breathe

So I turn to the right hand Path

where

Once, sand gathered at the head

Of the bed

from the shore a day before, where a

Dog comforted my boreal

Grief ( or

Of

Soil from

The garden of the dead)

---

I turn to the left hand path

Banks

Of thirst

from

rivers beneath , starving tangible dark growth  

lifeless crib

rigor mortis

---

Face down, I avoid the ecstasy of hogties 

devoid of blood pulsing 

My drowned avatar 

my criminal

my star flag of David 

films of final breathing

---

this shoulder then, still knows the damage of crosses carried 

that dangerous temper

the agitation of cancer, stricken 

the sounds of last stations and hours

–

• to the centre then, the ancient 

mortier of dirtied light and static 

father of white noise

glaucoma gift for a 4K world

---

I

she bends her spine backwards

she in her glitter, sequined, crystal top 

a limbo rock 

wavering form

inverse cobra 

she, with her two white men in layered suits

bank vault  bodies

I chase them out of the house 

( my motherlode / motherland ) 

“get the fuck out !”

but without the energy of rage or malice 

•      it’s an emptying of the house  – to remain in sacred unlit spaces, untouch the debris 

the cold electrical wires sticking out of plaster

maybe a ‘time from before’ exorcised 

the comfort of vacancy

• (backtrack) 

like a corpse on a bus is he

sits he in flesh and skeletal frame

 too small for starched white shirt

 blackened oversized pants

I can almost smell his

skin of wax 

hair hardened formaldehyde 

pale as the horse from endtime 

I sense he’s an otogoya 

coming back to life

dropping snake scales from our eyes 

to chase away squatting spirits from the house

making space for landscapes

“washing out the womb” 

23

23

components of bread on a white plate
hospital eating table
armchairs alongside corridors, sick people in fetal positions
a mothers’ heart stops. she stops breathing.
she comes back. current status unknown.

Meat curled or layered on a plate
tables turn. men, foreign to each other.
tables as routes as illness as health. tables adjacent. table of the tabernacle. components of bread on a white plate.

The procession of

I enter a chthonic world, of asphalt heavens, doomed and bleak above. The black hearse is already parked, and the family in grand suits and veils and funerary lace, gather around. Their skin is the colour of midnight, just like the large coffin. All these generals and ladies of the gods below, white flowers pinned to their vestments, prepare for the departure of their kind. We’re in a Germanic, industrial sector of a mourning world. Somewhere, I know (or long to believe) there is soot and ash, the suspended animation of very old burnings. There’s something majestic about the haunting presence of these people. The dignified harbingers of death, larger than death itself, a dangerous and criminal communion of misunderstood souls. In their blessed hands, they carry the sickle, the nails, the axe, the rope, the dagger, the gun. They carry to the disturbing table, the cup of poison, the noxious drug, the terrible thorns of The Lord. Their duty, Order, is to bring obsessive hurting.

I am watching from afar.

They are the imprisoning ones. And many terrified lambs are trapped inside them. Full of fear and trepidation, but transforming in the putrefaction. These victims are made holy through suffering.

The world prays for them, yes. I too, pray for them, but I’ve also participated from the pits of my being. I have drunk from this baleful cup, worn this baneful crown. Suffered for it. Liberated by it. I have traversed into the halls and hearts of such monsters, derived pleasure by communing with the masked and divisive beings of night. Would I dare say I have eaten with the scorpions and serpents sent by the Hand of God? I do not partake in their actual rituals. I have not carried out the acts they are passioned to do. It is not my path. But I have basked in the fields of their carnal celebrations. I have been illuminated in their hidden (de)basements.

But that was a time before (and I do not know the shape or name, the time of twilight power that might return.) Death has made me fertile in a way where I neither reproach not await. I’m merely watching from afar now. The dark family is ready to enter the gothic church.

“for even the darkest shall pass away
and will leave their kin behind to mourn
and behold, the weeping by those who love them
for even medusas are mothers
monsters, still daughters
serpents, still sons
For Who else then
is God of Cain and Judas and Vlad and Bundy?
a heart born from hatred might still know grief”

I do not enter the church with them. Like a funeral arrangement long ago, from the time of the Loa, I am not permitted to witness such sanctification of shadows.

