Quintessence

I find comfort in writing surreal poetry. I leave you this maze, where just below the surface and maybe above it you can see some geopolitical themes. A hint of peace is always a step away. But peace is easily disturbed, just like how a pond forms ripples when a single stone skips across it.

Quintessence

Uncaged birds, their voices

ringing in tinntanubulation

across meadows; across meadows.

&

Endowed with syrupy honey;

allowed temporary myopia

for viscera, for deep-seated

inward feelings. Whisper something

to wake from our caves,

to wake from our stupor.

&

Money builds brick walls.

We're trapped and stiff;

stiffening into rocks

and dreaming and dreaming

no, hoping

that we'll be thriving, yes

thriving

as fleshy, sticky,

sweet, and tropical

—like papaya—

we all want high water content

in our bones.

Please, help me find

ancient fruit in Mesoamerica.

That fresh and beautiful, and living

and pure fruit.

&

Fish knife fillets

tea roses, the lovely flowers

struggling to grow

in fields wrecked

by humans and their incessant miasma.

Petals cut with a fish knife.

Little unseen angels plant their seeds.

&

Carabao wallowing in mudholes,

swans lowering their heads below

the water to catch mollusks.

Anesthesia drugs and flirting

with unknown desire,

reaching a plateau—

buzzing, I am a dragonfly

ready to sip from Louisiana's

Fountain of Life.

&

Undoing brick rows,

undoing the walls

and then hearing something

enchanting:

it's a viola, a viola solo.

People in fancy clothes

watching the viola player

at a chateau with a vineyard.

Little sandwiches

served with white wine.

The rich and the poor

divided highway

the brain divided into lobes.

&

Pensacola, placing my feet

in a sugar sand beach.

Drinking a strong alcoholic spirit

from the Middle ages:

Aqua vitae, an aqueous solution of ethanol.

Some called it the fifth essence—quintessence.

A life-giving and imperishable spirit.

Give it to me.

Give it to the masses.

&

Octavian, Caesar Augustus, the first

Roman emperor. In heaven,

he dances to Carioca samba

while drinking a strawberry daiquiri.

He wears gladiator sandals

and blue swim trunks.

His wives are the Three Fates:

Claudia, Scribonia, and Livia.

Together they tie strings

to make triangles.

&

Megapixels fluttering and colliding

in the wind. They'll cling together

to create mountains and lakes

and jungles and deserts.

Primeval nightclothes to sleep

in a forgotten tavern. Pull

the white sheet over your body

before you sleep.

Trust that white snow will take you

below the layer of megapixels.

&

Antifungal cures to cross boundaries—

those boundaries

placed by Giants

from the Woodland Ether.

The Giants who carry spheres

not knowing where the spheres came from

but always attending to them.

&

Cashews rain down from the sky

leaving dints on cars.

Cashews rain down from the sky

because clouds couldn't hold them.