Pantheon of Self

did you know when you sit long enough, stare hard enough at one singular vision, out the window, the trees, the meadow or that spider scaling the wall, the world melts away, gradually quietly and all that remains is the feeling of losing one's sense of direction or being.

so often at night, when all is as deathly quiet as a mausoleum and a chill encroaches through the gaps in the sealant of the window, I find myself wandering without movement, pacing through the emptiness as the room exposes the fabric of reality, without slumber, without exertion, entropy or entropy, my downfall and the key to this dream or delusion, fantasy or nightmare, reality or insanity.

I try in vain to call for help! I need someone to hold my hand or steady my course, but alas, I am but a lonely visage in a vision of pitch fuliginous abyssal tinged with violent vermillion and dreary greys as my heart it softens its rhythmical march.

hands become as ambiguous appendages lacking in detailed digits, as the dust of my visage sways from me while clinging so closely

I fight not flight, but victory forgets me, as the fight is with I, the eternal self. the more I fight, the more I fall, without moving at all.

the small window of freedom to leave this suspended reality is closing, and my strength and willpower diminishing.

though I try to blink myself to reality, reality evades me and the weight of everything, past and present and beyond my mind's horizon, pulls me deeper, I submit.

outlines of the past, memories long buried, are born in technicolour, the transition seamless between reality and unreality, between banality and inanity. there are echoes of the spider on the wall, crawling to safety, crawling to his vantage point high above, but the more I submit, the more these echoes are distant and faded, like a siren rushing from the scene, through avenues and streets, from the accident to the emergency room, the hum of a car radio, as it ventures into the distance,

I'm only sleeping, though miles away, I'm only sleeping, not lazy or crazy, drifting as the desire to fight is exorcised from me along with those demons who dance and sway before me, taunting me, the bright embers of the warm nostalgia of laughter and joy break the cold and discomforting silence, my breathing drowned out by the sound of the water rising around me, as it surrounds me, overwhelms me, consumes me.

keepin' an eye on life as it goes by my window, takin' my time, as the fantasy becomes reality, the lie of my mind's eye becomes my truth, I forget

that I am but just sitting, watching the world, or the spider as it crawls

the spider enthrals me, does not appal me, I watch it until I can focus no more, until the wall returns to a dark mist and I remember...nothing and everything

a pantheon of the bad and worst that are I, gather in hoods, pointing, as I fight the darkness with memories of brightness

my limbs, are both lifeless and heavy, of dust and steel, I can't...find tangibility...or rather it shifts, I shift between intangibility and tangibility

first born, the boy, in my arms at the hospital, purity encapsulated in a bairn

the smile and shyness of my one true... love, as I regale her with words fit for a beautiful vision of all I want from a partner, a companion, a friend.

the highs and the lows are there to tap into, and I indulge momentarily.

but still the darkness it gathers, the pantheon grows and hums, some forgotten language of old

the lyrics indecipherable, mere sounds and reverberations around the space I find myself drifting

if I am without care or caution, my mind will decipher those words I fear, reminders of my frailties

syllables enunciated clearly with consonant dissonance, a sharp score, a denouncement even

If I am without care or caution, as I am so frequently not, I will give ear and meditative contemplation to the deception, that all I am is

nothing of consequence, and if I am anything, it is of destruction and ruination.

control I have but control I so often disavow myself of, as the memories, the deceptions take hold

captive the captain of my own malicious microcosm, I sink to the depths as the Good Ship I is wrecked

perhaps I will wake, will come to reason, if just someone would call, but alas the call of the past

of the blankness, the shifting sands pull me through to the land that time, no I forgot that I created

in time it will fade and I will rise or I will sink to the deepest of slumber, but before the reprieve

I suddenly remember to breathe, as if my lungs recall their function, gasps at first, deep inhalation follows

still I drift, surprised the water is not suffocating

sometimes...school days relived...sometimes work...sometimes...nothing...

the stench of the body odour in the classroom, the stench of the sanitised office or the fresh bakery products of the supermarket. sometimes...nothing

the light of the day, the world going by my window, appears as a framed impression, Monet or Manet, Renoir or Morisot

I try in vain to lift myself up to peer outside for a clearer, Fauvist view of the world, the world going by my window

but alas, I can't, but the more I consider and contemplate the reason of anything, I wonder if can't is won't and do is don't.

don't, won't, the rhythmic beat of my existence.

I'm only sleeping? please wake me, please shake me...

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: This is my first or only, I've not decided yet, entry for Gabriel Huizenga's spectacular "Lost-ish" Unofficial Poetry Challenge . Thanks and apologies to John Lennon and The Beatles for paraphrased excerpts from I'm Only Sleeping and to the artists cited. Please follow the link and find out more about it, and enter it. It's great.

Here are some other things I've done recently