‘Poèm Fantastique’

Nora Naveen, she is a passionate photographer exploring and photographing the raw beauty of the world. From expansive vistas to intimate moments of nature, her goal is to inspire others to view the environment with greater care and curiosity. In order to foster a respect for environment and inspire others to discover and preserve it, Nora Naveen offers her artwork.

Poèm Fantastique 

A sharpened silver German bow 

That glides on hemoglobin strings 

To spill the crimson crawling tide 

That washes struck and storm-strewn shores anew Softly slides through grains of lunar luminescence Forming lines like opaque little graves 

Nasal masochism dripping down the philtrum Quick inhalation-lit flames 

Dancing on the heights of cerebellum building rooftops In scents of ether-cut cocaine 

And pleasure popped in handfuls 

Raw emotions sweetly made in candy shaped concoctions Like St. Valentine’s little hearts 

That spill from hopeful lover’s hands 

To land back where you start 

A sip of distorted perception 

Helps us masticate our mind’s creations 

Until we tilt further back and spill onto the floor A speed train bullet fire 

Shooting hard into the dark night 

Like lightning flash avalanches 

Smashing cymbal splash band marches 

Blaring horns and trumpet screams 

That bring a chaos over calm 

Glass bottles sliding in perspiring palms 

Crashing sidewalk water-droplet bottles 

Flung from heights like empty bodies 

Effervescent cups to rinse the venom 

Wrung from the likes of familial snakes 

Wash the shame away 

With every wave of handmade bliss 

Every kiss of velvet grace 

That caresses soft the skin 

Raises pedestals and wingtip freedom 

Soaring high into the air 

And melting wax and falling feather dread 

Spills unnoticed to the floor

Hedonistic blindfold pleasures 

Pushing onward more and more 

II. 

Line after line 

Flashing fast through the night 

Lights like funeral lanterns 

Epileptic flame flickers flash bright 

Pushing further and farther 

Lead foot compression aggressed 

Whip-handed wind crashing hard against complexion Pupil dilation straining low-light perception A roaring vivace 

Fortissimo agitato 

Like a tempo so rushed 

The notes all twirl and spiral in a ballroom of glass A meticulous dance seeming frenzied and spastic But so beautiful and perfect 

On the brink of disorder 

Always sliding along on the pencil line fence-top Never looking down and never fearing the fall Closed-eye visualize the road ahead 

Every twist and turn spiraling 

Heartbeats sonic booming 

Mario Andretti on amphetamines 

Speed racing through the night 

Surging forward like rapids 

Rabid animal white foam 

Crashing fast on rock faces 

Across midnight black asphalt 

Controlled by intoxication 

To race like chased by death 

On wings of plague and pestilence 

Every gear-shift light-switch electrical flow Is overwhelming adrenaline estaticsim 

Switched to full power 

Dead battery rejuvenation recharging 

A growing sunrise crescendo

Notes all reaching a climax 

Orgasmic influx of heightened sensation 

Like a full orchestral arrangement 

All playing simultaneously 

Every single note cascading 

In a symphony reminder of life 

Every moment making sense 

Then suddenly it crashes down 

The harmony turns dissonant 

The rhythm falls apart 

The notes transposed and fractured by a single hit 

A cymbal smash spearing everything 

The tempo brakes start screeching 

Opening the door like mortgage letters 

Stepping slow from in the car 

Searching beady-eyed like vulture beaks 

Skin crawling broken-legged 

Huntington shakes 

Sudden jackhammer heartbeats 

He approached the pile lying in the broken street, bending down to look at what he’d hit. A blank stare looked back at him from the bloody pool it lay in. His hand shot back in recoil and his breath left his chest. His head spun as his thoughts rapidly plunged the downward spiral: the jail, the trial, the torment in prison. He turned and heaved, his eyes flowing with tears. He turned back to the body: a young, dark-haired 

boy, no older than ten. He scooped the pile of skidmarked, bloody clothes and broken bones into his arms, throwing the entire mess into his trunk and speeding away; panic stricken, he fled straight for the sanctuary of his home. He worked all night in his garden, digging a hole for the boy and cleaning his car spotless. He buried the body and erased the traces. 

III. 

A cicada shell on hard oak bark 

Empty hollow husks 

With eyes like open-mining pits 

That seem to stare past every scene 

A faded and withered emotional veil 

That grows more threadbare by the day 

A wilted orchid 

Dried flower petal falling 

A steady slow decay

The songs once sweetly sang 

Striking sanctuary notes 

Fall silent 

From his prison-cell bedroom 

Sentenced by self gavelling 

Paxil and Clonazepam to break the fast Washed down with midmorning Jack 

A topical numbness deeper spreads 

Dissociated and unsettling 

Paper faces on shop windows stare 

And newsflashes scream 

Sandwiched between “REWARD” and “MISSING” The face haunts his guilty chest 

As flowers bloom from packed down dirt Growing upwards from the life cut short That feeds nutrition to the sod 

A stranger's stare 

Scaring and suspicious 

Superstitious viciousness 

A rabbit’s foot 

Death 

A clover plucked 

Death 

An eerie symmetry arises 

Between sanctuary 

And cemetery gates 

Where Death’s concerned 

And all he does is wait 

And it was in that state the Devil came to him Through silver screens 

And T.V. advertisings 

In spangled robes of stars and stripes 

With vague idyllic promises 

Of penance or escape 

Six years he signed away his soul 

For the chance to find some peace 

Six years in the paradise of the promised land In the hell of the Middle East

IV. 

