What the Water Gave Him

Drip of the faucet, steady and hypnotic, surf
of the bathwater creeping over his bloated belly,
rising and ebbing with each breath, his knees
protruding like icebergs, soft dangle
between his legs, safe as in the womb.  Paris,

an oscillation, a rolling exhibition, vast
spaceship of a city just outside the walls
of his rented flat.  He knows how to be alone,
to get inside the cave of his brain, to shut it all off
like a yogi, water a conduit.  He is not well.

Murky screen, a hallucinogenic drive-in:  the surface
roils, clouds moving, tempest-in-a-teapot—and he smirks,
lolls back his head for the old horse—images from a Satanic
and elegant mind.  The steamed windows at 17 rue Beautrellis
flash lightning as the stage show begins, his nodding

sentience absorbing photographic negatives at first, great
lizards strobing across a desert landscape, blink
of a saurian eye, multiplied and shuttering, antennaed
insects marching in formation under a bloody moon,
moon morphing into angelic face of Rimbaud.  Dreadful,

Dali’s shrouded Christ, rising slow out of the water,
leering satyrs copulating with witches between
his legs, explosions at his nipples, ‘57 Chevy
bucking over the mound of his abdomen, coyote
howling off the tip of his chin, flower

withering in his third eye, emeralds-rubies-diamonds
tumbling out of his asshole, sacrificial Mayan
virgins can-canning it, clown cars whizzing, Groucho
Marx headlining second stage, and everywhere, China White
sparkling like stardust, like magic snow, filling the bath,

caking up his eyelashes, plugging up his nostrils,
and Morrison won’t stop it—can’t stop it—loves it,
and is bubbling down, grinning, blowing
kisses, his silky chuckle filling the Parisian night,
as he says goodbye to no one in particular.


*Note: This poem also appears on Dark Chaos:
http://wiredwriter.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/what-the-water-gave-him-lauren-tivey/