He sat bent down in front of the light.
Facing dancing patterns under
Moist soil, jutted crumpled grass,
Or in his own lumpen mass, mishapen,
Silhouette always in his sight.

Before he felt the form and finish of the
Not-always, the casted spells in crevice and
Under stone held comfort.

Now, he traces them with swollen
Weary eyes. They seem void and
Vapid.

He crawled up. In the absence of
What was always nothing.

Distant drum of expanding light
Radiated, circling and enveloping
Him in wide and open crushing arms.

He returned to
Find that

The "world" once
Sharp and clear,
In its textured
Orange glow.
Casting neat
Outlines.

Meaning-bringer.

Now grey-black and always dark.
An absence of everything.

In an unknown surging, he
Caressed the "World's" surface
And traced its smooth rolling
Dents. He pressed his nose
Against the stone and inhaled.

He caught the sagging sometimes-speaking
"Rocks", always in peripheral. Now direct.
Laid curved, in a crescent-moon. He wondered
What the texture or warmth or musky smoky Scent might appear from probably-a-"rock".

Bending in the same way he used
To observe the "world" he crumpled in
Front of the thin pointy oddly-shadowed
Thing.

He held its face.
Feeling its warm
Recesses and feathered
Curling beard.

Briefly, blank black sockets
Darted to meet him. Only to
Return, back: fully in-the-world.


A dim bulbous pain
Rose, like the crescent
"Fish" deep in his hollow
Body. An elemental appetite.

So, he left the
Always-dark,
The "World".

The "world" always recurs.
Soon, his own silhouette will
Return to its silent delineation.

And he can creep in cold
Trepidation, back to the
always-dark, the "world",
The always-tickling-tension.

He assimilated deep in the foot of his
Nuzzling slab. Solid shadows stretched
Below. More true to him than the infinite
White heat that cast them in vast strokes.

He sat face-down, between two
Scrunched twigs; bent like
Mantis' claws. He held his
Eyes-open, absorbed into
His own shadow, now crisp.
Not fuzzy and undefined.

Piercing,
Searing,
Savage spikes,
Sudden and swift
In its sordid violent damagings.

Holy fire lit him aflame.

Blinding light
Engulfing him in
Crackling static.

Eventually, "sun" rises
And parading echoes
Perform melancholy
Dances.

When "moon" dips below
And the "world" is empty
He waits agape for filling
Slush.

None came.

Empty, his wire frame
Activates and drags him,
Clawing on felt sand,
Carpeting carved stone and
Block stairs leading to the:

Open
To the:
Not-always.

Depleted limbs collapse
Onto muffled flat stone.
A slightly darker crevice
Offered him solace.

Here, cornered up, pressed
Against cold and wet,
Sleep came dutifully.