The Dune Sea

*See Author's Note section for the musical accompaniment to the piece  
 
..
            
If I come half the distance,  
Will you walk to me?
 
..
 
Sensate being. I alone. I do not ask. I do not know. She is gone silent.
 
Experience. I am satellite. Stardust composition. Formed carbon. Water. A columned spine. Opposable thumbs. Paired. Eyes. Breast. Bone. Blood.
 
Being is. To feel. Not know.
 
Foolish. Small. Ignorant. I am. I look. Everything I see. Unknown. What composition. By whom crafted. I do not know.
 
I am aware. I feel what fire feels. Stone feels.  Air feels. I feel.
 
I ache. She is silent. I alone.
 
..
 
I.   Dawn
 
Sunrise is beautiful. Is time. Time, awakening time. Uplifting. Rising. Renewing.
 
Audacious hues. Emblazoning. Crimson. Glorious. Orange. Roaring. Yellow. Blushing. Pink.
 
Night is cool. Air holds around me. I am here. Waiting. Sunlight. Warming. Waiting.
 
Heart: I feel pain. Is that alright?            
Mind: Yes, that’s alright. I doubt.
 
All is transformed. And everything. I transform. I am pain. I am awake. All within an hour.
 
There is mist. Chill. Headlights. Halos. I hold her silence. For her. She asks me. I hold it. Between my fingers. I wait. Inside. I quake.
 
I am doubt. I am pain.
 
..
 
II.   Life stream
 
I move, here. She moves, there. We move separately. Live separately. She says, You are beautiful. You are beautiful pain, my love. You are living. Breathing. Rage. I am living. I am love. I am ache. I am pain.
 
She says, You are indifferent to barbs. I am discipline. Held. Attention. Silenced. I listen. We suffer. I want to suffer. Together. We suffer. Alone.
 
We cannot share a suffering corner. I listen. Misunderstand. You are music.
 
Heart: I cannot always speak to you.
Mind: I cannot always listen.
 
Hours. Whispers. Heart. Rising. Throat. Head. Falling. Hands. Heat. Temples. Sobs. Quiet. Thoughts. My love. Muse. Moments. I piece together. She says, I love you. I, the artist. R_Sculptoris. I assemble. Mosaic. You are notes. I am music.
 
We are glaciers. We glide by. Another night. She is elsewhere. I am here. Without collision. Slides by.
 
Silence.
 
..
 
III.   Cosmos
 
The trees are sad                            
Reaching                            
For their roots                            
Their children                            
Vines and leaves                          
Frown                          
Sag                          
Are sad
 
Waters. Wind. Hither. Tither. Blows. Hues of salt. Remembers. Sea.
 
Heart: I would speak again.              
Mind: I will carry you.
 
Fires. Firmament. Moving. Changing. Slipping. Breaths. Her. Eyes. Voice. A cool touch. Beautiful. Self-contained. This fire. She treasured this heart. Would do it no harm. A shadow of her. Upon white walls. A few words. She is gone. I ache.
 
Cool night. Moonlight. Blue white. On the road. Train moans. Distance. Stars. Wind. Thoughts. Absence. Footfalls. My heart. Distilled. Pure. Aches. Quavers. Calls.
 
..
 
IV.   Cycles of falling and rising waters
 
I halt. The sculptor halts. Fire halts. Rises into the air. Leans against the ground. I am a stop watch. Counting. Swift clouds. Moving. Her face. Everything. Violent. Withheld. Gentle. Awash in lunar light.
 
Street lights out. Emerge onto the avenue. Bright moon. Copper hue. Eerily cool.
 
Heart: Sometimes I’m afraid. Is that alright?                          
Mind: Yes. That’s alright.
 
Time. I am time. Passing. I am old. Growing. I alone. Wandering. Loving. Her heart. Her pain. My pain. Living. Longing. A few words. Then nothing. Her white arms. Extended. Her palms. Forbidding. Her storms. Her silence. I alone. Waiting. Beautiful. Broken. And waiting.
 
..
 
V.   Root, tree, leaf and fruit
 
Low fog. Creeping. The town. Sleeping. Clouds. Cooling. Upon the air. Mist. Moving. Upon the ground. Pain. I am pain.
 
Heart: I spoke to her.                    
Mind: I spoke to her, though she seldom speaks.              
Heart: You spoke the wrong words.              
Mind: They are the only words I know.                          
Heart: I know. It’s alright.
 
Dharma. In my mouth. I am love. My eyes. I am truth.
 
I am love. Love is pain.
 
Calm pleasant darkness, far as the eye can see.
 
Moon slips behind. Peeks out. Winks at me.
 
..
 
VI.   Beacon
 
Street lights out again. Avenue. Low. Lean. Dipped in darkness. Half a moon. Loitering. North. Northeast. Cool breeze. Car rushing by. Occasionally.
 
