The Nightmare
She drifts on sea sofa
rides unconscious desire-
Fuseli’s luminous mare
hypnotizes with psychic lines.
Her heart hums in silk petal gown
splashes through paint pulses-
wind gallops in electric ice vapors,
tangling synaptic hair and mane.
Reflections on flaming lake
smolders in broken mirrors.
She wants to stay; the mare rears-
turns the heavy breathed air.
The double evaporates into
ether huffed handkerchief.
She wakes with electrifying jolt-
Freud will not look at her,
infused with indigo smoke
takes notes- spills white powder
on her liquid gown & writes her script
they will meet tomorrow for hours.
Electra’s Stockings
Every time she went to Queens, she took the subway to see this middle-aged guy
in Astor Place at his brownstone stocking shop. She stilettoed past the vintage
clothing shops, tattoo and piercing places. She visited him in lieu of coconut soup
and vegetables in the Indian food district. She didn't even need stockings; her
mirrored heirloom armoire at home overflowed with the extravagances she had
bought: lace, seamed, sheers, regular, and thigh highs.
From the busy street, she spiraled down the stairs. Hearing his voice, she was
swept up in oceanic memory, an archeology of embedded layers, feeling as
though she was drifting in the Atlantic off Coney Island.
Downstairs, his thick Bronx accent resonated deep within her. He liked to talk as
much as he liked selling stockings. He said he had to get out of his rent-stabilized
apartment because the walls were closing in on him, and she selected some lace
garters. He missed the smut in New York since Mayor Giuliani had cleaned
everything up. She laid some white stockings printed with black crosses on the
counter. He flashed some fresh black fishnets and she heard a siren coming from
somewhere inside herself.
Carmel by the Sea
In another life, I was a mermaid. At first, I thought it was a dream, but not a
chance with my glistening sheen. I didn’t even have to shake my verdigris tail or
my wet, polished tresses to be every sailor’s fantasy. For them, it must have been
the complexity of Oedipus, since I nursed the orphaned starfish at my breasts.
In this life, I live in the mist and rush of undulating waves in my barnacled
bungalow. The migrating Monarchs visit my succulent gardens and windswept
cypress, and the barking harbor seals and lions bask on the sloshed rocks.
I cast sea spells for the women here, sculpting mouth blown fantasies and sea
fineries. I stitch together dresses corseted with bleached seagull bone, knotted
and woven with blue jay wings and dyed with a splash of oceanic ink; and
stranded pearls from the ruffled clams. I read the past and future in spirit bottles
stained with iridescent messages imprinted deep within the belly of the earth’s
consciousness. And at night by moon gleam, I slip out of myself into the
glittering gown of the sea, rising in the ocean’s shell to become Venus incarnate
for Botticelli.
Alexandra's prose and poetry currently appears in Wilderness House Literary Review, FRiGG, Pank, Dogzplot, keepgoing.org., poeticdiversity, Eclectica, Fickle Muses, Slow Trains; and forthcoming in Dogzplot Flash Fiction Anthology 2009. You can visit her here: alexandraisacson.com