I cradled the unfurling shed snakeskin delicately
admiring the imprint of faces and places
swallowed up in time.

An ancient amative light sat patiently
on the blank sheet
before the electric medium;
the electric medium sitting buzzing
eager to tell another silent story.

I wrapped the skin around its spindle;
and from its den I extracted slowly and cautiously,
urging the skin into the hungry buzzing medium--

And minute punctures in the skin,
where the projector's teeth sink in,
whose teeth chatter like plastic wind up dentures
as the skin passes snake-like through its dusty plastic entrails.

The tattooed skin is illuminated at the heart of the vessel--
where the countenance of a single solitary bulb
omits a radiance, brilliant and magnificent--
powerful enough to cast the skin like a shooting star
across the darkened room

onto the patient white sheet
where my eyes await the tattooed memories
to dance before me.

I sit in my torn and weathered leather chair
echoing the silence of the screen--
(hypnotized by the hum of the projector--
an incessant electrical drone accompanied by the bombinate
incantations of chattering crickets.)

The stories are shielded from my inquisition
by layers of translucent grain
that leave textures gritty--
and a soft focus that leaves faces obscure
and expressions ambiguous.

(How clever you are to stay silent,
and leave me in such tempestuous musings!)

Vast pores pop up excitedly burned and scabbed intrusions
and if you linger for too long
the brilliance of the glare will burn into you--

Like the shaman who dances too close to the holy fire.
Like Apollo flying too close to the sun.

I must be careful,
and fully aware--
of your transience.

These ambulant hieroglyphs
speak volumes in their silence--
and I find myself drawn
to the blurry smiling faces
as they peer into my soul.

History breathes.
and History repeats.
but lies silent
in the sands of Time.
Becoming muddled,
but waiting.
for its story to be told;
for the mediums to rise from the grave.

I suddenly agnize myself as the last generation
to have its memories and histories burned onto tape.
and as I sit here I wonder
of the Society
whose soul I will peer into--
when I am unearthed
out of the sands of Time.