A woman appears before me. Like a sister from a different mother of night, a caring daughter that comes just before the dawn, a morning star in the form of a flower. “I am Daphne.”she says, and In her chaste presence, I am in love.

stations of nacht – parts V, VI

V

the imps of night, visit
bringing gifts

the first brings me meat of fowl in styrofoam box
steaming grain, wheat, lost soup

he is late

giggling and shifty eyed
having returned from prison
‘for harassing a young one’

I know the traffic lights are confused around him
there is no hunger in me
he yabbers
he leaves
I sense a small pink dress on his person but he hides it well
I do not consume the offering

VI

the second one enters Chinese mall of labyrinths
red lanterns, massage women, cheap pyjamas hung on plastic hangars
clothes rack wobbling under strain
women eating lunch out of styrofoam boxes
the second one stresses
the escalators are confused about him
he scurries about, to buy my airline ticket

he is delayed

but I will still depart, sitting in a spacious room
lit by projector screen
flight path animations on the wall
the cities below us
arteries of snake lights
black oceans
weaving, rippling
punctuated points, glittering

I’m in a night room in the sky
the repose of creatures around me
the softly breathing
the hum of movement, the transatlantic

dimensions and hours and genius loci changes

I’m at a ballroom wedding
luxury and feline and designer handbags, fabulous people engorged in wealth, bridesmaids, tuxedoes

blood clots on the bathroom floors
red streams on the walls

he washes
he washes
spraying down the scene

blood and water
water and blood

(what is this intimate relations, between grand hotels and restrooms?”)

maybe the year is ending here
marriage of heaven and earth

images of guests in drunk positions are sent to my phone
stances, celebration, dancers in mid turns
legs cocked, knees bent, night dresses akimbo,
feathers in ruffled hair, peacocks and strange birds, curved flesh bent waist, winged masks
pictures after pictures appearing on my screen

I do not know where the bride wants me
I am here to anoint women of sequins and glazes
glitter on powdered skin

they are not at their oblong tables
they are scattered from their numbered tables
a disruption of sequences
posts and spots abandoned

the second imp of night still has my ticket
I watch the whole ceremony on the screen
in the wooden room, the sleeping room
on a ship, in the upper echelons of sky
far above the cities
streetlights below like lost and glowing insects
converging, dispersing, crawling through the crevices of dream

stations of nacht – parts I – IV

“there will be a second primitive age
of flesh marked by the aftermath of fire
ships, built from deadwood,
dense with soot and sickness

It will take us from the dark of somewhere, to nowhere
escape routes mired in ancient ocean floors
risen like a sub terrestrial creature
a mystery, sanctified by darkness”

I

this is not like the merriment of a time before
where food was served to the elderly
laughter and harmony between tables

perhaps we thought we were safe in our wooden towers
high above the unnamed chaos
I stood before ladders that brought us to our peaks

but somewhere within me
there was no rest
I clutched a white book
a remedy still trapped between its pages

the weak could not ascend
there were people with dead limbs, waiting

we had left them alone
left them to the ruins of the land

no one else seemed to care

I felt helpless

while there were elevators
they could not work
steel doors sealed shut
machineries of hope, silenced

father then, called me from a place beyond
“mother has been friendly to me” he said
together, in their quiet, I knew they were safe

II

we are not safe here anymore
our commander, despite his militant stature
is wet from sweat and toxins
sunken in bed, clamouring in slow motion

this wooden shelter is not like before
the walls are now blackened with decay
soiled by septic rain
damned by fierce damp winds

I call up drones for oversight
where are our scientists? our doctors?
the admin woman demands departure
there are not enough survivors onboard

a man enters our doorless room
flustered and frustrated
”with all your tech you could not find us!?”
his frightened daughter in tow
they were last to arrive

III

we set sail
either by sea or air, I cannot say
the lands of our fathers are failing
our depleted passengers are weak
we may or may not be on a star ship

the admin woman
reads out a full name from a black book
is this my white book, transformed?
those with the same surname step forth
thin, lightless boys, waiting in line to suffer

something isn’t right

I intervene, calling out a longer name
belonging to a boy I knew from before
‘he who was killed on the roads’
and yet,
here he is, emerging and eager to be sacrificed again

he steps through the disappointed throng
they must return to their benches
the boy who is called must go to his nest
he climbs into a black box
his life, an echo, dropping into depths

IV

at the end of journeys
In stillness, I am

time unravelling
ages pass

the ship shall become a monolith
a massive monument on uncertain seas
a great black casket of asteroid rock
bodies and forms of dead gods are chiseled from its sides
such an ancient mystery, a necromantic ark, mad not by human hands
an ancient ship from the star fields of death and destruction

from the foreign tomb
the boy will voice out as an old man
a distant calling, a muted thunder, a language unknown to the bloodlines of men

the ship shall grow with primitive dread
a mass, a complex, armour corroding,
old granite structures, sullen with soot

“this is our ark for a new olden age”

the ship shall sway on thick, lifeless waters
the sky, a blackened canopy of cremations
ashes of kings and newborns, geological entities choking the heavens
our progress reduced to tar and oil and blood of the earth
calling to shore where I stand

the corpse of the ark lolls into another
like the remains of worlds colliding

then

that which was below us
will be that which is before us

there will be only night

and the sea floor, our eternal deathbeds
Will be the only land in sight
wasted, writhing, the beginning of another time

ages pass
time unravels
in stillness, I am
at the end of journeys
the lighthouse keeper for a lost species

