The Underground River

beyond the optic chiasma

 

just above the precipice of the spinal cord

 

there flows a stream -

 

a stream awash with neurotransmitters

 

noradrenalines 

 

and histamines 

 

a hidden cascade of blood 

 

singing with signals 

 

a stream of consciousness…

 

*

 

soundlessly

 

I float upon this current

 

its warm serum carries me

 

out upon a vast darkness 

 

and though there is no light

 

I can see…

 

*

 

colours

 

sounds

 

sensations

 

emerge from hypnotic precincts of the brain

 

dimensional analogues 

 

shift in time and space -

 

forming eyes, lips

 

smiles and tears

 

the deeper I penetrate the skull 

 

the more surreptitious 

 

are my pictures…

 

*

 

beside the River Thames in Oxfordshire

 

I can see a moonlit lawn

 

stretching out

 

into silver-green trapeziums 

 

of crushed velvet -

 

in the distance

 

I can see a candle burning in an upstairs window 

 

of a Jacobean manor

 

and hear the bark of a vixen echo over the valley

 

*

 

from atop the Sigiriya fortress in Sri Lanka

 

I can feel a midday sun baking the ancient stones

 

and laze in the cool shade of the water gardens

 

*

hemispheres

 

poles

 

equators

 

aerosols of the inner atlas

 

*

 

on the Putorana Plateau in Siberia 

 

I can pluck wild blackberries

 

and listen to the rainfall

 

at the Shukkei-en Temple in Hiroshima 

 

 

from the east bank of the River Nile 

 

I can hover in low Earth orbit at dusk

 

gazing out across the Valley of Queens

 

where the sunset bathes the altostratus

 

cinnamon-cerise

 

*

quantities

 

velocities

 

duration

 

thus soars the inverted arrow… 

 

*

 

upon the road to Boston town

 

I can see a dark figure

 

holding a little yellow bird

 

 

leaves rustle in the breeze 

 

the scent of burnt bracken tinges the afternoon air

 

a black dog lurks

 

amid the honeysuckle… 

 

*

 

acidities

 

alkalinities 

 

agilities

 

under the superintendence of angels…

 

*

 

amongst the scattered bushes

 

of Maasai Mara in Kenya

 

I can see a zebra foal

 

having its belly slowly torn open by a lioness

 

 

with an almost maternal affection

 

the beast occasionally licks her kill 

 

here: in its first and final hours in this world,

 

I can see the foal,

 

lifting its head in patient confusion, 

 

slowly disembowelled

 

and mangled alive

 

*

 

hues spread into spectrums

 

notes blossom into arpeggios

 

the universe in here -

 

like the universe out there -

 

is manifold 

 

but what stars illuminate this space? 

 

with what optics do we see in this dark?

 

where are the cones and rods,

 

the hydrogen and helium that power the mind’s eye?

 

*

 

following the stream to its estuary

 

I land in the secret reaches of the heart 

 

here -

 

crouched against the far wall,

 

half-obscured in shadow,

 

I can see someone 

 

someone battered by their struggle

 

someone blistered with disappointment

 

someone who has lost their way

 

for they have arrived at the end of psychology

 

*

 

did I pass this person in the street?

 

have I seen their portrait in a museum?

 

or did I glimpse this face in the mirror?

 

a set of eyes looking back

 

looking out

 

peering into infinity

 

trying to see what lies beyond 

 

these cerebral astronomies…

 

*

 

death? 

 

immortality?

 

or perhaps both - forever undulating

 

in a cataclysmic dance of matter and anti-matter

 

where the true pictorial lens

 

is the cursor of our psyche