what I meant to say

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vessel_sinking_s

coloration
Colors round the clock
and I await the pale hour,
cohesive integration.
I listen     beat     my heart     breathe     my breath,
call dullness meditation,
by contrast grey becomes another shadow.

pink anodic glows
I flew to other times in zones,
tinted suns, ascendant vectors,
daylight saving lost,
neon tubes with unequilibrated
electron swarms,
their flickering hypnotics in gaudy
oscillation.

discoloration
How dark I would go, fall
through unenumerated floors
to the basement
lit electric grey and yellow.
In unthinking, all’s decided, done by others
on the bed; await instructions, a study in fallibility.

the red brigadier
Cautious sparks, flaming spirals from where
the red brigadier returns,
fire borne and wind carried.
There are other worlds more personal,
unshared. It’s not for me to know her travels, her meetings
and her partings; the wiki doesn’t help.

translucidity
The knot in my throat is made of secrets
I tied myself, still what I meant to say is this—
I wait for planetary cooling
in colder circumstance,
for the thaw of universal spring.

background
If anyone talks about beating their heart, they are probably an android; flickering and striations in neon and fluorescent tubes are non-equilibrium plasma phenomena.

artwork
sinking vessel

27 thoughts on “what I meant to say”

    • Thanks Vanessa. Androids have their secrets. From what I’ve seen in sci fi, generally the most important one is that they aren’t human, although usually the truth comes out when their head is accidentally detached in some way and they go on a berserk headless rampage, which happens more often than you’d think.

    • Lovely phrase, BG, thanks. I was thinking about colors and moments in my life, but in the end with my tendency for greyscale, just a few appeared. Then the illustration, and I did it quite differently. Different parts of the brain (I’m using the word loosely) I suppose.

  6. I loved the sound of the words you use, although there was lots I didn’t understand. I was captured by the phrase “the pale hour”, because it is mysterious and visual. And calling “dullness meditation” made me laugh. As for your art, gorgeous. Before I read it’s title, I saw 3 sail boats in some kind of otherworldly weather.

    Reply

    • Pleased to hear that, Candy. I knew I crossed a line with the technical description and the life cameos, but the verses insisted that I leave them alone, hence the title. I was a bit unfair with meditation, I’ve had a lot of benefit from it, it’s helped me greatly with fiction and art amongst other things.

      Speaking of, that’s a first for me in terms of representational vs abstract 🙂 –three craft is perfectly sensible given that the “sea” is a bit “choppy.”

    • Thanks so much Natsurr, and for taking the trouble to comment on WordPress 🙂 . I know they don’t make it easy and I really appreciate it <3 .

      I moderate comments on WordPress as most users do, because it's an enormous place and there's a lot of advertising spam. Thank you again, Steve.

    • It ain’t that much trouble, really.
      I knew I had a WordPress account somewhat earlier (a few years ago), when I was still working on a school magazine.
      But this just was really worth it, as here are some similar minds and I love reading your replies! 🙂

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