Floating in 

Fields of crimson 

Seas of bliss 

Elated waves 

Crashing on foreign shores 

Serenity in spaces in-between 

Exploding shells and flying bullet-fire spray Cacophonous dissonant war 

The squealing cogs of insidious machinery That grind into a pulp 

The innocent masses caught in the fray The smog of capitalism heavy in the air Broken still 

The dark night wraps arms around him A soft swaddling blanket of velveteen grace Of solace 

Of self-effacement 

The stars, the crescent moon 

Absorbed by black 

Washed away by ebbing tides 

The endless oceans spreading outward In rivers growing ever wider 

Gnawing the shore on both sides 

Dreams and daylight reminisced 

With fateful dawn delayed 

The play of shadows casting light On thoughts as dark as boiling spoons Of finger twitches 

Triggers pulled 

Hypodermic needles 

Electric switches 

And then the music starts in waves Slow tempoed timpani beats ring under Soft violins and effervescence 

Flute and trumpet begin to rave 

Joined by full brass-and-string concerto

The double-basses rumble lowly 

Clarinet and cello interweave 

Viola sings vibrato slowly 

In cadence with everything 

The twinkling of the harp 

The contrast of bassoon 

The rich flourishes of french-horn and piccolo The gentle light of moon 

Both with and without its presence Still clung to by the ocean’s waves 

Empty of pain 

And empty of essence 

Unbroken and unmoored 

Until diminished in refrain 

As night is overtaken by the sunlight Hegemony rises from its bed 

The shifts change 

The dead begin to pile again 

Near mosque and market square 

And sanguine fields he’s made to guard Cerberus 

At the gates of hell 

Where Styx has flooded over 

Brandishing M-16 rifles 

Combat boots and camouflage 

To protect somniferous bulbs 

The sultry sap 

Of somnolence stored therein 

“TRESPASSERS SHOT ON SIGHT” Frightful signs display 

Shooing thieving magpies off 

Scarecrows blasting guns 

To protect American interest 

Praising freedom and decay 

Pharmaceuticals, oil fields 

Economic gain 

And the bone thrown in secret 

By the reaper of the crops

That takes away the nightmare 

Of the waking and the lost 

The pain and guilt and sorrow 

Softly drained away 

By the slipping of a needle 

Stitching up his tattered veins 

Solace enough to get by 

Until one day 

His damaged soul was shattered Irreparably torn away 

By the dolorous eyes of a young boy Begging not to shoot 

With stolen poppy stalks in hand AK held loose 

His battalion right behind him 

He had to pull the trigger 

On that face 

That same face still haunting him That same boy in the road 

Slain now again 

That dead stare 

No amount of spoonfuls can erase Vainly in search of solace 

As bubbles boil in candlelight 

The dark arose in putrid sludge 

From wells eternal deep 

Pulling 

With the gravity of a thousand dying stars He snapped and set the fields ablaze Barricaded in his barracks 

Popping warning shots at random Rabid animal in a cage 

Finally breaking through the door Like a deluge of retribution 

They shot him 

Dead 

Not quite before he hit the floor

V. 

Sonorous church bells ring out deeply And sound the solemn dirge 

The skeletal marching of black masses In the weeds of bitter mourn 

Dies iræ, dies illa 

Solvet sæclum in favilla 

Hand in hand 

A thousand dead children 

All ring around his headstone 

His tomb engulfed in flame 

Witches’ laughter shrill and loud Fills the air abrasive 

A thousand blood-red hands reach upward A thousand blood-red graves 

Judex ergo cum sedebit 

Quidquid latet apparebit 

Nil inultum remanebit 

The gnawing of the maggots’ teeth Ingest, digest, dispose 

The ghostly figures stomp their feet The crimson flowers all arose 

Face to face 

With death, with absolution 

With the eternal flames of nothingness Ingemisco, tamquam reus 

Culpa rubet vultus meus 

Supplicanti parce, Deus 

The trumpet blasts all thunder 

The earth all shook asunder 

The sinistral dance begins

Hoof and horn abounding Schadenfreude glee 

Atavistic jubilation 

Carnal, primal, free 

The spectral flames arise Shadows grow and interlace Darkened, overwhelming Alone 

Slowly he rots 

Pie Jesu Domine 

Dona eis requiem 

Amen.

Dakota William Szaniszlo is a poet and prosist from Tucson, AZ. They are a committed practitioner of shower-singing, a volunteer life-coach for the dead, an unlicensed self-surgeon, and an avid collector of tossed-out ideologies. They enjoy contemplating ineffable abstraction, dreams constantly, and spends most of their free time on long drives through various mental landscapes. They have been previously featured in various journals including: The Antonym - A Bridge to Global Literature, Canyon Voices, Punt Volat, LatineLit, and The Ana.