Sometimes life is like a Rorschach test and a bomb
all mixed together
and whatever shape one sees
suddenly changes motion
fluidly escaping the grasp of the eye
What may seem set in stone,
is suddenly morphed by disaster or love…

And on this night tonight, how I wish for a winter scene; a frozen sky, the iced over trunks of trees solidly resting in a bitter chill, a still lake covered in the powdery skin of snow… But then again, this place is a hot plate, a coil wrapped tight and injected with the fury of the sun, the fury of me, the calm of me, the widespread panic of me.

Lying on a wet couch in a goldfish bowl. The world is breathing outside the glass. A lamp with a red shade speaks softly in the language of light as I tell my darkest secrets to a tube and a box. Dear Wishes, you had a penchant for family and happiness, existence pounded oblivious — how I miss the sweaty mistakes of the rocky lair, out there on the cusp of the mountain air. But I am in another world called future tense dive board, encased in this jar with nothing but a pen and a bow and arrow. My blue bruised heart dropped onto the wooden floor, the sun of dusk shaking the leaves on the tree — I’d go hunting, but there is nothing left to kill. Flip on the radio, the BBC flickers through a darkened hall, orange chrysanthemums float down from the attic — a wedding jaunt Halloween, to the bedroom and the screams… For now, I fear the ache of the end of days.

Splash some blood on the screen for me
and I will tell you what it means to me
a wreck or a wedding
a chalice or a paper cup
a diaper or a doggy bag
both filled with the leftovers of life
and the indecisions left stagnant
and the decisions leaving me wondering
wondering why
split-second mishaps
leave me empty and dry.

I feel trapped on a fine line that runs from north to south, a scissor slit ripping east to west, a collection of yellow lines and yellow lights that at the end of the night leave me in a place not unlike La Brea. A million, billion voices and I can’t seem to tap into one, always stumbling to play the trumpet when I have merely a stick; a stick to beat on a wall or beat on a stone or beat on the boiling sky spilling over me, soundless silence and perilous moans in the night brought forth by yet another puzzling dream. Down in Jungleland? Top drawer of the nightstand. Sweet wish upon a lover’s lips spread wide with a smile in sleep. And who and where am I? The bubbling neon strip of gold-flake Oz, or blackout city of the underworld? This desert den of constriction, can never find any conviction, can never find proper diction, only friction beneath the blurting of a red glass DINER sign.

Will we ever sip rum and coffee from chipped Swiss cups?
Will we ever be able to shout out “Magnificent!”?
Will the sirens rip through the sky once more???

There’s a madman in Missouri
with a doll head and a gun
driving toward the razor’s edge
licking the blade clean with wide eyes
There’s a rock star dangling from a ceiling
spinning like a paper pinata on pot
a Rorschach test for the OMI
There’s a girl sweating in a Texas garden
wiping away the sweat with a small hand,
nursing her wounds with 100% cotton
stamping out the blood of rejection.

And there’s a manic man behind a typewriter
his heart in his hands
sweating away in this disillusioned reality fantasy
dreaming of hijacks on islands
and saying “bless you” when they let him go
a green Irish doll tapping out code
with a toe tip and a lover’s bone
so one begins to realize
that all of this life, his and hers,
is nothing but one giant, spinning Rorschach test
and we all see, just what we want to see.

By

Aaron Echoes August