Within the Depths, All the Days

by Ralph Monday

I never realized that the mind is a movie
Projector until one day walking the beach,
Used condoms, stink of dead fish, broken
Bottles, world flotsam dredged from the
Whale's belly--bits and pieces making up
Life's hologram. I could walk around all
Sides, explore each scene like a clock wound
Backwards, stop the film for a momentary
Gaze into the heart of darkness.
Often, at middle age, experience becomes
Surreal--once tender moments exposed as
Severed flesh unstitched.
Such was this time knowing two realities:
Electrical brain impulses resurrecting the
Vanquished, the earth's energies scratching
Out every moment tread—the way a record's
Needle conjours song.
The mother is out there in those depths,
Beyond memories’ horizon, in the dark,
Beneath waves feeding with sharks, sister
To piranha. She is the first witch encountered
In the moment when she refused the nipple,
Sprouted fangs, a cinema scene scripting
Infant horror. They all become naked things
In the forest with horns, pot bubbling, spells
Cast. When grownups read witch stories,
Confirmation that I was not insane, though
They could no longer see their black skirts.
Still they float about in homes, offices, schools.
Time now to give up Circes, put the film
In a can, like the octopus floating in a tidal
Pool that sees in color.