It was a cold and early morning,
the morning I realised the full extent of the universe.
I saw it, glittering and flickering,
blinking softly, twinkling like a diamond,
like a star,
like a universe.
It was Spring, of course,
the end of Spring. Summer on the horizon,
Summer dripping in.
And I caught sight of the universe, glittering like a universe does
and in it I saw a man, hunched and wrinkled,
his face a crater, a ravine,
eyes cold and grey, sunken,
lips chapped,
hair thin.
He opened his mouth and a voice, cracked, poured out, filling the space,
like water into a ***,
overflowing,
curling around the universe,
a liquid voice.
It spoke and it said:
      "I am a wizard, the greatest of our age,
       the greatest of all,
       a necromancer,
       young, killed, reborn, reborn, reborn!
       And I know you and I love you
       and I've always know you and always loved you,
       and I know where you began
       and I think I know where you end."
And then he paused. He smacked his lips,
his cold grey eyes blinked up at me,
and then he continued:
      "Child, I am starting to fear your birth into sorrow."
And I'd never felt so know,
so understood,
so exposed.
And then he took my hand
and asked that I walk with him
and how could I say no?
So we walked, waded through his liquid voice,
circling the universe,
round and round.
And he asked me to speak
and how could I say no?
So I said the first thing that came to mind,
a quiet thought that appeared when I looked into him,
into his cold, grey eyes.
And I said it soft and hesitant, my voice wavered,
but I said it all the same:
      "I am no wizard, no necromancer,
       I am a nothing, a nobody,
       but soon I will grow, I will grow.
       I will grow and behold! Yes!
       Yes, I will grow and behold!
       And behold!
       And behold!"
And our circling continued
and he laughed and said:
      "Child, nobody is anybody.
       Child, once you are grown
       you will be laid to stone, to dust,
       to dust, to stone."
I told him such words reminded me of the construction work near my house,
of how it looks like a desert,
of how I don't think anybody should live there.
Should live here.
I told him that I need trees and I need air and I need mud
and not the kind you get there.
Not the kind you get here.
And he just smiled and stopped walking
and he turned to me,
his cold grey eyes filled with tears,
his smile remained
and he spoke for the final time:
      "We live here only,
       and we live here always,
       and we live here good.
       Come, look with me, child, don't fear,
       don't worry.
       My hand is in yours,
       yours in mine,
       old and young mixing together.
       An eternity between us
       between the spaces in our fingers, our palms,
       old and young merging together."
And so, his hand in mine, mine in his, he led me closer and closer
to that universe we'd circled
until we were millimetres from it
and his hand tightened in mine, and mine tightened in his
and I let him walk me inside.
Inside the blinking, twinkling universe.
For a moment all I saw was sound and light,
a horrible feeling,
a great discomfort,
great displacement,
a feeling I'll never forget.
But then it stopped. My hand was empty, the old man was gone
and I was inside the universe
and it was not what I was expecting.
It did not glitter or flicker,
blink or twinkle.
No, the universe is in fact plain and boring.
No, the universe is nothing but a spiral staircase,
it's walls are made entirely of mirrors.
It does nothing but reflect.
And it was in this moment
that all my thoughts became one,
streaming together
filling my mind,
my body.
And I smiled and my eyes filled with tears
and the thought was this:
      When I die, I have but one request,
      that you bury me where I began.
For in this staircase
in this reflection,
I know that my only want was to live a futile life,
to walk forever and then right back again.
And it was after this revelation that I was returned home
on a cold and early morning
at the end of Spring,
where the Summer drips in.
And I was half awake and half asleep,
and I half dreamt of an old wizard, tears in his cold grey eyes,
a bright light flickering, bringing him home, smiling.
And I half stared at the rising sun and the rolling clouds
seeping into my bedroom from half open curtains,
and I thought:
      We live here only,
      and we live here always,
      and we live here good.

Two souls have come together,
two magical beings.
What does the universe want,
to stir such a commotion?

Everything will be allowed,
when their time arrives.

Perhaps they are not the only ones
protecting themselves.

Perhaps beings from beyond
are shielding them too.

For they share the same fears,
and all will unfold in the earthly realm,
when they choose.

They were everything,
they were nothing.

Everything was mystical,
fire,
and air.

They moved from the battle of life
to the refuge of disaster.

Only souls,
finally found.

They were the dream
they never dreamed,
but that the universe
had already decreed.

i like this small life
provided by universe

would you walk through a forest fire to keep yourself warm?
would you go into the flames if it's the only know-how?
would you rather leave scathed with burn scars?

you’d seek the heat like an arsonist
you’d burn yourself given the chance
you’d search for light until it dazzled
for all you know, the sun is a star after all

In the vinyl, I see Saturn’s rings.
I see them scattered with snowballs, glowing in the oh-so-distant sunlight—
peacefully floating in their orbits,
occasionally saying hello to one another
with a little bump from time to time.

The music blends as the snowballs form;
bigger, greater snowballs that—
once having consumed all around them—
stay frozen in the pitch-dark nothing…
They remain, mute and humble—observing.
And they never melt away.

I snap back—

—back to the vinyl.
How beautiful it sounds.
Not a single scratch really hurts your ear;
it rather tingles the senses.
The scratch of the needle turns the etches into flowers.
Each note is a cloud, and I am floating on one,
drinking the melody deep into my body,
letting it melt me away into water.
I rain down into my chair, and—

—I snap back.

My body tickles as the speaker shakes the air around me.
It liquefies, turns upside down.
The violin is playing…
Oh no.

I forgot about this part.

I see the mirror in your room,
and in the mirror, I see you.
And next to you, I see me.
I am still inside the drop.
And I know that in a minute, it will burst.
It will run down your cheek.
Any moment now.

I snap back.

I snap.

The universe is dreaming,
Of you and of me
Of the skin peeling
from the paperbark tree
Of the cow grazing
along the low paddock
And the egret watching
From atop her back
Of Jupiter
And her umpteen moons
Of drought broke to flood
By summer monsoons
Of a girls fist kiss
And her final so-long
Of poets born
And life turned to song
Of the sea reaching out
To touch the long sky
Of every answer
To a pillow sobbed why
The universe is dreaming
so herself she can see
in you and in me
in everything here,
gone,
and ever to be.     ~ Xiola

somewhere
along the universal path
a twilight hut

stands alone

where cosmic palms are read
and untimely fortunes are told
by abyssal blackness
in the guise of twinkling
clairvoyants

planets reach out
to touch lost faith
yearning for a claim
to stardom
but the uncelestial zone
yields only
dead broke dreams
that have been missold

inside
the sensei shadows
of physics
whisper
contemptuously
of blaggards that
"couldn't even imagine
how to float
never mind actually
be buoyant"

outside
sub-zero temperatures
make sure their teeth
are heard chattering
as their lips
splutter kisses
upon every
last inch of spacial decay
comets are the remnants
of their spit splattering

© poormansdreams