The House of Madre

 

The House of Madre
–

madre in the kitchen making pineapple tarts
madre in the kitchen making crumbling candy men

can you please sedate the pineapples
can you please sedate the ex-boyfriends

–

all the ex-boyfriends are now military men
they are crowding up the tv hall
they are wiring up the house with explosives
they are trying to find the panic room
they are trying to make clear instructions to children

you stay three minutes in the first room
you gotta turn ON the lights
you move OUT after three minutes
you gotta turn OFF the lights

or the bed will know you’re gone
or the chair will know you’re gone
and they have wheels don’t they?
they have wheels
they will follow you
they will follow you
you gotta move out after three minutes
you gotta turn off the lights

 

–
FADRE
is rearranging the animals in the toilet
FADRE
is rearranging the animals in the shoe cabinet

do not let FADRE enter your farm
do not let FADRE enter your curriculum
_

The day the surrogates brought us to the red chamber
we came face to face with
CCTV command center
it’s in the study
it;s in the study against the wall that moves around without our knowledge

it is showing me
the mirror of
who i really am
in this
CCTV black and white
black and white CCTV
We are watching the other rooms
We are watching the celibate rooms
We are watching the lift lobby

there are firemen downstairs
there are military men
there are ex-boyfriends

we are watching the nursery
we are watching the interrogation room

–

theres a woman in a malnourished dress
theres a woman smoking ice cold cigarettes
her hands are cuffed together before her on the table
so she must bend over to smoke her cigarette
she is talking to a malnourished man
exchanging glances
exchanging cigarettes
the man smokes faster than her
she leaves lipstick on the cigarette butt
she wants him to find her missing husband
she smokes like a grieving widow
she smokes at the grieving window
near the table
she tells the malnourished man
“the last time i saw my husband he was going to the house of tespu”
but the smoking man knows she killed the Husband with a cyanide pill.

–

the sex worker is vacuuming the floor
the sex worker is drawing a cunt in the dust on the floor
the sex worker is rubbing her body on the floor
the sex worker is sleeping with the husband
the husband has become her sex worker
the sex worker becomes her own madre

 

the military men are anxious about the things outside the house
the military men are standing by the windows of night
the military men are barking orders but you can tell they are scared

you stay three minutes in the room
you keep the fucking lights off!
theres a camera on the western wall
you do not look at it

you tell us when you saw the husband
you tell us why you saw your husband
you turn on the lights when you leave your husband
don’t let the bed follow you

where is the sword of the grieving woman?
we need the sword to stay safe in the dining room

when did you last see the husband?

which room?
were the lights on or off?
which room?

–

madre has finished baking pineapple tarts
madre has finished baking pineapple tarts with cyanide
its sitting on the dining table
the children are at the dining table
one of them speaks when madre speaks

you must slice the tarts with the sword of the father
you must slice the tarts with sword of the Mother

 

–

the husband is coming through the hall
move the children to the painting room
the husband is waiting in the cupboard
move the daughters to the bean bag room
the husband is in the bedroom behind the door
move the adults to the opium room

you must be careful!
fadre is coming down the hallway
you must be careful
fadre is coming down the hallway and he is hungry
fadre is coming down from the ceiling
fadre is inside your room

why aren’t you doing your mathematics?
why aren’t you selling your paintings?

where are the pineapple tarts?!

fadre is here to steal your crystals
fadre is here to arrange your animals
fadre is here to steal your pineapple tarts

 

–

madre is waiting at the gate
madre is listening to the wind
there is all this dust and bed bugs and candle wax
madre is calling all the ex-boyfriends

 

all the military men have put aside their weapons
all the military men are playing with dark green candles
all the military men are playing with dark blue candles
they are pouring hot red wax on their kevlar
they are getting erections by man handling their grenades
they have finished wiring up the house with explosives
they are touching themselves with knives between their legs
they are hearing voices in their heads

“This is the house of tespu.”

all the military men have unloaded their weapons
all the military men have put aside their clothes
all the military men are recalling childhood
all the military men are weeping

why are they weeping, Fadre?
Why are they weeping, Madre?

all the military men are crunching on pineapple tarts baked with cyanide pills.