Rain. Street signs. Red glow. I quaver. I quake.
 
Heart: I am old, grown. Grown silent.              
Mind: I speak unwisely. I am young.                          
Heart: I know.                          
Mind: It was the djinn.                            
Heart: Was it?                          
Mind: No, it was the universe.              
Heart: And you are part of it?
Mind: You, also. You speak for it.                    
Heart: I speak for us.                          
Mind: Alright. Now, let’s speak together.                          
Heart: Without fear?                          
Mind: Yes. Without doubt?                          
Heart: Yes.
 
The debt I owe her. To speak English. To this. Ignorance. See love. In this heap of disease. To fear me. My blunders. Missteps. Mistakes. To open to me. Lower her outstretched palms. Speak. Past her fears. Offer me. Bleed. This love. Ache. She is pain. Feelings. Memories. Overwhelm her. Obstacles. Fears. Doubts. Overwhelm me. Press together. Walls. Palms. Feelings. Memories. Fears. Doubts. Make mountains between. This winter. Partition. Fire. Wind. Gone. She is gone.
 
I am time. Am old. Growing. I am young. Am living. Hoping. Waiting.
 
..
 
VII.   Houses
 
In this absurd cadre of cultures, where we worship the blunt beauty of youth and cruel abuses of obtuse and grandiose strength. Where we pretend cruelty is strength and not fear.
 
Where dull metal phalli salute in a column upon their sides as they march, arms erect, stiff. For fear. For bread.
 
A suitable show of force. Where there is no war. They shove each other, at the border. There is no conversation. No embrace.
 
Where we seek intimacy in a stranglehold. Comfort in a bottle. Oblivion within a syringe sarcophagus.
 
Where I look away from the child you are and you do the same.
 
Where we are afraid and hate.
 
The other side. Their side. Our side. Names. Faces. Features. Tones. Divides.
 
A suitable show of force. Where there is no war.
 
Heart: Carry this to her.                          
Mind: She will writhe. She will rage.                          
Heart: I know.                          
Mind: Then, why?                          
Heart: I am love.                          
Mind: Love is pain.                          
Heart: Yes.                          
Mind: So we will give her pain.              
Heart: Yes.                          
Mind: Will she speak?                          
Heart: No. We speak.
 
Partitions. Constellations. Apart. Silence. I, the dragon. She, the serpent. Apartheid. No conversation. No embrace.
 
I dream of her. Moving through doors. Glimpse her shadow. Receding. Always moving. Moving away. Gone.
 
I wake, but am still in the room where she is gone.
 
This no collision course. Inertia. No love. No war. I would break upon her shores. She was an ocean. I swam in the wake of her. She withdraws the tides. The moon. Hides. There is nothing. Silence. Eyes. Only.
 
Here I sit. A tightly wound bundle of burning. I am a bursting knot. A sleepless cloud. Circling. My brow. Slumbering. No longer. Two eyes weary. Third eye. Wide.
 
I hear                          
The words                          
In the breath                          
Beneath                          
My taloned                          
Wings
 
I am heat                          
Thunder                          
My sentences                          
Set                          
The forest                          
Ablaze
 
..
 
VIII.   Body of red and brown, arms of green and gold
 
Feet of clay. I am earth.
 
Where earth reaches beyond                          
Bounds of dearth
 
I am green                          
Where seeds                          
Raise arms
 
Green mouths                          
Drink waters
 
Green veins                          
Drink light                          
I am rings                          
And rings                          
Within rings
 
I am sand                          
Dust                          
Dunes                          
And sea
 
I am lean                          
I am creak                          
I am sway
 
..
 
IX.   Open eye, arms wide
 
Much did I bray in monuments of momentary strength. Drunk on blood of the celestial. Much was I diminished. I smile to my diminishment.
 
Creation. Sweet and dark. Into my red mouth. Snapped. Cut. Poured. My forked, pornographic tongue. Eyes closed. Suckling. The orgasm of earthly being. I smile to my earthly being.
 
Her hair is a tide I do not know. Her eyes of storms I do not know. Her voice I do not know. I smile to what I do not know. In time. Pain ends. Where pain diverges. Where pain is not love.
 
..
 
X.   Music in the silence between sounds.
 
I am quiet. She is a serpent. Divided from its spirit. I am silent. Reaching. To her. Reaching. Through her fangs. Through her swords. She is will. Draped over bone. Fused. Fuselage. Concealing stars and tatters.
 
I reach. I love. Fingers. Knuckles. Touch to chords. Her pain is love. Her love is music. I grasp the tatters. Slowly. Knotting. Knitting.
 
Fires. Beneath the surface. Her scales. Cool. Hardened. Disciplined. Silence.
 
Respect. She is analogous.
 
..
 
XI.    Naked where others are clothed
 
Still on the surface. Unanswering. Quietly colluding. In the night. Speaking. I am silent. Abiding. Until I unfurl. In concentrated flame. Offer your artifice. I offer my life.
 
..
 
XII.   Light and breath
 
Look on me. See. I am birthed in your arms. Clay between your steely fingers. Always waiting. Holding. A love. An underground sea.
 
..
 
XIII.   North star, south wind
 
Silence. I am. Hushed. Where dust falls through columns of light, inches above my mouth. Unstirred by breaths.
 
..                          
                           
XIV.   Gods, giants, and men
 
I am formidable. Terrible in my nudity. There is no illusion left to me. This parchment runs deeper than flesh. Ink, a river where blood runs its circuitous course.  I am a man, exhausted. Finally. Defeated.
 
..
 
XV.   Fountainhead
 
The sea of soul is endless. I am there, reaching. Bleeding in my frail garb. Into his grail cup. Take my tatters in hand. It is here, before you. The chords of my instrument. Here. I am. Eyes closed. Eye open.
 
..
 
XVI.   Listener, seer
 
26 characters in this opera. Horizontally laid. Chirping sighs as fingers hammer away. Alone, in your silence. In your absence. Find this joy. Create. See me, creation’s crude bludgeon. Creation’s exacting scalpel. Walking slowly through the doors of your mind.
 
..
 
XVII.   Bodhi
 
Ambient sounds. Your heart breath. Rivers of electric circulatory, coursing with anima. Drink from the sanguinary. As I fall. Raise your red mouth. Lift the roof of your temple corpus. Close your eyes. Open your eye. I am ache. Chords struck. A bell in the tooth of the dragon. A phoenix feather. Sawing. Upon wind. A hammock. Rest your weary heart within. I will burn to nothing, my friend. You will be clean.
 
..
 
XVIII.   Blind shroud
 
This is a man who loves. Here is the absence of doubt. Of fear. Love is terrible, in its nudity. I do not ask permission to give, but ask for permission to be received. Or else, dwell in silence. In pain, which has been lifted for this moment so that I may die and live and change. This is a man who is more than crude matter and circular acts of simulation. Of waiting to live. Of waiting for your voice.
 
..
 
XIX.   Outer darkness
 
She marshals her forces. We ache to be pierced by arrows. Slashed by thorns. Skewered upon sorrow’s wailing swords. Years, waiting. Perhaps a lifetime. Still patient. Still waiting.
 
Days mount. Days break, like wave crests. Come. Rest. Pass over me. Carrying a bit of silt away. I sit. In blindness. I speak. Decay. In silence.
 
 ..
 
XX.   Visible plane zero
 
We plot our futures in written ticks of maths. Dot our eyes. Slash our tease. Advance. Subside. Retreat.
 
We are lungs of blind aspiration. Another day. Another opportunity. We sell our now for nothing to the time criminal, bent over our every parcel of being.
 
..
 
XXI.    Yew, in whose arms resides god
 
Love. Compassion. Truth. Absolutes. Nothing. An effort in making. Everything. Though I falter. Diminish. I grow. I rise. Colossal.
 
..
 
XXII.   Wavelengths
 
In tune. I. You. My heart. Vibrating.
 
Out of tune. I. You. Disconnecting.
 
I suffer. You suffer.
 
Either way.
 
We cannot avoid suffering.
 
Nor separating.
 
We can only return.
 
When you are ready.
 
Return.
 
..
 
XXIII.   Frequencies
 
What you say, so brief. What I hear is longer. I mistake. Correct my trajectory. Or rush upon ignorant shoals. Condemned. For all I do not know.
 
I appreciate your forgiveness.
 
I do not know. I feel.
 
..
 
XXIV.   A dream
 
A different life. This is the only life.
 
A forgotten past. Now, throwing off the mold of was.
 
Time. Time enough. Time to waste.
 
Space. Empty space. Between us.
 
Take your time. I wait.
 
..
 
XXV.   A tower of skies
 
I love you without violation. In restraint, where restraint is needed.
 
A shared time of life, without a visible ceiling. In loving friendship.
 
I am disciplined controlled burn.
 
I bleed and bits of me fall away each moment, but to that hope, I return.
 
 ..
 
On the sun’s day, in the shadow of the stone. I stand. Creak. Sway. Leaves falling from my face.
 
Here I am. Alone. Immersed. Longing. Sorrow. Broken. Experiencing. Everything. Understanding. Nothing.
 
..
 
Sand drifts snaking, sussing atop the dune sea,                          
Wind whispers across the surface of the waters.
 
Having come half the distance,            
Walks to me.
 
..
 
The Dune Sea                          
By                            
Daniel Christensen                          
Writing as                          
🐲                        
R_Sculptoris                          
And                          
The Fire Elemental