–

madre has opened the gate to the house of tespu
the pineapple tarts are
finished

Uneaten by children in the painting room
Uneaten by daughters in the bean bag room
Uneaten by adults in the opium room

madre has opened all the doors in the house of tespu
madre has opened all her legs

Fadre is by her feet

Fadre is full of pineapple tarts from the kitchen
Fadre is full of pineapple tarts from the kitchen

 

#prophescenes #irvingpaulpereira

 

the strange significance of Jim Carrey ~ visiting me in a dream:

_

 

J.C. the clown
the ‘man on the moon’
or this precise night
archetypal jester/fool

 

I did not dream of him
he visits me from the great beyond

 

emerging from a bag
left on a stone stool
in the wellness garden
in the unwell place

 

sterile breeze but
good for lungs

 

halogen white walls
good for eyes

 

he
follows be about
telling me of old tv
I’m going from
admin to admin
he hangs around me
like a monkey on my shoulder

 

he tells of me old time
when he was all slapstick and
facial distort

 

but not anymore

 

he is projected from his paintings
maybe looking for kin
maybe imparting
part of his strain
his ‘methodi’ into me

 

if this hospital
makes me whole
he’s part of the whole

 

good ‘ole Ace
in beige yoga pants
good ole J.C
who may become J.C.
flying into dreams
from his paintings

 

#irvingpaulpereira

 

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/jim-carrey-jim-and-andy-the-great-beyond

Merlis

I’m moonlit consciousness, wandering in from desert brightness to the drained colours of night. Heat, like a lost phantom, is dispersed and distanced. Though i do not sense or see him, the man has come before me to raise this city again. There is still no power here.

I’m slow swirling down vertigo stairwells. I know i’ve been here before, past empty apartment shells, echoes of lives fading through vents and gaping windows.
There is furniture, stacked like complex puzzles outside doorless frames, ever damp clothes hang bodiless next to boxes of failed ephemera, blood and meaning sucked from limp lacy panties. I have no desire to fuck, even though i am a creature of sex. I have no desire to stall, to rummage through private debris even though i am a scavenger. I keep moving forward, I adhere to finding the woman, Merlis.

 

This is not the tower I use to know.

 

This building seems shorter, rectangular, a memory borrowed by the man from my childhood, from a time when grandmother was still alive, before she had gone blind, before the children of my uncles were born. The corridor is long, as if extended by old tragedy; a coldness preserved by the absence of human laughter. I go by more vacant houses, past bulky clutter turned into totems. I never understood why the interiors are so spotless. Did the man raise these buildings these way? Did it symbolise some inner emptiness? I continue walking in the near dark, going by pots of frozen plants, until I find her waiting by the door, like always.

 

Her mother is not of flesh and bone but of ghosts. I sense this. Her mother is of the night. I feel her, like a blooming presence inside house #13. She is a guardian of some kind, one who waits for passersby, one who protects the nothing, one who instructs her orphan daughter, Merlis, on what to give me.

 

There is a box of ancient cassettes; faceless, pale, translucent reels of tape. It reminds me of a time when my child like voice was captured, and when played back, i hear words I do not recall reciting. She hands me a pale blue tape. “Your myth always changes,” Merlis says. “You are one universe with many continents, many minds, swarming and fighting to be present.”

 

“I do not know who speaks now.” I tell her. A weak, crooked dog stumbles out of house #15, sidewinding then falling at my feet from fatigue. It is not a dog I had owned and died. I do not know which Hadean cove this one comes from. Merlis says nothing. There’s a certain sadness to the way she waits.

 

There’s a presence in the final house at the end of night corridor. Three floor mats are arranged into a deformed star. It beckons me to enter but I do not know if i do.

 

#irvingpaulpereira

weird boys

–

weird boys gestating in membrane of head
dangling ziplock of soil from tongue
“stop flashing your drug in public”
“do you have the smaller pack?”
nod

weird boys producing product to take
for a parade, massive and bustling
gas station midnight
haunted and crowding
closed down in darkness, grocery fausting

vagrants vanished in secret chambers
calling for those escaping by bus

weird boys possessed by outside forces
coriander and chunks of human tide
floating as bodies in the faeces of hearts

weird boys
sharing
foreign substance

see, the giant from opposite earth
silver sunglass, overcoat, cape
screen shot of phone face, cat face as app pic
haunched tower apeman greeting our madness

fire won’t burn the lips of weird boys
sponge eyes bulging from inside forces
the parade continues down by the hill

–

#irvingpaulpereira #weirdsinglit #poetry

the auditorium

–
Will yourself
to not be seen
go past security
do not make eye contact
move as one with the crowd
blend in
turn a corner
vanish quickly through the doors
enter the cubicle
invert your shirt, change its outer colour
unfurl the hat from your pocket, wear it
pull it down over your eyes
go straight to north wing
do not make eye contact
angle your face away from cameras
ascend the side staircase
slow down
go past the orchestra pit
find her
then search for seats most likely unoccupied
sit, wait it out, do not speak
watch her
move when you have to
the lights will go down
the musical will start
you will not be found

-#irvingpaulpereira #poetry #sglit